AUGUST football in Croke Park is often referred to as the business end of the Championship.
Knock-out football brings the best out of the top teams, but you won’t get great odds backing the four favourites this weekend.
It seems a strange decision bringing the Tyrone v Sligo and Donegal v Galway games to Croke Park.
It will be a good experience for some of the younger players to play at Headquarters. However, playing in an empty Croke Park is a strange experience.
Everyone deserves the opportunity to play there. I just think we would get a better atmosphere playing in a smaller venue and saving Croke Park for the quarter-finals. The GAA will do well to get more than 20,000 supporters through the turnstiles on Saturday.
Tyrone’s meeting with Sligo brings back bad memories from my first appearance in Croke Park.
Although that game was 13 years ago, I’ve no doubt Mickey Harte will remind his players about it in the build-up.
The defeat to the Yeatsmen ended up being a defining moment for Tyrone football. The team received some serious criticism in the aftermath and much of it was deserved.
Many of the younger players in our team, including myself, assumed we would easily translate our underage success to senior level.
Some harsh lessons were learned that day and the team became much more battle-hardened as a result. Mickey Harte led a major transformation of the team in the 12 months that followed.
There have been similar questions asked of Tyrone over the last year.
I don’t see Sligo producing what would be an even bigger upset this weekend.
The two areas where I was critical of Tyrone last year was the lack of physicality they brought to the game and their laboured attacking play.
There has been a noticeable change in the level of physicality the team plays with in 2015. In last year’s Championship Tyrone were regularly bullied by their opponents.
However, this year they matched Donegal and have shown more aggression than their Qualifier opponents.
In the second half against Meath and, more recently, against Tipperary, there has also been a significant improvement in the pace of their attacking play.
There is no doubt the Qualifier draw has been kind to Tyrone and it has allowed them to build some momentum.
Limerick, Meath and Tipperary were all very winnable games and the second half performance against Tipperary was the best Tyrone have played to date.
The challenge for the Sligo management team will be trying to build the confidence of the players after their hammering in the Connacht final against Mayo.
Tyrone need to start the game quickly to expose the brittle confidence of Sligo, but I don’t envisage a more attacking approach.
Meath were also there for the taking early in the game and Tyrone didn’t go at them to expose any mental frailties.
Sligo will put a greater focus on improving their defensive play after conceding 6-25 against Mayo. They really struggled with the early ball inside to Aidan O’Shea and Cillian O’Connor, as well as the physical power of the Mayo running game.
Tyrone should run out easy winners to set up the real test of Monaghan or Mayo. I thought Fermanagh would struggle this year, but Pete McGrath has done a fantastic job in helping them reach an All-Ireland quarter-final.
They surprised me getting promotion from Division Three and they have continued to improve throughout the Championship. They were superb against Westmeath, even with Sean Quigley being relatively quiet.
Undoubtedly they face the toughest task of everyone coming through the Qualifiers as they travel to Croke Park to face Dublin.
It is difficult to see them providing the Dubs with a real test as Dublin have shown throughout the Leinster Championship that they are the team to beat this year.
They are so far ahead of the chasing pack in Leinster that they will have been able to tailor their training to ensure they peak in August and September.
Westmeath did show that Dublin still struggle to break down packed defences. The worry for Jim Gavin will be that a team like Westmeath were able to change their tactics and be relatively successful at nullifying Dublin’s attacking threat.
If they come up against better sides who have been playing that style all year, rather than the two weeks of preparation Westmeath had, then they may not be the free-scoring team we have become accustomed to seeing.
The area that has impressed me most, though, has been Dublin’s defence. They have yet to concede a goal in this year’s Championship and are conceding an average of just 10 points per game.
Fermanagh will need Quigley to have a major influence and Tomas Corrigan to continue his form from the Westmeath match. However, it’s difficult to see those two getting enough space to out-score the Dublin attack.
Of all this weekend’s matches, Donegal versus Galway appears the most likely source of an upset. The big question surrounding Donegal is: how will they react to their Ulster final loss to Monaghan?
The loss of Karl Lacey is a big concern, and they don’t have the strength in depth to cover the loss of their key players.
Although Donegal created numerous scoring chances in the Ulster final, their play lacked its usual drive and intensity. If Patrick McBrearty doesn’t have the space to win ball in front, then the Donegal support game must be effective.
Once the pace of their game drops down a notch or two, the attacking play suffers. They should still have enough to overcome Galway who haven’t beaten a top team for a number of years.
Donegal showed that they still have some fight left in them as they never quit against Monaghan.
I don’t think Galway are strong enough defensively to cause an upset and they haven’t been putting up big scores at the other end either.
Donegal should pull away to win in the final 15 minutes.
