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2004 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship final
Football match / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 2004 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship final was the 117th All-Ireland Final and the deciding match of the 2004 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, an inter-county Gaelic football tournament for the top teams in Ireland.
Event | 2004 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship | ||||||
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Date | 26 September 2004 | ||||||
Venue | Croke Park, Dublin | ||||||
Referee | Pat McEnaney (Monaghan) | ||||||
Attendance | 79,749 | ||||||
← 2003 2005 → |
Mayo were hoping to bridge a gap that stretched back to their All-Ireland football title winning team of 1951.[1] They failed, though less miserably than in 2006. Mayo lost their fourth final in a row; in the end Kerry only won by eight points. Dara Ó Cinnéide was the winning captain, while manager Jack O'Connor won the title in his first season in charge.[2] The match was shown live in Ireland on RTÉ2 as part of The Sunday Game with match commentary from Ger Canning and Martin Carney.
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Largely regarded as one of the most disappointing All-Ireland football finals for many years, Mayo's capitulation drove spectators from the stadium in their thousands with Kerry leading by 1-12 to 1-4 at half time.[2] Kerry racked up a total of 1-20, the highest team score in an All-Ireland football final since the time of 'Bomber' Liston and the 5-11 that decimated Dublin in 1978.[2] Mayo returned to the final two years later, to be torn apart by Kerry all over again in a final when Kerry surpassed the score they achieved in 2004.
In 2022, Martin Breheny listed it among "five of the worst" All-Ireland SFC finals since 1972.[3]