![\"GAA](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/5171014_9_articleinlinemobile_95352_3010848_1_.jpg\" "\\"GAA")
GAA All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final, Croke Park, Dublin 26\/7\/2026 Mayo vs Kerry Mayo\u2019s Jack Coyne lifts the Sam Maguire Cup Mandatory Credit \u00a9INPHO\/Ryan Byrne<\/p>\nWill Galway, as the great Tuam existentialists the Saw Doctors mused, bate Mayo? Debatable. Usually depended on the availability of Willie Joe.<\/p>\n
Will Kerry bate Mayo? Not debatable. Extremely not debatable. This is Kerry and this is Mayo and the extent of the winning margin surely constitutes the only debate of the day, right?<\/p>\n
Maybe not.<\/p>\n
An hour to throw-in and the RT\u00c9 guys and gal are outside the Cusack Stand. Lee Keegan is \u201cvery nervous\u201d. Tom\u00e1s \u00d3 S\u00e9 is lamenting the fact that back to back All Irelands are \u201cdifficult to do\u201d, a first-world problem if ever there was one. Peter Canavan points out that Mayo are for once arriving with no expectations and if they play like they did in the quarter-final and semi-final they\u2019ll have a chance.<\/p>\n
Around to the other side of the stadium where Marty Morrissey has a fascinating interviewee out on Jones\u2019s Road. Frank D\u2019Arcy was here 75 years ago, on September 23rd 1951 to be precise, when Mayo won their last All-Ireland. He was nine, he sat on top of a barrier, the match was fantastic (\u201cno handball \u2013 football like the name suggests\u201d) and there were hundreds of Mayo folk back from England for the occasion.<\/p>\n
Frank is so chatty and articulate that Marty barely has to ask a question and at the end he hands Frank a white jersey \u2013 the colour they wore that day \u2013 with \u201cD\u2019Arcy 75\u201d on the back. It is a lovely touch. Watch out for Frank hosting a chat show on RT\u00c9 coming in the autumn.<\/p>\n
Over to BBC Northern Ireland where Sarah Mulkerrins raises the issue of whether Mayo might do a Galway-hurlers-last-Sunday on it. Not in the first half, Philly McMahon responds, because they\u2019ll make sure to keep it tight. \u201cThis season has been absolutely bonkers and it wouldn\u2019t surprise me if there\u2019s an upset.\u201d Oisin McConville also gives them \u201ca real good chance\u201d.<\/p>\n
What follows is a feature of the BBC\u2019s coverage that should be ditched next season. High in the Davin end Connor Phillips gets the thoughts of Rachel Duffy from The Traitors, two comedians and some TV guy. No. Just no.<\/p>\n
There might have been a rationale for such a diversionary tactic a few years ago, when Gaelic football was at a nadir, on the basis that anything that took the viewer\u2019s attention from what was unfolding on the field could only be welcomed. But we now inhabit the post-Football Review Committee iteration of the sport, where people kick points from 50 metres just for the fun of it, and giving airtime to a slew of C-listers bespeaks a lack of confidence in one\u2019s product. From now on BBC Northern Ireland ought to let the football stand up for itself.<\/p>\n
GAA All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final, Croke Park, Dublin 26\/7\/2026 Mayo vs Kerry Mayo\u2019s Jack Coyne lifts the Sam Maguire Cup Mandatory Credit \u00a9INPHO\/Ryan Byrne<\/p>\n
And the ball is in and the game is on and after 15 minutes Kerry lead by 1-4 to 0-1 and yes, we\u2019ve seen this film before. Upon which something strange happens. The men, and boys, in white sidle back into proceedings, press the opposition kickouts and by half-time are back to within a point.<\/p>\n
Tom\u00e1s sounds nervous. \u201cWhen Mayo get hands on the ball they are making hay with it.\u201d Over on BBC the former Mayo stalwart P\u00e1draig O\u2019Hora declares he\u2019d rather be in his lads\u2019 dressing room than in the Kerry equivalent. \u201cMayo are the ones directing how the game is going.\u201d Former Kingdom stalwart Killian Young, alongside P\u00e1draig, invokes the spectre of Doomsday and no, it\u2019s not Mayo he\u2019s talking about.<\/p>\n
The second half. Marty finally gives us a \u201cthe tension is palpable\u201d, one of his very favourites. Better late than never and to be fair, this is not exactly an afternoon for one of his other very favourites, \u201cuses the short grip\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mayo point. Mayo point. Mayo goal. The challengers have all the momentum and are playing all the football, \u00c9amonn Fitzmaurice acknowledges. A string of wides proceeds to sap their momentum but to some extent it doesn\u2019t matter because they have the legs and they have the confidence and they simply won\u2019t stop firing bullets. \u00c9amonn again: \u201cThey\u2019re happy to just keep shooting.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Into the final furlong. Mayo\u2019s five-point lead is cut to three. Then it\u2019s cut to two. The tension is so palpable that Marty repeats himself. \u201cThe tension is palpable, the atmosphere is electric.\u201d David Clifford, his brilliance even more refulgent on the bad days, is wide with a chance to level it. Mayo, instead of attempting to flute around with possession in their own half, charge down the other end and put matters to bed with the closing point. A nation rejoices, very possibly with something in its eye. \u201cYou are watching one of the most significant moments in the history of the GAA since it was founded in 1884,\u201d Marty asserts.<\/p>\n
Hyperbole? Perhaps. But if ever there was a day for hyperbole this is it.<\/p>\n
Lee is unable to talk. Joanne has tears in her eyes. Even Peter has tears in his eyes; Tyrone men may not be as hard as we\u2019d always assumed. On the basis that sometimes you say it best when you say nothing at all, Joanne has the good sense to call for silence and allow the pictures and the sound \u2013 the aforementioned great Tuam existentialists are now belting out the Green and Red of Mayo over the PA \u2013 tell the tale.<\/p>\n
Jarlath Burns informs the winning supporters they\u2019re not dreaming and invokes Our Lady of Knock. Jack Coyne gives it the holly with his acceptance speech and is well entitled to, given that he has 75 years of ground to cover. Mayo\u2019s new most popular citizen Andy Moran reveals he felt his players were in \u201csuch a good place\u201d coming into the match and from the 18th minute onwards were \u201cjust sensational\u201d.<\/p>\n
Turned out we hadn\u2019t seen this film before. But what an ending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Will Galway, as the great Tuam existentialists the Saw Doctors mused, bate Mayo? Debatable. Usually depended on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1965,1128,61,60,850,112],"class_list":["post-571300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-hurling","tag-football","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}