ALL-IRELAND SFC QUARTER-FINAL GROUP ONE: Meath v Mayo (tomorrow, Croke Park, 2pm, live on RTE2)
RUDE health or life support – those are the two possible outcomes for Meath and Mayo ahead of their Croke Park meeting tomorrow afternoon.
After opening-round losses for both, the winner here will see their Super 8 campaign sparked back to life. The loser, however, will be chasing a miracle going into the final round of fixtures.
Their margins of defeat in round one were 10 points (Mayo v Kerry) and nine points (Meath v Donegal), but while the outcomes were very similar the tales of the two games were not.
Andy McEntee’s side went to Ballybofey and really put it up to Donegal before the home team finished strongly. Mayo went to Killarney and were swamped from start to finish.
It was hard to escape the feeling that James Horan’s side looked tired after a gruelling Qualifier series against Down, Armagh and Galway. They will have a week off before welcoming Donegal to Castlebar in round three, but how they could have done with that before this encounter.
Having their fate in their own hands is all they will want heading into that Donegal match, and the side have had a brilliant habit of bouncing back when they look on the verge of elimination.
For that to happen some things will need to improve from last Sunday in what can be an unforgiving arena for tired legs.
The obvious one is their restarts. An aggressive Kerry press forced David Clarke to go long often and Adrian Spillane and, in particular, David Moran made hay.
Meath are also likely to emulate Kerry in pulling a few men back knowing that all summer Mayo have been unwilling to commit one way or another to going man-to-man or dropping players back.
Against Down they jumped between the two throughout the game and until Colm Boyle dropped back as defensive cover, the Armagh inside line were running riot in their Qualifier meeting.
Their decision to crowd the middle third last week left space inside for David Clifford and for line-breakers like Stephen O’Brien to make headway with direct running.
Meath have a similar style of attack to Kerry albeit lower in quality. Mickey Newman, who now has 5-55 to his name this season, can act as the ball winner inside with the likes of Cillian O’Sullivan and James Conlan providing the running options to support him.
Donegal struggled in the second half when Meath ran directly at them and the Ulster outfit are much more adept at closing that avenue of attack down than Mayo are.
As a result we can expect plenty of pain for the Mayo defence tomorrow and it will be up to their attack to bail them out.
There was a nice ring to Cillian O’Connor (23-285 in 52 games) breaking Colm Cooper’s all-time Championship scoring record in Killarney last week and he will be expected to lead the way again. Darren Coen will move into Allstar contention if he can deliver another big showing.
Diarmuid O’Connor remains out though as does Matthew Ruane. Paddy Durcan looks set to be another notable absence from defence after a quad injury forced him out of the Kerry game.
Meath deserve credit for getting back on the horse after their hammering at the hands of Dublin in the Leinster final.
A return of 0-4 was scarcely believable considering the possession they had but they had but they managed to hold out against a game Clare outfit in the following week’s Qualifier while they were undeserving of a nine-point defeat in Donegal.
Their second half was particularly pleasing even though they tailed off. Gavin McCoy had a goal rightly ruled out for square ball before Newman converted a penalty soon after. Further points from Bryan McMahon, Bryan Menton and Darragh Campion actually moved them ahead while Shane McEntee blasted a great goal chance the wrong side of the crossbar.
You can’t say a side came close to a shock when they lost by nine points but Meath did enough last week to suggest that they are stronger than some people may have realised. The big Croke Park pitch could be a blessing for them and they have the speed to really leave Mayo’s season on life support.
