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21st September 2017
10:59am BST

"Best game of football I've ever been at. "I loved it; thought it was class. I've watched a lot of games of football over the years, and played a huge amount of it coming up through my childhood. It just had everything and it's hard not to feel a bit of heartbreak for Mayo."Kearney has come across several of the players from both counties in recent years and while he has seen more of the Dublin footballers - due to their proximity - he can certainly empathise with the Mayo lads. He adds:
"I've nothing but a huge amount of respect for all of them, from both teams. You look at how hard they train, what they give to the game. They're still amateurs and have their own jobs away from it. It's truly incredible and I think, sometimes in this country, we don't give them enough credit than they deserve. "You would have sold out another 300,000 tickets there, at the weekend, to watch an amateur game. It's incredible."The 31-year-old had the honour of playing 12 Test matches at Croke Park, for Ireland. One suspects he would have loved to play one more, as a GAA player, when he was taking in that superb final on Sunday. [caption id="attachment_137605" align="aligncenter" width="1000"]
Kearney was joined by Sophie Spence, Sean O'Brien, Robbie Henshaw - and fans Roisin Kinch & Will O'Toole - to help announce the renewal of Bank of Ireland's sponsorship deal with Leinster Rugby.[/caption]Explore more on these topics: