1976 All-Ireland Football Final

Dublin 3-8 Kerry 0-10

By John Harrington

The 1976 All-Ireland Final should be remembered as Kevin Heffernan’s masterpiece.

The consensus in the wake of that ’75 Final was that Kerry’s exciting young team were both the present and future, while a more seasoned Dublin outfit were already being painted as yesterday’s men.

Some even went so far as to suggest that Dublin’s ’74 All-Ireland Final was a flash in the pan unlikely to be repeated any time soon, which would have cut Heffernan to the quick.

All the more so because it was Kerry who had dethroned them in ’75. Heffernan had tasted defeat as a player in an All-Ireland Final to Kerry in ’55 and now as a manager.

So, in 1976, Heffernan was hell-bent on avenging those losses against their greatest rivals by masterminding a first Championship win over the Kingdom since 1934.

“He was, yeah,” says Brian Mullins, who played at midfield on Dublin’s 1976 All-Ireland winning team.

“I suppose it's a testament to his determination that after winning an All-Ireland in '74 and losing one in '75, one could be forgiven for believing he could have said, "Ah, I've enough of this." But he didn't. He wasn't much different after '75 other than made it very clear very quickly that he wasn't going anywhere and that he felt there was still more in the group. He put it back to us to prove him right or wrong.”

When Heffernan surveyed the rubble of his team’s unexpected defeat to Kerry in the 1975 All-Ireland Final, he resolved rebuild his ’76 team on more solid foundations.

The Dublin half-backs had been torched in the ’75 Final by the pace and ceaseless running of Kerry’s dashing trio of half-forwards, Pat Spillane, Ogie Moran, and Mickey Ned O’Sullivan.

Paddy Reilly, Alan Larkin, and Georgie Wilson were Dublin’s half-backs in the ’75 Final, but just a year later Dublin’s had a brand new half-back line of Pat O’Neill, Kevin Moran, and Tommy Drumm.

O’Neill’s nicknamed was ‘Nailer’ with good reason, and his hard-tackling made him a perfect antidote to a half-forward who liked to run with the ball.

O’Neill was already an experienced operator, but Moran and Drumm were two newcomers to the Dublin panel in ’76 and unlikely lads in so far as both of them had been more focused on playing soccer until Heffernan called them into the panel.

They both made an immediate impact. Not only were they tenacious defenders, they were also skilful footballers who were comfortable bringing the ball out of defence at pace.

The new half-back line was a crucial piece in the jigsaw, but so too was the fact that Dublin had a real axe to grind with Kerry in ’76.

The players shared the pain felt by Heffernan after the ’75 Final, so as much as he cracked the whip in ’76, they were happy to strain at the harness too.

“I suppose it was mirror-image to some extent of what happened to Cork with us in '74 ( Dublin had defeated the then reigning champions Cork in the 1974 All-Ireland Final),” says Mullins.

“Kerry did something to us in '75 like we had done to Cork the previous year.

“There was huge learning in that. That was a seminal occasion in the sense of bringing us very much back down to earth. That you could be at the height of success and then in the blink of an eye...a year isn't the blink of an eye, but the day is, and you're brought back down to ground.

“We went into the Final in '75 exactly the opposite to what we went into in the ’74 Semi-Final against Cork. We were favourites and we got turned over. It's simple and straightforward, really.

“It's nothing complicated or unprecedented. It happens all the time in sport. You still see it happening. If you could get all athletes to understand that it's what you deliver on the day that matters, not what you delivered the last day.

“We realised that we had let our guard down. We had become cosy, if you would, nonchalant might be another word you could use around the hard work that we had done in '74 to get to a Final and then win the Final.

“We subconsciously or otherwise as both individuals and a collective had taken our foot off the pedal in terms of how we approached things, particularly the Final in '75.

“It was all learning. They say that an individual athlete or a group always needs every so often to be beaten to realise they're not doing enough. It was straightforward enough in that context.”

If Dublin were guilty of taking their foot of the pedal as Mullins suggests in ’75, then Kerry certainly did the same in ’76.

In the run-up to the Final the Kerry players rang manager Mick O’Dwyer to request that training be cancelled because the entire panel had been invited to the Tralee races by Beamish and Crawford who laid on free drink for the occasion.

O’Dwyer would say afterwards that was the moment he knew his team were in trouble.

Dublin, in contrast, were utterly focused, and their desire to really go for the jugular in the ’76 All-Ireland Final was obvious from the throw-in.

If Kerry knew little about Kevin Moran before the match, they got an early taster of what he was capable of after just 20 seconds of the game when he took a pass from Brian Mullins.

Taking the ball at pace he ran hard at the Kerry defence and sundered it in half when he played quick one-two with Bernard Brogan before letting fire with a cannon of a shot that whistled past the post.

As statements of intent go it was a ringing one, and it set the tone for a superb Dublin performance to come.

Their opening score of the match came less than a minute later and also served notice of their ambition.

Jimmy Keaveney collected a ball from David Hickey and had the chance to shoot for a point himself from around 40 yards out, but instead picked out Tony Hanahoe closer to the Kerry goal with one of the deftest drop-kick passes you’ll ever see.

Hanahoe had to settle for a point for a goal as the Kerry defenders scrambled, but, once again, Dublin’s intent spoke volumes.

The game was ultimately decided by three Dublin goals, all of which came at good times.

The first arrived after 15 minute when a flowing move involving David Hickey and Bobby Doyle was finished by John McCarthy to the net to push Dublin 1-4 to 0-4 ahead.

Dublin still led by three points at half-time and then landed another heavy blow just after the resumption when John McCarthy was hauled down for a penalty.

Up stepped the twinkle-toed Keaveney to plant arguably the sweetest every struck All-Ireland Final penalty it into the top right-hand corner of the net.

Kerry then enjoyed their best period of the match to narrow halve their six-point deficit, but, just when it looked like their younger legs might yet win the day, Dublin landed a mortal blow.

The ‘Blue Panther’, Anton O’Toole, drove in from the right-hand side past Ger Power and then picked out Brian Mullins close to goal who shimmied and then side-footed the ball past Charlie Nelligan from a tight angle.

With the margin back to six points again and just 11 minutes to play, there was no way back for a deflated Kerry.

"In 1976, we were beaten and deservedly so,” Pat Spillane told GAA.ie

“We had enjoyed life after 1975 and we weren't at the same pitch."

In the dressing-room after the match Kevin Heffernan grabbled Kevin Moran and told him, “I’ve waited 21 years for this”.

The long wait to finally put one over Kerry in an All-Ireland Final surely made the achievement all the sweeter for him.

Dublin: P Cullen, G O'Driscoll, S Doherty, R Kelleher, T Drumm, K Moran, P O'Neill, B Mullins, B Brogan, A O'Toole, A Hanahoe (c), D Hickey, B Doyle, J Keaveney, J McCarthy. Subs: F Ryder for A Hanahoe; P Gogarty for B Doyle.

Kerry: P O'Mahony, G O'Keeffe, J O'Keeffe, J Deenihan, P Ó Sé, T Kennelly, G Power, P Lynch, P McCarthy, D 'Ogie' Moran, M Sheehy, M O'Sullivan, B Lynch, J Egan, P Spillane. Sub: C Nelligan for P O'Mahony, S Walsh for P McCarthy; G O'Driscoll for M O'Sullivan.