It doesn’t usually happen like this. Doesn’t really ever, in fact. The All-Ireland club finals come and go every year with a cast of characters that is largely unfamiliar to the populace at large. Great day for the parish and all that. But with the best will in the world, a ho-hum sort of deal for everyone else.
Not this time around. The 2025 All-Ireland club football final is about as star-spangled as you can get. Cuala have Mick Fitzsimons, the joint all-time record holder of Celtic Crosses. Errigal Ciarán have Peter Harte, All-Ireland winner, two-time All Star and arguably the greatest of Tyrone’s post-2008 generation. Not to mention Ruairí Canavan, former under-20 Footballer of the Year.
But they’re not the headline acts. Nobody would pretend they were. They’ve all had their moments throughout this campaign and have popped up at various points along the way as match-winners. But for once, this final comes at the point on the curve where the casual observer and the seen-it-all shrewdies intersect.
Everyone knows about Con O’Callaghan and everyone knows about Darragh Canavan. And though nobody knows how the final will play out, the lure of making it about a showdown between the two of them is irresistible. Neither of them is likely to let the occasion pass them by.
Examine them for long enough and the similarities between the two are uncanny. Both sons of intercounty players. Both playing in a forward line containing their younger brother. Both rarities in modern football in that they were shoved onstage at intercounty level as teenagers, Canavan as an 18-year-old against Derry in the McKenna Cup, O’Callaghan as a 19-year-old against Kerry in the league.
Both scored with their first touch in an All-Ireland final. O’Callaghan’s goal against Mayo in the 2017 final needs no introduction but Canavan made his impression at a crucial time too. Coming off the bench in the 2021 final, he sprinted on to a Conor Meyler pass to fist Tyrone into a four-point lead just as Mayo had hauled themselves back to within touching distance with five minutes to go.
Where they diverge is on the honours board. Canavan has won one All-Ireland and one Ulster title with Tyrone and two county titles and one Ulster with Errigal. He has never won an All Star. He was shortlisted for Young Footballer of the Year in 2021 but lost out to Mayo’s Oisín Mullin.
By contrast, O’Callaghan has won (deep breath) six All-Irelands, nine Leinsters and three national leagues with Dublin, an All-Ireland under-21 with Dublin, a football county title and Leinster title with Cuala, as well as five county hurling titles, two Leinster club hurling titles and two club hurling All-Irelands. He has three All Stars and a Young Footballer of the Year award and will go down as one of the great Dublin GAA figures to have ever laced a boot.
So it’s not exactly comparing like with like. Darragh Canavan, for all his gifts, is still in that place in his career where the potential outweighs the achievements. He was a bit-part player in Tyrone’s 2021 All-Ireland and it’s a measure of their fortunes in the years since that Tyrone have only had one championship visit to Croke Park in the past three seasons. That was the 2023 All-Ireland quarter-final and Canavan spent a lot of it chasing Tom O’Sullivan around the place.
The semi-final saw Darragh in untouchable mode. Elusive, energetic, impossible to pin down, ruthless in front of goal. In running up 1-6 from play against Dr Crokes, he showed why is among the top five (top three?) forwards in the country
Despite Tyrone’s struggles – or maybe because of them – Canavan has gradually assumed the mantle of the leader of their attack. He was their top scorer in the 2024 championship and put in man-of-the-match displays against Cavan, Clare and Cork. He was still only turning 24 in that championship but everyone could see that his time had come.
“It’s a bit like the band that suddenly breaks on the scene with a hit,” said one clubmate last summer. “Everyone thinks they’ve just come out of nowhere but then in reality you realise there were plenty of years of toil involved. It wasn’t that long ago that he was breaking down with a couple of injuries and his form was here and there with Tyrone.
“Everyone was still watching. Anything he did at all was still open to massive hype and yet you could see that he wasn’t the full player, he wasn’t the leading player. He was just a brilliant player in moments. Everybody could see his talent and see his ability but it was still momentary. Then there were injuries and he was struggling to get a consistent run of games.
“As time passed, you could see he nearly came to realise that he had a duty. Yes, you have to work hard and tackle hard and be a team player the same as the rest of the squad. But there’s a process you go through if you do have that talent and that ability, you have a duty above and beyond what the others have.
[ Con O’Callaghan close to joining one of the GAA’s most illustrious clubsOpens in new window ]
“You have a duty to play to that level. And I think it’s very noticeable over the past couple of seasons that he has become so much more comfortable in his own skin. There’s an acceptance of leadership there.”
Funny thing. The clubmate wanted his name kept out of the article so as not to be seen to feed any suggestions of hype around Canavan. Which brings us to another similarity between him and Con O’Callaghan – the instinctive protectiveness of the people around them.
This week in Cuala, you’d have found more people willing to give you their bank details than folk who would go on the record talking about O’Callaghan. Con is 29 this year, one of the most recognisable sportspeople in the country and someone who has been a public figure for most of his adult life. But his people know him and they love him. Most of all, they know he’d rather chew off his own arm than see team-mates or club elders waxing away about how great he is.
He’d much rather they take the p**s out of him. Back when the hurlers were in their pomp, they always went back to The Club bar in Dalkey after matches where the game would be rerun on the big screen and they’d all sit around and drink it in. Invariably, after O’Callaghan had run in a few goals against some helpless full-back line or other, TG4 would have him over for the Laoch na hImeartha interview.
In between-times, he called for a ball tight against the Breffni Park sideline before running 60 metres with it and kicking a left-footed score. Any hope Strandhill had of a comeback kept smashing into a Con-shaped wall
Like a lot of his Cuala team-mates, O’Callaghan went to school in Coláiste Eoin in Booterstown and has faultless Irish. But he was also very young in those early days and so wasn’t just as composed talking into a microphone as he is today. The upshot was he essentially answered every question with, “Aw, tá sé dochreidte (unbelievable). Tá sé dochcreidte!”
The Cuala lads were merciless. However unbelievable he’d been in the game, they’d wait for the interview to run and shush the bar, waiting for each dochreidte to fall from the speakers so they could jeer him. His brothers, his cousins, his schoolmates, his teachers even. Dochcredite, Con. Dochreidte.
Darragh Canavan gets the same treatment around Errigal Ciarán. How could he not? His brother Ruairí is always trying to outdo him. His cousin Tommy is there too and Peter Harte is married to his sister. Before and after games, you’ll always see his dad, Peter Canavan, about the place too, invariably carrying a grandchild. None of them are slow to clip his wings for him.
After Tyrone beat Kerry in 2021, Peter chided his eldest boy – half-messing, half-not – for missing a goal chance in the game. It ended up not mattering, since his shot was parried away by Shane Ryan in the Kerry goal, only for Cathal McShane to steam in and palm it to the net. But Peter had his fun anyway, reminding Darragh that the best way to beat a Kerry goalkeeper in Croke Park is to keep it low. He didn’t say, “Like I did in 2005.” He didn’t have to.
[ Born leader Darragh Canavan bears the load of great expectations lightlyOpens in new window ]
In all truth, Ruairí has probably been the more consistent presence for Errigal through this campaign. Darragh took a bad hit to his shoulder against Killyclogher in the Tyrone semi-final and was only fit to play a full part in the final because it got delayed a week by Storm Ashley. Meanwhile, Ruairí ran up big totals against Pomeroy, Clonoe, Trillick and Clann Eireann, carrying his fair share and more.
But the semi-final saw Darragh in untouchable mode. Elusive, energetic, impossible to pin down, ruthless in front of goal. In running up 1-6 from play against Dr Crokes, he showed why is among the top five (top three?) forwards in the country.
O’Callaghan is obviously in that bracket too. He has been relentless for Cuala from their first day out against Clontarf in August when he ran in 2-4. He has put up 5-45 in 10 games through Dublin, Leinster and the All-Ireland, a shade under a third of Cuala’s total score. The only game in which he hasn’t scored heavily was the Dublin final, where he was sent off against Kilmacud (the red card was later rescinded).
You only need to watch back the closing five minutes of the semi-final against Coolera-Strandhill to see what he means to Cuala. He caught two kick-outs to set up two points, one of which he kicked himself from a tricky free. In between-times, he called for a ball tight against the Breffni Park sideline before running 60 metres with it and kicking a left-footed score. Any hope Strandhill had of a comeback kept smashing into a Con-shaped wall.
It’s so rare for things to pan out this way. Go back through half a century of All-Ireland club finals and it’s difficult to pick out a year when you had two of the game’s absolute elite forwards facing off in the biggest club game of the year.
In 2007, Dr Crokes played Crossmaglen so you had Colm Cooper on one side and Oisín McConville on the other. In 2003, Colin Corkery was lining out for Nemo Rangers while Ciarán McDonald was suiting up for Crossmolina. The most star power of any final was probably Caltra against An Ghaeltacht in 2005, a game that featured no fewer than three former or future Footballers of the Year, as well as Darragh Ó Sé, Dara Ó Cinnéide and Michael Meehan.
Mostly though, this just doesn’t happen. You don’t get Con O’Callaghan at the peak of his powers against Darragh Canavan at the peak of his. There are just too many planets that have to align, a thousand million small things that have to go right along the way that don’t. And yet, now they have.
Lucky us.
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