Monaghanâs half forward line is their weakest line now by a good distance.
Tyrone are very good in this area, I wouldnât be surprised to see Meyler come in here, he was very good agains the Dubs in the league and McGeary didnât have his best game yesterday. He has a serious engine on him, heâs the guy who wins all the beep tests in training apparently.
Also, Drew Wiley is a liability for Monaghan, heâs been dreadful all year long and doesnât have enough presence at the edge of the square.
Mayo Roscommon serves up a right conundrum of who to choose to support. If Roscommon win what are their chances of going on to win the A I? Realistically very little chance, similarly so with Mayo so on that basis Iâm not bothered too much. That said Mayo are the more likely of the two to cause an upset so once again I will be Hon-ing for Mayo for this one.
Hon Mayo!
Mayo to finish the job tomorrow.
I still believe thereâs a big performance in Mayo if they can get past Roscommon.
You could have driven a bus through the middle of the Kerry defence against Galway and with the likes of Keegan, Durcan, Diarmuid OâConnor and OâShea, Mayo have the player that could cause Kerry some problems.
Itâs just what weâve seen from Mayo so far this Championship looks like a side who have emptied the tank.
Wyley looks good as an enforcer lining lads up in a packed defence âŚbut really struggles once he is left one in one against a lad with a bit of strength and pace who takes him onâŚ
Kieran McGeeney believes the choice of referee could have a âbig bearingâ on the outcome of the upcoming All-Ireland SFC semi-final between Dublin and Tyrone.
Speaking after his Armagh side were swatted aside by the Red Hands yesterday, McGeeney remarked: âDepending on how a referee sees the tackling, it can go for you or it can go against you. Those particular things can have a big difference in a semi-final. I know when they played Kerry during the league, there were a lot of scoreable frees given that day.
âBut then in the championship to date, there hasnât been too many. Small things like that can make a big difference.â
McGeeney felt Armagh contributed to their own downfall by giving away possession far too cheaply in the early stages.
âIn the first 15 minutes we had 82 or 83 per cent turnovers in our attack. That meant four out of every five attacks the ball was coming straight back so youâre doubling your workload, while theyâre halving their workload. That builds up. They ended up with an eight-point deficit and we never really recovered from that," he admitted.
âAny mistake, they pounced on it. I think they had a 65 per cent shooting accuracy compared to 30 per cent for us. Thereâs a whole lot of things that add up to the result. It wasnât a good day at the office for the boys but I do believe theyâre better than that.â
Just watching the first half back from Dublin v Monaghan.
Dublin were quite poor in this actually, Monaghanâs shape was pretty decent but they give away a number of utterly needless free though some of them were in the harsh variety and Lane gave these decisions the opposite way at the other end of the pitch. Monaghan made some terrible decisions going forward though Dublin did defend at a high intensity. Dublinâs shooting from play was very poor against Monaghanâs defensive shape and if McCarron and Hughes could have tagged on a few scores from their bad misses it could still have been in the mixer at half time.
I presume Ciaran Whelan will be calling for Jonny Cooper to make a public apology if heâs on The Sunday Game tonight.
Whelan is on.
Did McManus not even connect properly with him that time?
No. Just kind of shrugged him off to the shoulder with the palm of his hand.
Did he not hit his ear? Ridiculous from Cooper anyway but justified if he did it to piss @myboyblue off.
Not even remotely. âCoopsâ went down like he was pretending he was stabbed.
Both Wylie* and Walshe have been below par all year. Walshe needs to be put back in as a tight corner back.
*The boardâs inability to get Wylie right is akin to the difficulty my friend Ruairi had in his 4 years at Jordanstown.
Mayo need to kill Roscommon early today. Roscommon have been very fast starters in their last two games. As long as they donât get that today, Mayo should put them away handily enough.
If Mayo win they have 13 days to recuperate physically for Kerry, which is plenty. If they can win without âgoing to the wellâ, theyâll be boosted considerably psychologically, which is where a lot of their problems lie at the moment.
But they really need to avoid a dogfight today and make it as bloodless as possible.
What time is throw in, mate?
Kick-off, mate, kick-off.
Itâs at 2pm.