2002 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship final
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| Event | 2002 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship | ||||||
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| Date | 22 September 2002 | ||||||
| Venue | 2003 → | ||||||
The 2002 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final was the 115th All-Ireland Final and showpiece game of the 2002 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship which began on 5 May 2002. It took place at Croke Park on 22 September 2002.
The game, which was a replay of the
Appearing in the county's third All-Ireland SFC decider and having lost the previous two, the team was the first from
In 2018, Martin Breheny listed this as the fifth greatest All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final.[2]
Route to the final
Provincial
Kerry were at the time, and remain, the most successful county in terms of number of championships won. Armagh on the other hand, whilst having dominated Ulster for the last number of years, had never gone the whole way to capturing the Sam Maguire Cup. The previous championship meeting of the two counties was in the 2000 All-Ireland semi-final, the first game ending in a draw and the Kerry going on to win the replay and subsequently the Championship.
Armagh's campaign started at St Tiernach's Park in Clones, where they drew Tyrone 1–12 each, Armagh won the replay a week later 2–13 to 0–16. In the Ulster Semi-final they overran Fermanagh by double scores 0–16 to 1–05 and the Ulster Final saw them play Donegal on 7 July, a match which they won 1–14 to 1–10.
Kerry's provincial campaign was not as successful however, losing to Cork in the semi-final 0–15 to 1–09. As a result, they entered Round 2 of the All-Ireland Qualifiers and subsequently dismissed Wicklow 5–15 to 0–07. The next round saw them face Fermanagh, who had already been defeated by Armagh. Fermanagh again proved impotent as Kerry steamrolled them 2–15 to 0–04. Kildare, their opponents in the fourth and final Qualifier game were beaten double scores 2–10 to 1–05.
All-Ireland Series
Armagh faced
Meeting
Kerry faced reigning All-Ireland and Connacht Champions Galway in their quarter finals, dismissing the holders 2–17 to 1–12. In a replay of the Munster semi-final Kerry again faced Cork in the All-Ireland equivalent, this time beating the Lee-siders convincingly 3–19 to 2–07.
Match
First half
Second half
Armagh were late to arrive on the pitch and kept the Kerry team waiting almost 5 minutes as they received a spirited team talk from manager and defeated 1977 finalist Joe Kernan. Kernan showed the team the memento[5] he had received as a player in the 1977 final after Armagh were defeated by Dublin and warned the players that they would face a similar fate if they failed to turn the game around.
Marsden and Ó Cinnéide again traded points and a free kick from McConville reduced the deficit to three. Hassett and McConville scored and the Armaghman converted a 45-metre free, Kerry's last score of the day came as Ó Cinnéide pointed again on 54 minutes.
In the 55th minute McConville charged through the Kerry back-line, played a one-two with teammate Paul McGrane and buried the ball past O'Keeffe in the Kerry net sending Hill 16 into uproar and reducing Kerry's lead to a solitary point. Scores from Ronan Clarke and Steven McDonnell, who had scored the first point of the day, were enough to give Armagh the lead for the first time since the opening stages of the game. Armagh held on for the last ten minutes and that was enough to give the Orchard County their first Championship.
Having scored 14–90 in their previous 390 minutes of play, Kerry managed to score only three points in the second half.[2]
Details
| Armagh | 1–12 – 0–14 | Kerry |
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| Oisín McConville 1–2 (0–1f, 0–1 45), Steven McDonnell 0–3, Ronan Clarke 0–3, Diarmaid Marsden 0–3, John McEntee 0–1 | Report | Dara Ó Cinnéide 0–5 (0–3f, 0–1 45), Mike Frank Russell 0–3, Colm Cooper 0–2, Liam Hassett 0–2, Éamonn Fitzmaurice 0–1, Eoin Brosnan 0–1 |
          Armagh
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     Kerry
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Post-match
Two weeks previously at the
References
- ^ "Armagh are champions". BBC. 22 September 2002.
- ^ a b Breheny, Martin. "Martin Breheny's Greatest All-Ireland Finals". Irish Independent. 1 September 2018, p. 9.
- ^ http://www.rte.ie/sport/2002/0901/armagh.htmllink title
- ^ "Flashback: 2002 All-Ireland SFC Final - Armagh v Kerry". GAA.ie. 20 March 2020. Retrieved 24 March 2020.
- ^ "Joe Meets Sam" by Jerome Quinn - Kernan stated that he showed the team his wooden runners's up memento at half time