2021 All Ireland Football-Covid is a cod tyrone style

Imagine the effect this will have on Mayo waiting for the final.

I would still say 3 weeks is the perfect gap.

One week’s rest after the semi, one week of hard work, one wind down week to fine tune before the final.

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It depends.

Generally I’d say three weeks is the optimum. For some teams, like Meath 1991, Tyrone 2005 and Mayo 2017, regular football with a lot of one or two week gaps between games can end up whipping them into peak shape.

If you’re coming down off a monumental victory over a heavily favoured team, I think it’s harder to go again quickly, more time is an advantage. Again I compare it to a team who has beaten New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup and has had to go again the following week. Those teams always lose and generally turn in very flat performances. Both finalists have now had those sort of monumental unexpected victories.

For a very seasoned team used to winning like Dublin in 2015, having a two week gap to the final as opposed to a three or four week gap probably doesn’t make much of a difference.

For Mayo and Tyrone in this particular circumstance, I think it does, and I think four weeks over two weeks makes a material difference, physically, tactically and mentally.

Horan was hinting McLaughlin could make it for Mayo.

Hard to see with a broken jaw but you never know.

From thinking they don’t have a chance of winning all Ireland I now see Tyrone are such dangerous opposition for Mayo …2 week break they will be absolutely buzzing …they have two really shrewd operators on sideline …they’ll really analyse Mayo

The Munsteritis is strong today

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I don’t know. I’d be quite bullish about Mayo’s chances in this one. I think it could work out a bit like the 2013 All-Ireland semi-final. The psychological thing for Mayo will be the big hurdle and I don’t think you can underestimate it. But if they don’t fall behind in the first half I can see them pushing on and winning by a bit. Kerry’s threat came from the top of the pitch. Mayo’s comes from everywhere, especially from deep.

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Tyrone were the better team. They were fitter, defended like dogs and had more than one lad who can kick a ball over the bar, or under it for that matter. They still shipped a lot of needless scores, have a lot of work to do still re their kickout strategy and allowing goal opportunities, there’s little they can do about a ref who is intent on giving phantom frees against them.

Kerry believed their own bullshit and desrved to lose. They should have lost by a good bit more in truth. Credit to them for not giving up in the 2nd period of extra time but there was a touch of too little too late by that stage

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Tyrone were well organised but there were a bit of a shambles from the own kick out

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Thats their most immediate concern heading into the final no question

Dublin have a cakewalk every year to the semi and they manage fine. Kerry love excuses

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Id give Mayo a great chance if the referee is fair and does’nt give Tyrone every decision like Satuday.

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Anyone able to paste up Spillane’s article?

Did he type it all in CAPS?

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true … be interesting to see how mayo start , not sure if the 5 week break will suit them…

The clash of the jonahs

@Cheasty siding with mayo and @Lazarus with Tyrone.

I’ve never seen either pick the right side of anything. This sideshow is better than the actual football. Which will be shit

The worst football championship ever? Standard has been atrocious.

I’ve switched off every match I started watching. Scutter

Mayo seemed content enough with what seemed to the casual viewer/me at half time a pretty slow/weak start against Dublin. Plan to not concede early goals and after that the bench impact would turn it for them worked out pretty well. You’d love them to start the final like the game finished the game against Dublin but I don’t think they have that in them. It was a weak/slow start against Galway too.

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The senior game is virtually impossible to analyse – at least rationally.

Kerry were the team who were scoring goals for free this year. They hit Tyrone for six when the sides clashes in the league in Killarney and scored seven in the Munster championship.

Failed

Meanwhile, Tyrone had managed one goal in the Ulster series, but hit three against Kerry while the Munster champions failed to raise a single green flag.

Secondly, Kerry dismantled Tyrone’s kick-out strategy. They pressed up on Niall Morgan’s restarts and forced him to go long but Kerry dominated here for the most part and still they lost.

Again, it defied logic.

Down in Kerry we will have a long winter to reflect on what happened, but I guess it was set up for a classic ambush, and fair dues to Tyrone.

Kerry came into the game completely untested. The last time they were seriously challenged was against Dublin in the league last May. Nobody laid a glove on them in the Munster series, and they were allowed play the games entirely on their own terms.

They looked good but it wasn’t the ideal preparation for a battle-hardened side who had to beat two Division 1 sides on their way to the semi-final. So Kerry were in a lose-lose situation.

The five week break since the Munster final did them no favour either and all the talk about Covid being widespread in the Tyrone camp appeared to impact more on Kerry than it did on Tyrone, but I will deal with that aspect of the story presently.

Listen, at the end of the day we can talk until we are blue in the face about match-ups, games plans and strength and conditioning but the bottom line is that Tyrone wanted this win more than Kerry.

They were hungrier, fitter, fresher, sharper and more organised.

Kerry waited around for it to happen; Tyrone made it happen – none more so than in extra time, when they grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck and scored 1-2.

Tyrone won virtually all the individual battles bar David Clifford v Ronan McNamee and their substitutes made a far bigger impact than the Kerry replacements.

Cathal McShane scored 1-3, whereas the only Kerry substitute to score was Diarmuid O’Connor with a point in extra time.

Tyrone repeatedly put their bodies on the line; Kerry didn’t and that was the difference. They had more desire to get over the finish line than Kerry.

The Tyrone management team of Brian Dooher and Feargal Logan have played a blinder all season and have transformed the way the teams plays compared to the Mickey Harte era.

Tyrone now play with the handbrake off – of course they are still defensive but they now play like a team which has been liberated.

They were happy to talk to RTÉ before and after the game. So, no more nonsense about bans.

I don’t want to dwell on the Covid-19 issue least I be accused of wanting to make excuses for Kerry loss.

However, Tyrone pulled a stroke on this one. They played a high stakes game of poker and won hands down.

They lobbed a grenade into the laps of the GAA and Kerry two weeks ago, when they said they wouldn’t be able to field a team if the semi-final went ahead as scheduled last Saturday.

The GAA and Kerry blinked and Tyrone got their way.

There ought to a module in business management schools on their tactics and negotiation skills.

There wasn’t even a hint that any of the Tyrone players yesterday had been impacted in the slightest by Covid.

So, there is only two possible explanation for what unfolded.

Either the Tyrone squad have defied medical science and are able to run better and faster after getting over the virus or the Covid situation was not as bad as they made it out to be.

So went did it go wrong for Kerry?

During normal time between them David Clifford and Seán O’Shea had scored 0-15 out of their 0-17 total. The other four forwards or the replacement made no tangible impact.

Though the margin in the end was just one point Kerry could have no complaints, no major refereeing decision went against them, there was no hard-luck stories; there were two 10-minute periods when they had an extra man and they still couldn’t win.

There is an emperor has no clothes theme about this Kerry dÊbâcle. This was supposed to be our golden generation of players who did so much at minor level. But these players have now failed to deliver at senior level for the third year in a row.

There is a Groundhog Day feeling to what has befallen them. They failed to press home their advantage against Dublin in the 2019 drawn All-Ireland; they were beaten in extra time by Cork in last year’s Munster semi-final and lost again in extra time yesterday.

The same mistakes continue to be made: wrong options taken, the lack of on-field leaders and rash decisions taken at critical moments in the game.

In last year’s Munster semi-final Tommy Walsh failed to deal with a high ball into the square and Mark Keane scores the winning goal for Cork.

Yesterday another high ball into the Kerry square. Jack Barry fumbles the catch and swings a leg at it and it goes straight to Conor McKenna who scores what was effectively the winning goal.

This was Peter Keane’s third year in charge. Ultimately, the players didn’t deliver for him. But he was asked to add to his management team and he recruited an adventurer/mountaineer.

We’re back at the foot of the mountain and no one to blame but ourselves.