The FAI Cup final is the one match in the calendar that draws more attention to the League of Ireland than any other, so it is natural that fans of it want the contest to show the league in the best possible light.
A packed and rocking Aviva stadium will deliver some of this but a quality and competitive game is also important. So, will Cork City and Shamrock Rovers deliver a fittingly close encounter?
This year's final will bring the biggest mismatch in opponents in terms of league positions since First Division Shelbourne succumbed on penalties to Sligo Rovers in 2011. The dominant force in recent Irish football Shamrock Rovers added a fifth league title in six years a week ago while Cork City are returning to the First Division after relegation.
But Cup finals are not always that simple as just a year ago Drogheda United overcame a gap of five league places and 21 points to defeat Derry City 2-0.
They are one of seven cup finalists in the last 16 years who have beaten a side placed higher than them in that season’s league table. Though not many were by the nine places Cork City trailed by.
Shamrock Rovers took back their league title from Shelbourne this year and nobody could argue it wasn't deserved. They went top by defeating previous leaders Drogheda United 3-0 in week 15 and from that mid-May evening to November, they held their place at the summit.
However, they won’t be making their way to the Aviva Stadium as one of the more dominant league champions. Their points per game total was 1.83. Only five previous champions have won the league with a lower figure:
Losing four of their last five games meant the Hoops had eight defeats over the course of the season. Only three previous champions (Shamrock Rovers 1993/94, Dundalk 1994/95 and Shelbourne 2001/02) have lost at least that many games in a season. In the wins column they had 19, only Shelbourne last year (17) had fewer in a 36-game season.
They were also not high goalscorers. Their final tally was 1.56 per game, the fourth lowest for a summer era champion. Again, it was better than Shelbourne of 2024 but before them you must go back to Drogheda's 1.45 in 2007.
Defensively they did not stand out either, allowing 0.92 per game. This was the most conceded by a title winning team since their own team in 2010 conceded 0.94. Overall, it is the third-most of the summer era.
But context is required for some of those numbers as we do appear to be in an era of high parity across the league given that the previous year’s champions Shelbourne were also unspectacular numerically.
The champions between years 1993 and 1995 were all mentioned above and those season’s tables show a very bunched collection of teams from top to bottom.
A low goals per game total across a league typically indicates a high proportion of tight matches and over the last two years there has been 2.35 scored per match. It had previously not been that low for any season (excluding the shortened 2020) since the figure of 2.32 posted in 2009. In the aforementioned 1993 to 1995 period, it was 2.26.
The proportion of drawn games has been high also, 30% last year and 29% this season. No campaign has seen a similar tally of draws since 2003. The points gap from top to bottom was 42 in 2025. Aside from last season - where it was just 37 - it had been that close since 41 in 2012 (crucially, a 30-game season).
A consequence of the tight league meant that besides the two cup finalists, every other team was fighting to the end of the season for either European qualification or to avoid the relegation play-off. Conversely, both Shamrock Rovers and Cork City have been rooted to top and bottom places for most of the season and maybe this can explain why they have been able to focus on the cup.
This is also all league data, and the Cup can be a very different beast. Shamrock Rovers form in that regard has not been strong. Since losing the 2020 final to Dundalk, they have just two wins from six ties against fellow Premier Division clubs and one of those came after a penalty shootout.
At the other end of the table, it may not come as much consolation to Cork City fans but they are far from the worst side to finish bottom.
They recorded 0.67 points per game. Again, last year's tight table meant that was fewer than Dundalk’s 0.72 but prior to that, every team who finished bottom had a worse record going back to Drogheda’s 0.85 in 2015 (12-team league).
It’s another eight years before that for Longford Town in 2007 to have a better points per game tally for a relegated team - and that was a slight outlier given their six-point deduction during the season, without which they would have placed ninth.
It could have been much better for the Rebels had they proven better at holding onto leads over the course of the season. They dropped 23 points from winning positions in 2025, the third-hightest figure of any team in the last 13 years.
What will be troubling is their inability to win away from Turner's Cross. They became just the sixth team in the summer era to go a full season without a single away win.
Their run to the cup final included three home wins with their only win on the road coming over a Finn Harps side who finished eighth in the First Division.
The head-to-head between the teams this season accentuates the difference between Cork's home and away form. At Turner's Cross, the hosts managed two 1-1 draws, while in Tallaght, they shipped a pair of 4-1 defeats.
Despite the difference in league placings, there isn't such a major gap in FAI Cup winning experience and pedigree. The Shamrock Rovers squad contains 12 winners’ medals to Cork City’s seven, largely thanks to Greg Bolger’s haul of four.
A glance at the league table suggests a foregone conclusion on Sunday.
But a deeper examination of both team’s records and recent FAI Cup final history suggests the gulf may not be insurmountable.
It's also been a year of Cup final shocks, generally.
Outside of Ireland, 2025 witnessed Crystal Palace toppling Manchester City in the FA Cup final, Bologna beating AC Milan in the Coppa Italia decider, Aberdeen taking down Celtic in the Scottish Cup final.
Dungannon Swifts were unexpected first-time winners of the IFA Cup final, while Go Ahead Eagles claimed their maiden Dutch Cup victory, upsetting Troy Parrott's AZ Alkmaar in the final.
Shamrock Rovers go into the game on the back of a trip to Greece to play AEK Athens and they'll surely regard it as a tragedy were they to be denied a first double in 38 years.
Cork City will need a heroic display to achieve victory. We will have to see what the FAI Cup Gods have written to conclude its tale for 2025.
