Croke Park always brings out Kerry's best

Kerry defender Jason Foley always felt that Croke Park would be a key ingredient in reigniting their season after another powerful performance booked their spot in this year's All-Ireland SFC final.

Jack O’Connor’s side were six points better off than Tyrone having dumped out holders Armagh in the quarter-final, the Munster men completely dominant for long stretches of that Ulster double.

That was a long way from their performances away from HQ in the lead up with Meath hammering them in Navan, while the likes of Cork and Cavan had caused them bother at stages of their All-Ireland encounters.

That’s a distant memory for the Ballydonoghue man now though as they swatted aside the Red Hands with an incredible series of butchered goal chances preventing a much wider winning margin as they booked a final date with Donegal or Meath.

"I spoke a couple of weeks ago about the fact that we didn’t perform against Meath, it was a reality check for us and we needed to sharpen a few things," Foley told RTÉ Sport.

Kerry's Jason Foley gives his verdict on his side's progress to the All-Ireland SFC final, with their earlier loss to Meath seemingly the catalyst for the Kingdom pic.twitter.com/HwJx1fXs0A — The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) July 12, 2025

"I think we always knew that when we got to Croke Park, the conditions and the game would suit us. It was just about polishing a few things and getting out here and expressing ourselves."

Foley said that motivation was not an issue for Saturday’s semi-final with the short-term message to back up the Armagh win while longer term, discussion about the porousness of Kerry’s defence clearly rankled.

"The story going around the last couple of the years, or the narrative should I say, is that we were defensively poor, easy to get at," said the 2022 All-Star.

"If you hear that enough it can kind of sink in personally; you just have to go away and work on it and keep working on it and it’s still not perfect and it’s never going to be perfect.

"We still coughed up goal chances today, it’s just limiting the bad ones and reacting to the goal chances when they happen – get your hands on the ball and go again.

"I think a lot of it was individual responsibility as well."

The Kerry win was spearheaded by two incredible performances, with Joe O'Connor just beating David Clifford, who posted 1-09, to RTÉ's Player of the Match award.

While most teams have to face the Fossa ace on the rare occasion, Foley is coming up against him a number of times a week and declared: "It's as tough as it gets."

It's the Donegal or Meath defence who will have to try and solve that puzzle in two weeks' time.

Watch the All-Ireland Football Championship semi-final with RTÉ Sport. Meath v Donegal on Sunday from 3.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow live blogs on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app. Listen to commentaries on RTÉ Radio 1. Watch highlights on The Sunday Game at 10.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player

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