Siofra O'Shea: Belief back in Kerry ahead of Dublin showdown

Victory for Kerry in Sunday's TG4 All-Ireland football final will see them move top of the roll of honours list on 12 titles.

And yet, the women from the Kingdom are in the middle of a prolonged period where the game's ultimate prize has eluded them.

You have to go back to 1993 for their last All-Ireland, and in the mean time neighbours Cork have become a dominant force, claiming 11 titles of their own to join Kerry at the top of the roll of honour.

"It's been 30 years and that's a very long time down in Kerry when you see the success the men have had and the success the ladies had before that," says captain Siofra O'Shea.

"You see some of those players around that had success 30 years ago like Mary Jo Curran and Mary Lane and them. They'd be at all our games.

"Geraldine O'Shea is in our management team and has her All-Ireland medal in the back pocket. They're a great inspiration for us but we've been working for the last four years with our management team and we're trying to write our own bit of history and win for our group"

How does O'Shea explain it?

"I can't really speak for the few years after when I wasn't even born myself," the 21-year-old reasonably points out.

"But in the last 10 years or so there hasn't been the right stability and structures in place. They had multiple managers from the 2012 All-Ireland. They got to that All-Ireland and lost and they've had so many managers since then.

"I don't think you could even count it on one hand how many managers they had in that spell. When you don't have that structure you don't have the same style of play year in, year out.

"Girls are probably stepping away from the team and there's no hope there for them and they don't think they can achieve success. But then to see Darragh