Joe Carroll: Monaghan and Derry would give us a new All-Ireland final pairing

There are four possible All-Ireland football final pairings - only one of them would be brand new.

The semi-finals are coming up this weekend and though Croke Park isn’t likely to be full to capacity for either of them, you can take it there’ll be no shortage of colour on Saturday and Sunday.

Dublin play Monaghan on Saturday, to be preceded by a meeting of Meath and Down in the Tailteann Cup final. Now that’s a programme lacking nothing in piquancy, and the attendance is likely to be greater than the following day’s. On Sunday, Kerry are out against Derry.

So, what would the outcome of both matches have to be to give us something entirely new on the day the Sam Maguire Cup is presented? A first all-Ulster meeting since Armagh put their title on the line against Tyrone in 2003, Monaghan playing Derry.

The odds are on Dublin meeting Kerry, and that would have a familiar ring to it. The ‘70s decade was decorated with many great meetings of these counties, and even before then they encountered each other quite often.

But just say Monaghan slip it over the odds-on favourites and Kerry win the other match, we’d be back to 1930. That year Monaghan reached their first – and so far only – senior final and it proved to be a chastening exercise. We’ll come back to it later.

So, on Sunday, if Derry were to put the shackles on David Clifford, with Glass and McKinless coming up with masterful performances, it would shock Gaeldom (to borrow from the oldest of lexicons). Then, if the other semi-final game ran true to form, we’d have a repeat of 1958.

Louth failed to retain their Leinster crown that year – and as a consequence the All-Ireland – beaten by Dublin in the final played at Pairc Tailteann. Derry came through in Ulster and after that shocked......(see above) by beating Kerry in the All-Ireland semi-final. Dublin overcame Galway by a point in the other qualifier.

Reeling in the Years Sport: Can you see yourself in Arthur's Sporting Archives?

John Mitchels clinch first title in 25 years as they are crowned 3B champions

The final went to Dublin, but the day is best remembered for Jim McKeever’s display for the Ulster champions. It was majestic, going a long way towards the midfielder being named that year’s player-of-the-year, a rarity for someone who didn’t figure on the All-Ireland winning side.

The Civil War was a number of years back when the 1930 final came along, and the GAA was being given recognition for the part it had played in bringing the two sides together. But the manner in which ‘Anti-Treaty’ Kerry went about their task suggested not all had been in the past.

Winning the title for the second time in a 4-year cycle, the Munster champions finished with a clear majority, 3-11 to 0-2.

When the counties next met in the championship, almost a half-century later, Kerry were again the better side. Next time, however, it was much closer. In fact, two games were needed to decide the 1985 semi-final.

In the first of them, Monaghan were trailing by a point with minutes remaining when they were awarded a free from beyond the 50-yard line. Up stepped Eamonn McEneaney, and with a nonchalance that defied the magnitude of the task in front of him, the Castleblayney Faugh’s clubman coolly stroked the ball over the bar. Kerry won the replay 2-9 to 0-10.

McEneaney would later become his native county’s manager and fill the same role with Louth, following his move to live in Haggardstown.

Centre-half on the ’85 team, Ciaran Murray, also relocated to Louth, and is now associated with Dundalk Gaels for whom his twin sons, Sean and Oisin, played in the 2017 senior final.

The best of the weekend’s matches could be the Tailteann Cup final. It brings Down and Meath together, the same pairing for the 1991 All-Ireland final, which the Mournemen won with the help of an outstanding first half display.

While Meath only held on narrowly for a Tailteann semi-final win over Antrim, Down were devastating in the defeat of Laois, displaying all the swagger of the ‘Sixties and ‘Nineties All-Ireland teams. And they did a fair bit of scoring, sticking as many as eight goals past the Laois ‘keeper.

Royals will tell you that it was the winning of the 1984 Centenary Cup that laid the foundation for the outstanding success Sean Boylan’s side enjoyed later in the decade.

The current team is trying to establish itself after a difficult league and championship, and if successful on Saturday it will be interesting to see if there’s another renaissance to follow.