Undoubtedly the best midfielder in Ireland until his very last game. Even though Kerry lost Sunday to a better team, Dara was still immense. A true legend, probably the best hish fielder our game has ever seen. Surely he wont stay on for another year, even though his performances of late indicate he is only getting younger ;)

Ciarrai Abu (Overseas) - Posts: 1050 - 23/09/2008 09:13:44    105198

Sorry but take off the green'n'gold tinted specs. I am not questioning Darragh's claim to legendary status for one minute but the last 2/3 seasons he has not been the player of old - understandably so - none of us getting any younger. In spells on Sunday he was superb - his foot passing is especially a joy to watch. But he disappeared for long long spells - as he did in all other games in recent times - and Kerry wonder why they are losing big leads! Add to that two red cards and you have a player that may now be a liability to Kerry. As I said one of the great players but not any more.

JayoCluxton (Dublin) - Posts: 2688 - 23/09/2008 10:26:06    105261

well said jayo, as dirty as they come as well IMO

samin10 (Armagh) - Posts: 2434 - 23/09/2008 10:45:28    105281

Im sorry Jayocluxton but u have been drawn into this stupid mentality about Dara not being at his best for 2/3 seasons. Incase you forgot Kerry have been in 5 consecutive All Ireland Finals and Dara has played in a pivatol role in all of these. You dont think before you write things do you?! If you check your records and stats i think you will find that Kerry have lost leads this year when Dara has not been on the field, and that is why they have lost the leads as the man is immense and is a true leader!

Ciarrai Abu (Overseas) - Posts: 1050 - 23/09/2008 10:49:19    105288

BEST fielder ever, pure SKILL.. A family of outstanding talent..

Dingle08 (Kerry) - Posts: 128 - 23/09/2008 10:51:45    105293

Disagree - they have lost leads when he has been there. Incidentally his main reasons for not being there are indiscipline. Are you telling me for instance that he didn't go missing on Sunday for long spells? Weren't Tyrone supposed to be weak enough in midfield? When he is in the game he is excellent but he has become very inconsistent. I am not denying he has been a great player. Not knocking him - just calling it as I see it but no, like Seamus M, to question anything about DOS is the most heinous crime in the eyes of Kerry folk.

JayoCluxton (Dublin) - Posts: 2688 - 23/09/2008 11:05:08    105316

Lads Dara was/is a great player and made some lovely catches on Sunday but as we all probably know, the older you get the more say treacherous you might get as the realisation that it could be your last sets in.

On a side note a quick trawl through the Kerry panel and their All Ireland Titles both Dara and Mike Frank have 5 All Irelands - Will they both be back to try and win a 6th?

Tomas ó sé, Tommy Griffin and Tom O'Sullivan have 4 and most of the rest of the panel have either two or three so as far as honours go between the current Tyrone and Kerry panels, they are both on par with each other at the minute. (I am the new Jimmy Magee!)

mugsys_barber (Tyrone) - Posts: 2160 - 23/09/2008 11:06:20    105321

As good as O'Connell or Jack O'Shea?? I don't think so!

galwayfan (None) - Posts: 764 - 23/09/2008 11:14:47    105338

Impossible to say for certain if he is the best midfielder Kerry have ever produced/

Why not though?

Won 2 County Championships and 3 club championships with An Gaeltacht.

I never saw Paddy Kennedy but he was supposed to be brilliant altogether. Never saw O'Connell either. Many who saw Kennedy and O'Connell said O'Connell was the better. Darragh won more medals than MOC who has 4 all irelands and darragh had a far greater love for the game. He lasted for longer at the highest level than Jacko did eventhough Jacko and Seanie Walsh won more medals. How many players playing in their 15th season at midfield and their last game will put in such a fielding display as Darragh did in the All Ireland final.

A power house. Picked us up out of the depths of midfield wilderness in 94 as a boy and went on to compete and on so many occassions better other great midfielders throughout the country like the likes of Tohill, McDermott, Cavanagh, Whelan, O'Domhnaill, Walsh, McGrane, McEntee and Murphy. A truly fantastic era for midfielders in our sport and Darragh must be right up there with the best of all time.

thykingdomcome (Kerry) - Posts: 1206 - 23/09/2008 11:24:17    105354

Best Kerry midfielder ever (and that's saying something) but his time has been up for 2-3 years now...

banner_boy (Clare) - Posts: 1285 - 23/09/2008 11:36:59    105378

i think he will give it another year. after all he is only 33 and while they say its a young mans game dara wont be back training untill after the league. he will look after himself during the winter and knowing kerry will get to at least an AI quarter final he will be peaking in august for a full tilt at the AI title.

the pain of losing to tyrone will hurt too much and he surely has too much pride than to retire now. the easy thing to do is to retire but as Pat O'Shea said after the final...the players owe nothing to anyone and dara has surely given his all to kerry over the last 15 years.

howshecuttin (Longford) - Posts: 376 - 23/09/2008 11:44:21    105394

Good riddance. Thank god refs have finally copped on to his cynical play. 2 sending offs and a suspension should surely rule him out of any all-star this year......... was also lucky to stay on last sunday
By no means one of the greatest ever mid-fielders. 0 player of the year awards, and a return of 4-allstars from a mid-fielder who has 'dominated' for the last 14/15 years is a poor return, especially considering he played in 8 all-irelands and therefore had a chance to show-case his 'talent'. Compare thie to tohill for example who played in 1 all-ireland and got 4 all-stars, or canavan who played in 3 all-ireland and got 6 all-stars. Glad to see the back of ose

setanta0 (Louth) - Posts: 112 - 23/09/2008 11:50:49    105421

Absolute legend of a player. Not afraid to give a dig when needed. One of the best midfielders for the last 10 years. Don't mind all this Dublin sour grape rubbish saying he hasn't been great for the past few years. Nobody has been able to touch him for 10 years. FACT.

By the way I hate Kerry.

posh (Meath) - Posts: 633 - 23/09/2008 11:54:16    105431

Sorry JC but I would disagree there. Dara, for me, has been the best midfielder for some time now. Thought his best game ever was against Armagh 2 years ago and has probably played his best stuff within that period as well. People tend to forget that there were a lot of games when Dara was not the be all and end all of midfielders. He had been wel stifled by a number of midfielders - McDermott, Walsh, Galvin etc. After 03, he bulked up considerably and was able to take the hits a lot better after he would come back down from catching another ball that had snow on it.

Although a true legend in the game he gets an unrealistic amount of praise. He is a media darling, not his fault of course, but it gets too much for me at times. There was no way he should have won an All-Star last year for example. But there's no questioning the mans ability.

Should he retire I think that leaves a massive hole in the Kerry midfield. They never found a long term partner for him in all the years that he was anchoring midfield. Looking at Kerrys options, they're not great and they will seriously struggle to replace him, I know players like him don't grow on trees not even in Kerry. But Donaghy and Scanlon have been hit and miss when they've played in there along side him, Griffin is a great work horse but not a leader in the middle and Quirke has never really done it.

holymoly (Dublin) - Posts: 757 - 23/09/2008 12:03:12    105447

super player.point he scored on sunday was unreal. he got no help around the middle with 15mins to go.ball was been boken and tyrone were hungerier on the loose ball. if he does retire he will always be remembered

Rhodejim (Offaly) - Posts: 2888 - 23/09/2008 12:07:18    105458

To those who say he has been gone for the last 2 or 3 years. Last year 2007 he won an allstar and the year before 2006 he won an allstar. Jayocluxton, no crime knocking Darragh down here by saying he hasnt been playing well, just foolish. Am I supposed to apologise now for backing him up and letting you know that he has won all starts for the past 2 years? Hey were not crying about people knocking his behaviour this year. We're not happy with it ourselves.

Setanta0 - 4 allstars is not a bad haul considering the list of midfielders I have mentioned above earlier, none of whom incidently with the exception of John McDermott were playing when Tohill won his first 3 All stars in 92,93 & 95. The last 15 years have produced an incredible volume of top quality midfielder which has never been seen before.

Darragh may not have won footballer of the year but that doesnt mean anything when you are talking about consistency and greatness of midfielders. No midfielder ever wins Footballer of the year. It is always a forward or speedy defender. Sure John Crowley won footballer of the year and didnt even get an all star the same year.

thykingdomcome (Kerry) - Posts: 1206 - 23/09/2008 12:32:27    105486

Great post Holymoly.

Have to say though that we have plenty of options should Dara retire. Tommy Walsh could/should take up that position as he certainly is big enough and strong enough. He isnt a natural forward anyway. His younger brother will take the full forward spot from him. We also have david moran who is young, mobile and tall enough. Scanlan had a decent season. Griffin is a work horse as you say, every midfield needs one of them. Forget about Quirke. We had two good midfielders in the minors this year also. So I think it's not going to be impossible to replace him.

3inarow08 (Kerry) - Posts: 2455 - 23/09/2008 12:39:08    105495

i think you could do worse than hold on to the man for a few years yet but maybe as a 20 min or half an hour man, his class is unquestioned but when the legs go they go, he was overrun in the last 20 but more so due to volume of tyrone in numbers rather than anything else. he probably could do with someone to take the fielding responsibity off him like walsh or donaghy or david moran who i thought kerry would have started on davy harte as all the ulster teams target him in the air. dara has been outstanding and along with tohill and cavnagh and jacko are the best that ive seen in the middle. however i have always been regailed re the class of mick o connell and that excellent kerrybook last year princes of the pigskin (i think) had a great picture of him jumping to catcha ball in his seventies and he still looks an awesome sight. mick o connell legend.

reddoctor (Tyrone) - Posts: 1241 - 23/09/2008 13:51:17    105590

Well guys & gals, Having just gathered the guts to watched the game on TV for the first time, I have to say that I am surprised at a few things and would just like to comment. There are quite a few positives to be taken from this. 1) Darragh O'Se is getting a grilling on here. Like I said just watched the game with a critical eye and Darragh had a very fine game indeed. Super in fact. No getting away from it. Watch again for yourselves. Won an endless amount of ball, scored a fine point at a vital time and provided the final pass for 4 or 5 scoring chances. 2) RTE's commentary the whole way through the game indicated that Tyrone were far superior. I think that maybe this happened because they weren't expecting Tyrone to play well but in any case it was not true. Because:- a) Kerry went in at Half time 1 point up having had 14 scoring chances as opposed to Tyrone's 8 showing a dominance. b) Tyrone caught us out quickly from the second half throw in with a very soft goal and an immediate point. c) After this and for the next 23 minutes up until the 60th minute Kerry outscored Tyrone by 6 points to 2. d) in the 61st minute the gooch failed to set up Sheehan for a goal when we had an open 2 on 1. Very rarely will this happen again. At this stage it still looked like Kerry were most likely to increase their lead. Tyrone went up and scored when Tomas O'Se failed to follow his man. e)In the 66th minute only a toe save kept Tyrone in the match. Sheehan then failed to level the Game with a 45 which he would normally put over in his sleep. f) Tyrone closed out the game only in 70th minute with 3 points in 45 seconds. 2 of them due to disastrous panicked kick outs. 3) I said in another tread that I thought Dooher had a fantastic game but that Young also had a very good game. In actual fact Dooher only held possession 4 times without making a mistake in the whole game. 2 were fantastic points, on 1 occassion he got a free and on the 4th occassion he was forced back safely by Young and laid the ball off. Dooher if you exclude those points had a really terrible game with Young driving forward throughout. Of course these are all big ifs and buts and i am not saying that Tyrone didnt deserve to win. They did deserve it because they won and that is all that counts. What i am saying here is really aimed for Kerry people and it is worth looking back at again for all Kerry fans to see how obvous our mistakes were and to see that an extra inch when defending against the goal and an inch less on McConnell would have seen us comfortably through. Work rate of course has to be increased. I do think the desire was there. When a team gets a couple of points they always have a bouce in the stride and this is what happened at the end of the game. Kerry had missed 2 goal scoring chances and 2 45's in the second half so were not being rewarded while Tyrone were far more clinical. I'm all confident again now. The start of another 3 in a row. With Darragh in the team the average age of this Kerry team will be 26!! Without Darragh it will be 25. Another walsh and a young Moran coming through. things are not so bad. We've got 4 big potential midfielders. We just need a new keeper.

thykingdomcome (Kerry) - Posts: 1206 - 23/09/2008 15:29:05    105700

3inarow08 - I dunno how good these lads are at minor level. In any case I think it will take time for them to get used to playing such a vital part in a senior team as Dara has. I think of Declan O'Sullivan and how long it took for him to show his potential in the team. It took him a few years and a bit of faith by Kerry management but it paid off

holymoly (Dublin) - Posts: 757 - 23/09/2008 15:35:29    105706