James Horan and his team can be very proud of what they have achieved so far, a Connacht title and success over Cork not based on fancy individuality that can so often lead to failure, but on the values of hard work, good skill, a cohesive team ethic, dedication and application. So you could say that this year’s targets have been comfortably met. However I know that neither Mayo management nor players will be content to sit pretty on one rung from the penultimate but rather will be striving to produce another Trojan effort and move a step closer towards attaining the ultimate prize.
They will now want more and you know what, if the team can replicate the same kind of intensity as that displayed in the quarter final – but this time over the full 70 minutes and not a second less - they could very well beat Kerry. OK, it is probably premature to start thinking of open top buses just yet, but Kerry are not nearly as formidable as they were a few years ago and I, like many others around the place, feel that Mayo have a great chance of causing an upset.
If I was a member of this Mayo team, I don’t think I would feel any undue pressure going into Sunday’s encounter with Kerry. Win and we are in an All-Ireland final, lose, and well sure we weren’t supposed to win anyway. However I expect that all who leave on the team bus for Croker on Sunday will have only one thing on their minds and that is victory over the Southern champions. Kerry may drop their guard a little which could possibly present openings for a hungry Mayo team.
Is the favourites tag based on history or the present?
Kerry also come into this game as huge favourites for reasons which I have not quite fathomed yet. Purely on the basis of what we have witnessed so far this season the gap between Kerry and Mayo does look very bridgeable. Jack O’Connor would much rather that this game was an even money shot rather than the one to four odds on a Kerry victory that are available in some quarters. No team likes to have the entire GAA world making pre-match assumptions about the result before a ball is even kicked. The majority of teams in this country, irrespective of how great they might be, do not like carrying the favourites tag into fixtures. It can play tricks on the mind. With this in mind the Kerry manager’s current environment may not be all that comfortable.
Last weekend in Westport Mayo spent time poring over videos looking for weak links in this Kerry team and hopefully have identified quite a few. I watched them up close at Croke Park in their victorious encounter with Limerick two weeks ago. They won that game in a canter as Limerick did not put up much of a challenge, but to me Kerry did not look like potential All-Ireland champions that day. And remember they have not beaten anyone outside of Munster to reach this stage of the competition. So they are coming into this match a little unsure of themselves.
Another concern for Kerry is the fact that quite a few of the ‘marquee’ players are just not playing well this year. The Gooch for example has not played anything close to his true potential in any of the games. I am not sure if the role of captaincy has weighed a bit heavily on him but he is not frightening the daylights out of corner backs like he once did. ‘Star’ Donaghy scored one fisted point in their victory over Limerick and, for me, he is another who just is not sparkling at the moment. Jack O’Connor will be keeping his fingers crossed that these two are fully tuned for battle. His biggest concern however is at defence and midfield. Both Tomas and Mark Ó Se are superb footballers and excellent defenders, but the rest of the defence look a little hesitant and unsure. There are question marks over Tom O’Sullivan at corner back, Eoin Brosnan is not a natural centre back and Eoin O’Mahony, at wing back, appears to have played his best football. And the Kerry midfield no longer frightens the daylights out of most opposing teams any more, particularly since the retirement of Darragh Ó Se. Anthony Maher and Eoin Brosnan are good footballers, but are they better than the Cork pair of Lynch and Walsh? I don’t think so.
I do not get the impression that this Mayo side will be unnerved by the occasion on Sunday. The current side has a lot of young talented pacy players who play with a free spirit and abandon. James Horan encouraged a great performance from his charges in the victory over Cork yet I believe there is more in the team. Players with poor enough form up to that point were really inspired by the occasion and by the very fact that they were written off by everyone prior to the game. There was no pressure on Mayo against Cork and it presented the perfect opportunity to have a right crack at beating them. The other thing was simply the desire to do themselves justice, and indeed Mayo displayed a fierce warrior spirit and enormous fitness levels to overcome the All Ireland Champions. Sunday will require more of the same, ie, sticky, focused defending and willingness for hard work over the 70 minutes. Let us all hope that they can again find the collective experience, the drive, and ambition to take the game to the favourites.
How can Mayo win it?
In the victory over Cork all 15 players and the subs used played with enormous confidence. But it takes a few special performances in every match to swing a victory. The real heartbeat of the Mayo team in the quarter final was at midfield. Both Aidan and Seamus O’Shea were exceptional. Seamus in particular has brought a huge energy and a huge honesty to his play, and there is no doubt if he and the younger brother can manage something similar we will have Kerry on the back foot. Andy Moran has arguably been Mayo’s best forward this year. He has an enormous positive effect on the rest of the forwards. He is a study in perpetual motion and he rarely does non-work days – if he has a bad day on Sunday, it certainly will not be for the lack of effort because this lad just wants to win, irrespective of who the opposition is. In fact all around the field Mayo have the strength, mobility, and aerial agility to dispute possession more effectively than in the recent past. While I realise it is asking a lot of the team to reproduce the intensity of effort and quality of their last outing l am, nevertheless, confident that Mayo are well capable of causing another upset at the bookies.
