Declan Bogue

23 SEPTEMBER, 1984.

Pat Spillane is sitting on a bench in the winning Croke Park dressing room. Somewhere, anywhere, rests the Sam Maguire Cup.

Parity had been restored. Sporting equilibrium retained. Kerry, back beating the Dubs.

Kerry had spent two years in the wilderness, the five-in-a-row hopes up in smoke with a Seamus Darby nudge and lob over Charlie Nelligan.

The following year brought an end to eight consecutive Munster titles. Mick O’Dwyer’s customary speech to a dejected Cork dressing room rendered unnecessary.

All of that period washed over and through Spillane as he basked in the glory of a Man of the Match performance in beating Dublin and winning the Centenary All-Ireland. Certain years when prestige was on the line, these kind of things matter.

His left knee was the subject of conversation. He paid tribute to Dr David Dandy of Cambridge. He had worked with the arthritic and ligament-torn knee to the stage that Spillane could resume training the previous November. Kerry’s own exile had become Spillane’s personal purgatory.

“I was ‘pulling back,’” admitted Spillane to reporters.

“I’d make my mind up in a match to go for every ball hammer and tongs, yet just on the moment of impact I’d pull back.”

The moment it all changed came in a club game, for Templenoe against Knocknagoshel, just four months previous.

“For some reason, I started going all out again then during that game. I forgot about my knee and I am grateful for that match. Since then, I never looked back,” he added.

By 1984, the innocence was long gone from Dwyer’s bachelors. Instead they were a team patched-up in places, war-weary, and having grown used to the luxury holidays that not even a heavy night of wire to wires could flush out. They needed something different.

Harsh markers that they are, there were always enough judges delivering their own verdict on Kerry even as they swept to their four consecutive Sam Maguires. Up around the top of the list was the blind loyalty of Micko towards his favoured players.

That had to change. Sean Walsh was converted into a full-back. By then, John O’Keeffe had been playing since the 1960s and was entitled to his retirement.

Tim Kennelly was gone. So too, Ger O’Keeffe. Paudie Lynch also, while Mikey Sheehy was injured.

Among the infusion of new blood, Kerry ended up with a rookie player and captain all rolled into one in Ambrose O’Donovan.

From Gneeveguilla, hard on the Cork border, the bottom line for him was that they weren’t losing to Cork. Everything else would be a bonus, but they weren’t losing to that shower again.

Ambrose O'Donovan, Kerry's rookie captain lifts Sam in 1984 Billy Stickland / INPHO Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO

His energy swept along other youthful additions such as Tom Spillane, Timmy O’Dowd, John Kennedy and Willie Maher. The outsized opposition to the Rebels also appealed to the likes of Páidí Ó Sé, Bomber Liston and John Egan.

O’Dwyer’s alchemy worked, igniting enough fuel to carry them to another three-in-a-row.

There are certain similarities to where Dublin stand now.

An outrageously successful team, coming to terms with a gentle but damning decline, knowing they are still within sight of further success.

While O’Dwyer had to bring along youth, Dessie Farrell has identified a need for experience. With the minimum of fuss and batting away all the attention, he has rebuilt a forward division that is of champion quality.

The standout for many in their Division 2 Allianz league final yesterday was the accumulation of four goals. Some of them were ragged enough, but the creation of the penalty was instructive.

A long delivery, Con O’Callaghan using those powerful shoulders to get around his Derry marker Conor McCluskey, and taking away his ground leading to the penalty award.

Up steps Paul Mannion, on the pitch just three minutes, to knock the umpires’ flag down in the very corner of the net.

Also on the roll-call somewhere, though somewhat fragile, is Jack McCaffrey.

Of those who were on the fringes of Jim Gavin’s era and have nudged their way into Farrell’s team, there is some excitement. Some like Sean Bugler have already earned the ultimate bauble twice, but the bolter catching the eye is Killian O’Gara.

At 28, and with no real Dublin involvement since winning the Leinster U21 title in 2015, he is straight out of the blue-collar style of his elder brother Eoghan.

Getting under a Brian Fenton delivery to fist a goal, he announced himself as an option. How many All-Irelands have been won off the time-honoured principle of letting it in to a man who can hold up in the air?

Farrell is creating a bench and a team for the final quarter when you consider Brian Howard, Niall Scully and Mannion were left on the bench. It’s the type of weaponry that turns a three-point lead at the end of normal time into an eight or nine one by the end of time added on.

Last summer as Dublin went out of the championship with a one-point defeat to Kerry, Paul Mannion and Con O’Callaghan were not involved. Neither was Stephen Cluxton or Jack McCaffrey.

Win Sam in 2023, and the gates suddenly open up for a glorious coda in their history.  

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