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1965 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship final

Event	1965 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship
Galway Kerry 0–12 0–9
Date	26 September 1965
Venue	Croke Park, Dublin
Referee	Mick Loftus (Mayo)
Attendance	77,735
← 1964 1966 →

The 1965 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship final was the 78th All-Ireland Final and the deciding match of the 1965 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, an inter-county Gaelic football tournament for the top teams in Ireland.

Match

Summary

For the first time since the 1941 final, the same two counties contested the decider in successive years. However, it was far from the magical spectacle that fans expected, given the high-scoring performance that both sides gave in the 1964 final. Destructive football and indiscriminate jersey-pulling, leading to three players being sent-off, marred a game that never delivered as much as it had promised. 13 of the 21 scores came from frees, both Bernie O'Callaghan and Cyril Dunne called upon many times to edge their county ahead. It was essentially "Survival of the Fittest", but even in this unpromising setting, there were some performances of real merit. Pat Donnellan, who had outplayed Denis O'Sullivan early on, stepped into the breach at a stage when O'Callaghan had reduced Kerry's arrears to a minimum. The Kerry resurgence had been fueled by a vintage period for Mick O'Connell, but when the Galway mentors switched Donnellan onto the Valentia man, midfield control - slight though it was - swung back to the reigning champions. With 15 minutes remaining, Séamus Leydon had Galway's twelfth point but Kerry had not the ability to profit from this period of stagnation, and their only return for some enthusiastic, but poorly organised attacks, was the pointed frees from O'Connell and O'Callaghan. The margin of three points hardly flattered Galway, but the Tribesmen had too much on the day for Kerry and duly collected their second consecutive All-Ireland SFC title.

It was the second of three in a row All-Ireland SFC titles won by Galway in the 1960s, which made them joint "team of the decade" with Down who also won three.

Galway's three 1960s titles came consecutively.

Details

Galway

Kerry

References

1. High Ball magazine, issue #6, 1998.
2. "Kerry on honour roll". Irish Independent. Independent News & Media. 14 September 2009. Retrieved 14 September 2009.
3. Kenny, Tom (14 April 2011). "The men who first brought Sam to Galway". Galway Advertiser. Archived from the original on 9 August 2019. Retrieved 14 April 2011. Then came the three in a row team who in 1964 beat Kerry by 0 – 15 to 0 – 10; in 1965 it was Galway 0 – 12 to Kerry 0 – 9, and in 1966 Galway 1 – 10 to Meath's 0 – 7.

• 1965 in Gaelic football
• 1960s in Dublin (city)
• September 1965 sports events in Europe
• All-Ireland Senior Football Championship finals
• Gaelic football controversies
• Galway county football team matches
• Kerry county football team matches