2017 All Ireland Senior Football Championship

Morley did a bit better than Griffin did as effectively a full-back, but Mayo stopped looking for goals.

Surprised Lyne isn’t starting in that team. He’d be a good option as an extra defender. Or else they just go back to having Murphy as a sweeper with Lyne on the wing.

Murphy was quite good on Keegan and also in an attacking sense which Kerry would probably lose if he was sweeper. But Keegan clearly wasn’t right.

Michael Geaney will almost certainly lose out for an extra defender, I think.

I think I expressed reservations about their ability to beat Dublin.

You completely dismissed them in 2014 when they won it. In fact you said Kieran Donaghy was finished then and Bomber told you otherwise, 3 years later and Donaghy is still the main man for Kerry.

Have any of the Kerry 3 in a row All Ireland minor winning teams of 2014-16 broken into the starting line up yet?

O Beaglaoich

O’Beaglaioch had played a good few games but is injured at the moment I think. Nearly sure he was 2’14.

FWIW they got Morley from one of the 3in a row All Ireland winning Junior teams

Good piece by Rob Carroll which touches on most aspects of the game which the great and good of TFK have been discussing since.

Mayo’s medium-longer range kick outs being won mostly by Kerry.

Kerry lining up with a lot of bodies around their own '65 to stop Mayo’s runners from deep (pretty much rolling out the plan from the 2014 AIF against Donegal). Pressuring enough to stop them ransacking through the middle for the most part but not close enough to stop them easily picking out Doherty, Moran and O’Connor inside in 1 v 1 match ups.

Probably underestimated the Mayo inside forward line a bit so I expect Kerry to be much more aggressive in the tackle out the field this weekend.

What will Mayo do differently though?

Drop the goalie?

2 Likes

Play AOS in goals.

Or try the goalie at centre back?

The state he was in early in that year he was finished and he nearly retired (again).

You wrote Kerry and Mayo off in recent times but now you say there is nothing between the 4.

The reality is its like this

  1. Dublin

2&3. Kerry and Mayo

Last. Tyrone

Yes thats the top 4. But they are not all at the same level.

Brolly reckons the obvious switches for mayo are to drop Séamus O’Shea, restore AOS to midfield, start Durcan and shift Harrison to mark Donaghy.

Sounds better than what they put out the last day. And again, back their big man to take on Moran and take away the platform he gives kerry.

1 Like

Moran is lost without Donnacha Walsh and Jack Barry. He is a floater, a clever one, but other than kick outs which he is excellent at, he will not do alot of donkey work.

Barry has to start.

Mayo would be wise to have a plan b simply for the sake of it, but i would let AOS where he is. He does slow ball at the other end and psychologically i think its always hugely gamaging to Mayo when he is turned over.

And btw, does he ever actually play midfield? In the traditional sense?

Harrison had a cracking game yet Paul Geaney still sniped 3 or 4 points from play off him. Move him onto Donaghy and you risk Geaney running riot completely. There’s a bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul here, as the fella says (cc @Tassotti).

1 Like

It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul whatever they do.

You’d have to wonder what Peter has left to steal at this stage.

6 Likes

I agree and that’s why I think elements of the post-match analysis stating that it was definitively a shocking call were way overboard. I touch my phone screen as someone who wouldn’t have started O’Shea at full back and, even after he was positioned there, would have moved him forward for the second half.

1 Like

Quality.

It’s great to see that i’m thinking along the same lines as @commentaors-eye

Not in a while. The received wisdom was he was too big to last 70 there but I remember listening to Horan recently saying he would back him against anyone there is they decided it was the best place for him. MĂłrĂĄn mightnt do the donkey work but he runs the show.