Relief was the overriding emotion felt by Danielle O'Leary and her Kerry team-mates after yesterday's TG4 All-Ireland senior ladies football final.

Having come up short against Meath and Dublin respectively in 2022 and '23, the Kingdom finally got their hands on the Brendan Martin Cup with a decisive victory over Galway.

“Pure relief as well at the final whistle,” an elated O'Leary told reporters in Croke Park afterwards.

“There are always doubts in your head. It’s such a dream of yours, that if you’ve been dreaming since you were eight years old it is actually hard to believe that it has finally come true.

“There are good days and there are bad days, thoughts come into your head saying, ‘is this ever going to happen?’ or ‘is this ever going to come true?’. I suppose at the end of the day it comes down to trusting in yourself and trusting each other. That there’s 15 players involved on the pitch at one time and then there’s 20 others on the bench that’s rooting for you.

“It was just pure resilience, time and patience and, of course, you have doubts from time to time but you’ve just got to believe at the end that you’ll get there.”

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