Friday will see a very healthy crowd in Croke Park for the All-Ireland club hurling and football finals. I was one of the 40,126 at the record attendance 18 years ago and please God I’ll be counted again tomorrow.

Ballyea and Cuala open proceedings in the hurling at 3pm while Dr Crokes and Slaughtneil round the day off at 5pm under lights in the football decider. We’ll have two parades.

In Ballyea and Cuala we have fairytales in operation, while Dr Crokes are looking for only their second title and Kerry’s first since 1996.

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Derry champions Slaughtneil were here two years ago, so they are the only club with relative experience of the biggest day in the club calendar. Their year has been remarkable too and the club are looking to add the Andy Merrigan Cup to the Ulster senior titles won in Camogie and senior hurling, while the ladies also added the Carroll Cup for good measure.

Thanks to TG4, we have been able to follow the adventures of all four clubs in getting to Friday. Unfortunately, two will go home with only the occasion to cherish unless extra time doesn’t separate them.

Cuala and Ballyea could well need an extra 20 minutes as there shouldn’t be too much between them. This will be a worthy curtain-raiser and I have a sneaking suspicion that my fellow parishioners might be the nut the Cuala forwards can’t crack.

Ballyea’s strengths are their tenacious defenders, all of whom have pace, something Cuala will expose if your team lacks it. The Dublin champions have been very impressive in attack in getting to Friday, racking up an average of 2-16 in 10 hours of hurling.

Their star forward has been Con O’Callaghan, who we are told is a better footballer. He must be some peiladóir. He has cut opposing full-back lines to ribbons. The Clare side will have a plan for him.

Ballyea will answer with Niall Deasy, who has been their standout forward and keeps rising to the occasion. We can’t forget Tony Kelly, pound for pound the best hurler in the country. He will keep Cuala on their toes too.

It could be Paul Schutte who marks Kelly’s toes; he will be back from injury for this final and he will be needed.

The gut feeling is that Cuala won’t have met backs of Ballyea’s intensity. Sixty minutes, broken into two halves, suits defenders.

The football encounter is also expected to be close with Crokes the slightest of favourites. The Kerry champions have been knocking around for the last seven years and getting to the final was a major statement for them, having lost three semi-finals in a row from 2012 to 2014.

While plenty of Slaughtneil eyes will be on the Gooch as he tries to pull the strings, this might allow the likes of Daithí Casey, Kieran O’Leary and the still wily Eoin Brosnan at full-forward to find space.

Chrissy McKaigue might have his gaze on Cooper; he did after all eclipse Diarmuid Connolly in their impressive semi-final win over Vincent’s. That he also managed four points from play (from centre-back) marks him out as a potential dual worry for the Kerry champions.

Christopher Bradley is Slaughtneil’s most accurate forward and Fionn Fitzgerald will probably be tasked with him or Shane McGuigan, another possible thorn in Crokes’ side.

Very often club finals are won by the previously unheralded club player who may never again see Croke Park. Let’s hope two of them are picking up the man-of-the-match trophies. Crokes and Ballyea are the tentative choices to have the bonfires blazing on Saturday evening. CL

Kerry ready to down the Dubs

This weekend sees round five of the Allianz National Football League and most of the attention will be focused on Tralee on Saturday night, with Kerry and Dublin throwing in at 7pm.

There will just be time to turn over after the rugby, hopefully in a good mood, to watch what could match Kilkenny and Tipperary’s entertainment in the hurling the previous Saturday night.

There will be a lot of hype around this fixture, most of it based on Dublin’s attempt to go 34 games unbeaten in league and championship. This apparently matches a record previously held by Kerry back in 1933.

This Kingdom side won’t care about saving any record held by their own but they will care about beating Dublin – something they haven’t managed to do in two years. League wins and losses are never unduly important, it is the championship hex that Jim Gavin’s teams have over Éamonn Fitzmaurice that irks Kerry folk most.

This game is a sellout, it’s Saturday night under lights, with live TV and there should be a fiery atmosphere to boot. These are the games you find out about players. Stick your hand up in Austin Stack Park and you will have that hand on a championship jersey.

That is what’s at stake here and records that mean very little apart, it’s enough. I have little doubt that Jim Gavin and his management team would have liked to have been relieved of the unbeaten record talk this spring, but not against Kerry. They have after all drawn two games in Tyrone and Donegal – they might have preferred to lose one of them!

Instead they will probably fall at this fence because Kerry’s need is far greater. They need to prove to themselves and their supporters that they can not just live with the Dubs, but that they can actually beat them. It’s up there with their mid-noughties fixation about Ulster teams and their toughness – ie Kerry’s lack of it. It’s a Kerry thing and having lived there for long enough I (think I) understand it.

This means more than football. I fancy Kerry.

The rest of the weekend has a couple of decent encounters. Donegal and Tyrone can bate the life out of each other at the very same time, 7pm, on Saturday night, away from prying eyes! Mayo and Monaghan should record home wins at the expense of Cavan and Roscommon.

Division two has compressed like an accordion in recent weeks, four home wins won’t provide much clarity either on promotion but it is likely on a weekend in the top two flights of mostly home comforts.