Preview: Kerry seek to end wait against resurgent Dubs

As if we haven't fixated enough on the Dublin-Kerry rivalry for one summer, Sunday brings us the second such All-Ireland decider in a matter of weeks.

Whereas the Dublin-Kerry final is a staple of the men's game - Michael Foley on the RTÉ GAA podcast shattered the illusion that these finals always played out to the delight of the purists - in the women's code, a Dublin-Kerry final is a novelty.

Sunday's final, the 50th TG4 All-Ireland senior football final, is the first ever between the two teams.

Kerry, beaten finalists last year, are seeking to end a famine of three decades. The Kingdom remain joint top in the LGFA roll of honour but this is almost entirely a legacy of their era of total dominance in the 1980s.

The side containing the likes Mary Jo Curran and Mary Lane - the latter a mother of midfielder this weekend Lorraine Scanlon - won nine on the trot between 1982 and 1990. The first half of this run pre-dated the Croke Park era for women's football.

Those early All-Irelands were won in glamourous locations like Nenagh, Kilsheelan and Timahoe and it wasn't until 1986 that women players were accommodated in GAA HQ. (Mick Bohan expressed the hope this week that integration plans will continue apace and that the victorious captain will soon no longer have to spend a portion of their speech thanking Croke Park for the use of the facilities).

In 1993 - ironically at a time when the Kerry men's team were probably at their lowest ebb - Kerry defeated Laois to win their 11th crown. Geraldine O'Shea, five-time All-Star, future Republic of Ireland soccer international, and current Kerry backroom member, blasted home the crucial goal late in the game.

There was little reason to doubt the success would continue as it had before. But