The Micks hate success. They prefer a losing plucky underdog.
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The lad who reffed the hurling final was a former teammate of the Waterford manager and coach.
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Thatâs it. Youâd think theyâd be able to find someone amongst 75% of the population to avoid such a scenario.
The flipside there is now the pressure is on refs to go after Kilkenny so they are not seen to be in any way intimidated by them, the bigger then name the better. The sending offs of Shefflin in '13 and Ritchie Hogan are prime examples of this.
Do Mayo have any chance? Iâd love to see them win it, like most people, but hard to see it really.
This Dublin team just look unstoppable. Even Lee Keegan doesnât look as rampant or marauding this year. The defence was so porous against Tipp, hard to see it being rectified in a fortnight.
Coldrick is a decent ref, heâs put in an unenviable position by being appointed for this one but strange refereeing appointments are nothing new to the GAA.
Dublin to have the 7-in-a-row wrapped up next July.
I think that the proverbial âMayo need to be at their best and Dublin at their worstâ comes into play. Often Iâve written off Mayo against Dublin in the past and they have proven me wrong. But I cannot see it this year.
Last yearâs semi final is the best yardstick. Mayo were excellent in the first half, took all their scores had McCaffrey quietened with Durcan. Then at the start of the second half Dublin came like a train lead by Fenton with two peaches from OâCallaghan and it was game over mid way in the second half.
I donât think there is anything in this Mayo team that can change this happening at the very least.
What would give hope is how comfortably they took care of Roscommon and Tipp. Last year they lost to Roscommon in Castlebar. Theyâve brought through a few more younger options while retaining most of last years nucleus. I think Mayo are better than in 2019 and in James Horan have a very good manager.
Mayo are a beautiful people. May God smile down on them this weekend. Be a wonderful end to a year of years.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CIxw-DZD_6U/?igshid=12i6qstijqjuf
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Hopefully, but divine intervention is needed at this stage for Mayo to win
Are they better than they were in 2016? Or even as good? I donât think so.
They are better up front. Maybe even much better. But Iâd be worried about them at midfield and defence.
The Dubs havenât had a game yet this year though and I donât care how good you are thatâs not good prep. Thereâs no one better than Mayo and Horan to go toe to toe with them either. While theyâve never beaten them in championship in recent times at least they wonât hold the same fear of them as everyone else.
A good start and who knows.
Yerra sure Mayo may as well stay at home
Youâre forgetting about the ligendary A v B games
Care to paste that up?
Thatâs actually a good a readâŠheâs spot on about tipp goal chances in last game âŠit could be best thing to happen if mayo learn from it âŠ
I donât agree.
Kevin McLoughlin
Aidan OâShea
Diarmuid OâConnor
Jason Doherty
Andy Moran
Cillian OâConnor ©
Kevin McLoughlin
Ryan OâDonoghue
Diarmuid OâConnor
Tommy Conroy
Aidan OâShea
Cillian OâConnor
Conroy and OâDonoghue better than Moran and Doherty? Not for me. Moran was a marquee forward and what theyâve added doesnât make up for his loss.
They no longer have the dominance they had at midfield, and the backs appear weaker, Duncan appears to be the only one charging up the field and scoring whereas before they had waves of players pouring forward.
I donât know that much about football but they donât look as good as they were to me.
In the build-up to the hurling final, you could see a lot of people convincing themselves that this was Waterfordâs time. People love an underdog story and sure everything else has been mad this year so why not? Then Limerick came out and told the underdog there was a trip to the vet in its future. No return ticket, either.
Three days out, the football final feels a bit similar. I donât think anyone truly believes that Mayo are going to win but you can feel people trying to talk themselves into it here and there. Mayo have beaten Galway, who would have been considered a contender. Dublin have beaten the worst team in Division One and three Division Two teams. If it was a horse race, youâd be saying Mayo have the better formline.
But when we call a spade a spade, we all know how far Dublin are ahead here. If Mayo pull it off, it will be the biggest shock in an All-Ireland final in 30 years. Iâm not saying it canât be done â every game is winnable and every team is playable. James Horan wonât be taking a backward step anyway.
When the two teams met in last yearâs All-Ireland semi-final, there were two major issues that killed off Mayoâs chances at the start of the second half. One of them was Lee Keegan marking Con OâCallaghan in the full-back line and the other was Dublinâs annihilation of Mayoâs kickouts. For Mayo to make any shape on Saturday night, thatâs where they have to start. Getting beaten is forgivable. Getting beaten the same way two years in-a-row isnât.
Letâs start with Keegan. Dublin games have been the making of Lee Keegan over the years. His battles with Diarmuid Connolly and CiarĂĄn Kilkenny marked him out as one of the true leaders of the team. It wasnât just that he shut them down, it was the manner of it. I watched other players and teams stand off them and be careful not to over-commit. Keegan said to hell with that and got in amongst them.
loved getting physical with them, he loved rattling into them and showing them no respect. And once he had them on the back foot, he loved driving on and getting up for a score, even a goal or two. There was a brilliant kind of reckless disregard about him, as if every play was a statement. Iâm here, Iâm going to ruin your day and Iâm going to love every minute of it. Dublin donât find themselves having to put up with that sort of disrespect very often.
Man-marker
But when Keegan is playing in the full-back line, he has to cut back on some of that. I think it inhibits him. Being a man-marker in front of your own goal is a different job to being a man-marker out around the middle. Thereâs no reward for being reckless in there. Umpires are watching you like a hawk, your man is looking around for justice with every contact. Worst of all, you donât have as many chances to make the opposition feel they have to worry about you.
Why would you go solving the other teamâs problems for them? To my eye, thereâs only downside to keeping Keegan in the full-back line. Mayo found that when Con OâCallaghan skinned him for two goals last year. It turned Keegan from being one of their greatest assets into suddenly being a liability. Dublin went from having to plan for how to deal with Keegan to using him as a springboard. No better way to demoralise a team than to use one of their star players for sport.
Now, Horan is no fool. Nobody knows a horse better than its own trainer and heâd be silly to be listening to fellas leaning over the rails and telling him what he should and shouldnât be doing. Maybe he has spent the year working with Keegan specifically with this job in mind and maybe Keegan is coming back to let Con OâCallaghan know that nobody takes him to the cleaners twice. One thing is for sure - if it goes like it did last year, Dublin are home and hosed.
We can say much the same when it comes to the Mayo kickouts. Think of Mayoâs two biggest hammerings in 2019 â Kerry in Killarney and Dublin in Croke Park. The common denominator between the two was that both teams pushed right up on the Mayo kickout and caused wreck. Is there way for Mayo to win on Saturday if it happens a third time? None that I can see.
Mayoâs first job is to find ways to secure the kickout. Clarke is 37-years-old and has been an intercounty goalkeeper since he was 19. His kicking style is set in stone. He doesnât have that laser drive that Stephen Cluxton or Shaun Patton has. Heâs like a golfer that doesnât have the carry to bomb one over the full-court press. His default kick is a loopy, hanging one that gives the opposition something to attack.
Itâs the only weakness in his game. Heâs the best shot-stopper one-on-one and heâs definitely at least Cluxtonâs equal under the high ball. In just about every area you need, heâs the best goalkeeper you could want. But Dublin are like water, they find a way to seep into your weakest place. So they will definitely attack his kickout.
If there is one upside to the empty stadium from Clarkeâs point of view, itâs that he wonât have the big Dublin crowd putting pressure on him. When I see goalies hurrying and changing their mind with a big crowd roaring at them, I always think of Kojak in the car with the fella desperately trying to turn the key and get it started. Try this, try that, try the other. In the end, Kojak just goes, âYou flooded it, you turkey.â
The squeeze
It might be my imagination but it seems that there has been less flooding and fewer turkeys in this championship. Goalkeepers either get their kick away quickly or they take their time knowing that half the stadium wonât be pressuring the ref. So Clarke at least has that going for him.
But he will need more. Mayo will need to be ready for the squeeze coming on from Dublin â because you can be sure it will come. They will need to vary their kickouts, using three or four different designed plays to keep possession. Iâm not saying itâs easy or even that they will be able to do it. But if they donât, itâs goodnight.
So letâs say Mayo right those two wrongs from last year. Have they a chance in that scenario? Maybe. They do have a few things going for them that shouldnât be ignored. For one, theyâre suited to winter football. Obviously, the Dubs are suited to any kind of football so I wouldnât try to make out that Mayo have a big advantage or anything. But it could be a factor.
Think of the best Mayo performances over the past decade and what comes to mind? Chaos. Intensity. Mayo being best tacklers in the game and turning Dublin over, getting in their faces, taking them to their limit, the ball spilling all over the place. Winter conditions make that kind of football more likely.
Look at the Croke Park pitch during the hurling final â for the first time I can remember, it is cutting up under all the recent use. That might cause three or four balls a half to bounce somewhere they wouldnât have normally. That brings that little bit more randomness to the game. The Dubs are all about control. Randomness isnât what they want.
One thing that really struck me in both semi-finals was the ease with which both winning teams dispossessed the opposition. Dublin turned Cavan over like they were seniors playing under-16s. And Mayo did the same to Tipperary. If we knew that Dublin were going in here as hands-down the physically dominant team, Mayo would have no chance. But thatâs not the case. In this respect at least, they take Dublin on as equals.
In a weird kind of way, the other thing Mayo have going for them is that they gave away so many goal chances against Tipperary. Horan and his backroom team have had time to do the analysis and work out why it happened so often and so easily. If thereâs ever a good time to get that sort of going over, itâs in a semi-final when youâre double-digits ahead. It scares the life out of everybody without actually being life-threatening.
Now, maybe thatâs just who they are. Maybe their defence is too open, maybe their full-back line gets pulled out of position too easily, maybe some of their newer players gets caught ball-watching at the wrong time. And if thatâs the case on Saturday, they wonât be All-Ireland champions. But Tipp did them a big favour by not lying down when the semi-final was long gone. It means at least Mayo are going in here forewarned.
But look, this is probably all a bit of straw-clutching when it comes right down to it. There has been no evidence that Dublin are letting up or that theyâre happy to stop at five-in-a-row. Theyâre ravenous for more medals and most of them have no idea how to lose to Mayo.
Winners
Guys like Brian Fenton, John Small, Con OâCallaghan, Niall Scully â theyâre well used to hearing loads of talk about this and that when it comes to Mayo and then shaking hands when itâs over as winners. Thanks for the game, lads. Fair play, ye pushed us all the way.
I heard a story during the week about a couple of the Dublin players at the end of the Cavan game. One of them didnât pass to the other and they spent the last five or six minutes of the game giving out to each other. They were handing down a 15-point beating in an All-Ireland semi-final and all that was on their mind was to get on each otherâs case. They live by their own standards. Cavan were irrelevant to them.
And thereâs every possibility Mayo will be too. Horan will send out a team that will work like dogs, that will be physically up to it, that has a scoring threat inside, that wonât be one bit afraid of Dublin or the occasion. And they could still get beaten out the gate.
For what itâs worth, I donât think thatâs how it will turn out. I can definitely see Mayo making a game of it. But if youâre predicting a Mayo win, youâre not being honest or realistic.
The Dubs to make it six-in-a-row. Nothing else makes sense.
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A good article by Ă SĂ©, as usual. Wonât sit with the TFK cognoscenti that like to scoff at ex players columns though, they know it all and what would multiple all Ireland winners know heh heh heh.
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I think his point about people talking and thinking Mayo up to having a chance is a good one. You see it a lot with big fights. A long buildup allows people to convince themselves the underdog could win and they part with money (aided by clever hype-packages).
I personally donât give Mayo a prayer here.
You got some issues man, I think you need some counseling
To help your ass from bouncing off the walls when you get down some