Kieran Shannon: Ulster may be the great disrupters, but Kerry remain the great adapters

The Armagh team that reached the summit last year were back en masse.

Thirteen of the Tyrone team that saw game-time in the All-Ireland semi-final a fortnight ago also featured in the ambush that was Peter Keane’s last stand at the same juncture back in 2021.

Then last Sunday Paddy McBrearty led Donegal’s starting 15 around in the parade as if to remind us that he as well as Michael Murphy had been to the sport’s mountaintop before.

No other of Kerry’s previous 38 All-Irelands involved taking out three opponents who all had All-Ireland winners amongst them.

Go through it. That was a fine All-Ireland Kerry won in 2022, beating in the semi-final a Dublin unit that featured the nucleus of the six-in-a-row team, while either side of that they overcame Mayo and Galway who between them have contested eight All-Ireland finals over the last 12 years.

But neither of those Connacht counties could convert any of those final appearances into Celtic Crosses as the Ulster sides had. Not one player of theirs had an All-Ireland medal jangling in their pocket with all the belief it engenders and the winning IQ it reflects.

Back in 2009 when Jack also won an All-Ireland in his first year back it was particularly sweet for how they swept aside Dublin in the quarter-final and denied Cork then in the final; on both occasions Kerry had been the slight underdogs.

But though those Cork and Dublin teams would go on to win the following two All-Irelands between them, back in 2009 they were still either mere contenders or worse, simply pretenders, while semi-finalists Meath hadn’t won an All-Ireland in a decade and wouldn’t get back to a semi-final for another 16 years.

The 2000 Kerry side that was honoured last Sunday didn’t just win the last do-or-die All-Ireland before the advent of the backdoor but one of the hardest-fought knockout All-Irelands of them all.

In the Munster semi-final they had to withstand a late rally from a Cork team that had contested the previous year’s All-Ireland final and still had amongst their ranks Stephen O’Brien, a survivor from the year of the double, 1990.

When they got to Croke Park then they were brought to replays by both Armagh and Galway before ultimately prevailing against both. Most of that Galway team had won an All-Ireland in 1998 and most of them would win another in 2001.

But Armagh hadn’t yet won their All-Ireland. Unlike the 2025 version Kerry encountered, that side hadn’t anyone who had gotten over the line before.

We could go on. In all the semi-finals Kerry won en route to their eight All-Irelands under Micko they were playing teams that either didn’t know how to win in Croke Park or didn’t know yet.

The 1959 All-Ireland was a distinguished one for beating reigning champions Dublin in the semi and then 1956 winners Galway in the final. But the Cork team they beat in the Munster final didn’t feature any survivor from the All-Ireland winning side of ’45.

That is what makes 2025 so unique, a testament to a now-discarded format as well as to the Kerry players and management. To win this All-Ireland they had to go through champion after champion after champion to become champions again themselves.

What’s more was the provincial identity of those previous champions.

For decades now either side of the advent of the backdoor it has been levelled at Kerry that they have an unfair advantage by virtue of the province they are in. How often have you heard how would they get on in Ulster?

Well, that was an Alternative Ulster they won this year – and in some style. Their cumulative winning margin since getting back to Croke Park was 24 points (8 v Armagh, 6 v Tyrone, 10 v Donegal). Classify the preliminary quarter-final win over Cavan as a preliminary round game up in Ulster and you’re talking about a 33-point cumulative winning tally.

Since Cavan used to routinely annihilate teams in the 1930s and 1940s, there have been only six Ulster championships over the last 75 years won with a cumulative-winning tally the equal or better of Kerry’s alternative Ulster triumph this year.

In 1956 Tyrone won their first Ulster championship just as Kerry won the All-Ireland this year: winning the final by 10 points and the quarter-final and semi-final by a combined 14 points. Either side of their All-Ireland breakthrough Down hammered all comers in 1959 (46 points over four games) and 1963 (37 points over three games).

Since televisions have been available in colour, only Donegal in 1992 (29 over four games), Tyrone in 2017 (28 over 3 games) and Donegal in 2018 (39 over four games) have won Ulster with more to spare than Kerry had over Armagh, Tyrone and Donegal this year.

And in those years those Ulster champions weren’t encountering champion after champion, provincial or otherwise. Kerry this year did.

It can still be said that Kerry retain an advantage based on the province they’re from; that while Donegal had to go to war against top-six opponents in Armagh, Tyrone and Monaghan (as well as Down) to retain their Ulster title, Kerry only had to overcome Division 2 or 3 opponents below in Munster.

But Kerry won Division 1 this year. They’ve won it five times over the last 10 seasons, reached its final a further two times (losing to Dublin in 2016, Mayo in 2019). They’ve retained a competitive integrity right through the season (and that of the league itself) season after season, decade after decade that more than offsets any mid-season dip they may have or how comfortable they may have had it in Munster since Cork’s relegation from Division 1 in 2016.

Ulster remains the strongest province. But Kerry remain the strongest county.

Because while Ulster remain the great disrupters, Kerry remain the great adapters.