The 1984 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship final was the 97th All-Ireland Final and the deciding match of the 1984 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, an inter-county Gaelic football tournament for the top teams in Ireland.

This was one of six All-Ireland SFC finals contested by both Dublin and Kerry between 1974 and 1986, a period when one of either team always contested the decider.

Pre-game Dublin were considered hot favourites to defeat Kerry. Kerry had lost to Offaly on their last appearance at this stage in 1982 and had not made it past Cork in the 1983 final of the Munster Senior Football Championship.

Match This year's final was played on 23 September.

Summary Tom Spillane and Ger Lynch — assigned to mark Tommy Conroy and Barney Rock — began their efforts during the national anthem, which they sang with aplomb. Spillane, quoted in the book Princes of Pigskin, said of this tactic later: "There was no belting but the plot was to sing the National Anthem as loud as we could into their ears to put the fear of God into them. Neither of us were great singers but they must have thought we were wired to the moon". The headline in the printed edition read: "From twin tower to supersub target man, Walsh is key to Kingdom dream".

Kerry controlled the game and won by five points, only two Dublin forwards scoring.High Ball magazine, issue #6, 1998. Dublin were well beaten (0–14 to 1–6). Kerry claimed great motivation for their victory came from a piece in the RTÉ Guide in which the team were referred to as "a cowardly blend of experienced players, has-beens and a few newcomers."

It was the third of five All-Ireland football titles won by Kerry in the 1980s.

Details

Dublin 1 J. O'Leary 2 M. Holden 3 G. Hargan 4 M. Kennedy 5 P. Canavan 6 T. Drumm (c) 7 P.J. Buckley 8 J. Ronayne 9 B. Mullins 10 B. Rock 11 T. Conroy 12 K. Duff 13 J. Kearns 14 A. O'Toole 15 J. McNally

Subs used M. O'Callaghan for J. McNally C. Sutton for J. Tonayne

Manager K. Heffernan

Kerry 1 C. Nelligan 2 P. Ó Sé 3 S. Walsh 4 M. Spillane 5 T. Doyle 6 T. Spillane 7 G. Lynch 8 J. O'Shea 9 A. O'Donovan (c) 10 John Kennedy 11 D. Moran 12 P. Spillane 13 G. Power 14 E. Liston 15 J. Egan

Sub used 18 T. O'Dowd for J. Egan

Subs not used 16 M. Sheehy 19 D. O'Donoghue 20 J. Higgins 21 D. Hartnett 22 G. O'Sullivan 23 W. O'Connor 24 V. O'Connor 25 T. Lynch 26 M. Keating

Manager M. O'Dwyer

References