RTÉ's Siún Nic Gearailt hopes to match the success of her native county's footballers and claim back-to-back titles in 2008.
Newsreader Siún, who held off the persistent challenge of Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh, RTÉ's Mr GAA, to win the inaugural RTÉ Personalities' GAA Prediction League title, said she is already looking forward to defending her crown next year.
Siún, who has become an increasingly popular newsreader in both Irish and English on RTÉ Television and Radio, reflected fondly on her surprise triumph against some of RTÉ's more renowned sporting pundits, which also included Marty Morrissey and Tom McGurk.
She admitted: 'I would absolutely love to return and defend my title, it was great fun and made a huge difference to my summer, and the reaction I have had from other people has been very positive.'
The Kerrywoman, originally from Feothanach in the West Kerry Gaeltacht, also believes Kerry have what it takes to claim a memorable three-in-a-row next year. She insisted: 'I certainly think Kerry are capable of winning three-in-a-row. I know it's very difficult for teams nowadays to actually do two-in-a-row, but having seen the way they played this year, I can't see too many teams matching them.
'There are one or two teams who could put a stop to it like Dublin, while I also think Monaghan could also do very well in the future. I'm not saying they are going to challenge at the top table just yet but I thought they were a fabulous team this year. But I think Kerry have a great chance again next year.'
Siún, who also got engaged during what has been an eventful year, came out top of a group of RTÉ Personalities which also included Fair City's Sorcha Furlong, The Café's Aidan Power and 2fm's Nikki and Colm Hayes.
With typical Kerry modesty, she reflected: 'From day one it was absolutely amazing. I never really expected that I would do that well in it given that there were so many experts involved from 'sportsland'. It was great. Every weekend it gave it that little something extra, it made a complete difference to the summer. People were actually texting me regularly saying "I see you're down", or "you're up this week".'
The competition also made a weekly impact in the RTÉ Newsroom, where Eileen Dunne and Tommie Gorman were involved in their own battle at the bottom of the table.
Siún added: 'There was also plenty of craic at work. Eileen and myself would have a chat about it and see how we were doing and it created a great camaraderie between us and it was a great bit of fun.'
The league proved a very popular feature on RTÉ.ie's specialist Championship 2007 website, with more than 100,000 visits made to the competition's pages as the GAA-loving public made regular checks on the progress of the ten panellists from May to September.
Speaking of her victory, Siún admitted coming from Kerry and growing up in a sports mad environment undoubtedly played a significant part in her success. She revealed: 'I'm from Kerry, and as a child it used to drive me crazy that my brother and my father were constantly watching sports.
'But you can't get any better than them, they just loved it and I couldn't get away from it so obviously some of their interest rubbed off on me. The normal conversation in our house would be sport at some point or other on a Sunday or leading up to a match. Obviously my dad and my brother Tommy's conversations rubbed off in some way or another.'
Siún played a little bit of football in primary school, but mostly played basketball following her move to secondary level. And she revealed that sport has been a long-running passion of a family that now boasts one of the stars of the Kerry team.
'I thought Kerry were fabulous this year. I was a bit worried when they played Monaghan alright. I felt sorry for Monaghan because I thought they deserved to draw their quarter-final with us, but I believed from the start that Kerry had a fantastic team, with Donaghy, Cooper and the whole lot of them. Of course I'm being a little subjective because I'm related to Kieran, his grandfather is from my own home, his grandfather is my grand-uncle, so we're all very proud of him, of course. He's the little star of the family.'
With obvious family pride, she added: 'We were always aware that he was a great basketball player when he was young, but his grandfather, Seán Mac Gearailt, was a fabulous footballer and was captain of An Ghaeltacht in the 1930s. If you talk to anyone of that age around my area, they would always mention Seán Mac Gearailt as a great footballer who could play in either in midfield or full-forward and could always take his score. Kieran kind of looks like him too, so he obviously takes after him in some way.'
Obviously some of that talent has rubbed off on Siún too, and I, on behalf of RTÉ.ie, would like to thank her and all ten competitors for their co-operation, effort and enthusiasm over the past few months.
Siún Nic Gearailt was speaking to Shane Murray, editor of the GAA output on RTÉ.ie/sport and RTÉ Aertel this summer.
Editor's Note: There were more than 6.2million page impressions on the GAA section of RTÉ.ie from May to September.
