From Heffo to Hawk-Eye: Managing football’s longest-running rivalry in the modern age

Beginnings

It is quite appropriate that Dublin-Kerry, in addition to its status as the top All-Ireland pairing, should also have been credited with creating the institution of the intercounty manager — simply because the pioneer in the field, Dublin’s Kevin Heffernan, wanted to be a manager so that he could beat Kerry.

Convinced that if in the 1970s the county was to be revived, he would need far-reaching powers, like an English soccer overlord, Heffernan found a willing collaborator in county chairman Jimmy Grey.

Within a year of Dublin landing the 1974 All-Ireland, Kerry appointed Mick O’Dwyer in a similar role. Between them they launched or more accurately relaunched Irish sport’s most enduring rivalry, stretching all the way back to 1892. Certainly, no fixture has been more mythologised.

Since those days nearly 50 years ago, 21 managements have followed in the footsteps of O’Dwyer and Heffernan, 12 Dublin and nine Kerry. They have all confronted the same twin challenges of this fixture: the pressure of its history and the expectations created together with the simple need to win a big championship contest.

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And they are nearly all big. Only once in the 17 meetings have the winners not gone on to win the All-Ireland and not just in the nine finals when such progression is obvious.

Heffernan

One of his 1970s players and successors, Pat O’Neill, said about Kevin Heffernan: “He didn’t set out to make football popular in Dublin; he set out to win. Popularity followed but that wasn’t by design.”

It’s frequently told how Heffernan had been conditioned as a player by the 1955 All-Ireland defeat by Kerry. Dublin had tactics and notions. Kerry kept it simple and won before a then-record crowd. It would be another 20 years before the counties again met and at that stage, the former Dublin full forward was now manager.

What about the players? Did they share this near-obsession with getting back at Kerry?

Captain Tony Hanahoe stepped in after Heffernan’s brief retirement after beating Kerry in the 1976 final to become a rare example of an All-Ireland winning player-manager. He qualifies the centrality of the rivalry by pointing out there were other capable teams around.

“It did occupy Kevin but it didn’t occupy the team. Certainly, when I was in charge we just took them on because they were there. In 1976, Dublin just about beat Meath after they missed a late penalty whereas Kerry needed a replay and extra time to get past Cork, who were unlucky with refereeing decisions. So it wasn’t all just Dublin and Kerry.

“The Dublin-Kerry rivalry did however raise a red flag in both camps. Both were aware there would be something different at stake but it was still two big teams playing each other. Of course, there was tradition there but as far as the ‘70s team was concerned they were taking on whoever was there. They weren’t carrying any traditional baggage. No.”

Heffernan came from St Vincent’s the Marino club that had insisted on recruiting only local players or those who had played minor for Dublin. They turned this intentionally indigenous intake into the county’s pre-eminent club.

As Dublin manager, he held blunt views on who should wear the jersey. Tom Carr would himself go on to manage Dublin and he arrived as a player in 1985. Partly reared in Tipperary and later in Dublin, he had played senior for Tipp in the 1984 Centenary Cup. He recalls his first session with Dublin.

“Kevin said, ‘could I have a quick word with you after training? Just want to be sure of your lineage’. It was really important to him. I had moved to Ballymun Kickhams and he was satisfied!”

Even Carr as a 1980s newcomer was aware of the manager’s preoccupation.

“Defeats by Kerry probably hurt him more than anything else. I played in the 1985 All-Ireland final, which was my first year. Kevin Heffernan was never happy to be beaten by anybody but he would be happier to be beaten by someone other than Kerry. Part of it was ego and the face-off with Mick O’Dwyer. There was a lot of that in it.”

The wasteland

Between the 1977 semi-final and Pat Gilroy’s victory in 2011, Dublin never once beat Kerry. In nine attempts. Neither was there an occasion when they should have. Initially it was O’Dwyer with his eight All-Irelands in 12 years but current manager Jack O’Connor has lost just once in four meetings.

It added up to rather pale rivalry but still, there was something about the relationship that Kerry appeared to value beyond the obvious that it was a handy match.

Pat O’Shea managed Kerry to the 2007 All-Ireland, beating Dublin in a tight enough semi-final.

“I know the win-loss account doesn’t always add up to a great rivalry but despite our having greater difficulties with Tyrone and Cork at that time, there was always a respect for Dublin because of that shared and equal tradition and the similarity as football groups.”

It had become a heritage fixture for both counties.

Invading the home of hurling

In 2001, the first year of the qualifiers, the counties were drawn together in the new All-Ireland quarter-finals. Kerry were champions with Dublin not really rated. But the occasion and match ended up breathing life into the rivalry, however briefly.

“We drove the bus up through the square in Thurles and we did it on purpose,” says Carr. “It was mobbed with Dubs, travelling in the typical fashion. Take the atmosphere out of Croke Park and bring it with you. It was electric. I remember Bertie Ahern coming into the dressing-room after the first game. For us, genuinely, we knew we didn’t have the football team Kerry had but we would bring emotion and passion and sheer work rate and we might sneak a score or two. Which we did! Vinnie Murphy and Darren Homan got goals and Maurice Fitzgerald embroidered his already legendary status with the line-ball.”

It went to a replay which Kerry duly won — the only time in the last five decades that the fixture hasn’t yielded the eventual All-Ireland champions.

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Eamonn Fitzmaurice became Kerry manager in 2013 after a short spell with the under-21s. He would go on to have memorable jousts with the Dublin of Jim Gavin. As a player he won All-Irelands, an achievement he would emulate as manager.

He remembers the full Dublin experience in Semple Stadium.

“I played in those games in Thurles. Part of the glamour was the Dublin support and it was special to play in those games. We played in Croke Park in another quarter-final in 2004 at the end of Tommy Lyons’s time in charge and there wasn’t the same presence there. We had been maybe expecting the same again. As a player going into these matches in a final or a semi-final, you know it’s going to be a full house, which creates great anticipation.”

Influencers

Fitzmaurice knew he was up against it. On a walk with his wife Tina in Banna having become Kerry manager, he told her about Gavin’s appointment.

“I said to her this fella and this gang are going to be our biggest problem over the next few years.”

Their first contest was in 2013. Under Fitzmaurice, Kerry pulled some tactical coups which put Dublin under big pressure in two semi-finals, 2013 and 2016. Squeezing the Stephen Cluxton kick-out, using Colm Cooper as an orchestrator, they built half-time leads but got caught in the end.

Gavin would lead Dublin to four victories on the bounce over Kerry, unprecedented success.

Fitzmaurice tried reaching into the past, asking O’Dwyer to speak to the players in 2016 and present them with their jerseys to take away.

“Our poor kit man Vince Linnane was a nervous wreck that the boys would leave them at home! Micko spoke so well that it was quite inspiring but, unfortunately, we didn’t get the job done. There is a certain amount you can draw from history but your focus is getting your own performance right.”

Both O’Shea and Fitzmaurice spoke about the role of Hill 16, the northern terrace, favoured by Dublin supporters as a factor and how it might be tamed.

“Curtailing that would be helpful but I don’t think you can,” according to O’Shea. “You have to live with and try to make sure your game plan isn’t too badly affected. I saw it first-hand in 2007 when Dublin developed a late head of steam and the Hill got involved. It was a juggernaut. Like playing uphill.”

Whether conditioned by the past or not, the Hill appears to get particularly high in Dublin-Kerry matches.

“I agree,” says Fitzmaurice. “You got that sense from the crowd and not just the supporters. The players I think in 2013 and ‘16 — 2015 was different because of the conditions and the rain — played as well as they ever have.

“It was almost like the tradition of the rivalry motivated them even more. It was never discussed in our group but I felt it personally — that some of those players loved the sight of the Kerry jersey and it brought the best out of them.”

The reason

Looking back on his own involvement, Carr says that there was something special about the fixture.

“Those days are Dublin-Kerry games. It will be electric on Sunday for that reason and the reason that you have the two best football teams and the reason that it’s an All-Ireland final but the biggest reason is that it’s Dublin and Kerry.”