MAYO’S concerns over Oisin Mullin and Padraig O’Hora would remind you of the time the famous tightrope walker Charles Blondin took on Dublin himself.
The French entertainer, most famous for crossing the gorge at Niagara Falls, was performing on the South Circular Road in Dublin in 1860 when the rope broke.
He survived but two workers on the scaffolding that collapsed as a result didn’t, falling to their deaths.
Mayo are forever walking the tightrope in Dublin’s fair city. We watch them through our fingers but we keep coming back to watch them again. And each time you think they’ve made it, they find a way to fall.
Their balance this evening is almost wholly dependent on the fitness of Mullin and O’Hora.
O’Hora went off after taking a belt to the ribs in the Connacht final, receiving several minutes of treatment before being replaced by Rory Brickenden.
In recent days, stories have emerged about a possible quad injury for Mullin.
Kerry’s re-emergence has been, in part, credited to the fact that they never abandoned their principles, even when things weren’t going well.
Mayo could claim it to an even greater extent. Their ability to put their noses against the greatest team of all time and not blink was the reason they were there in the first place.
Higgins, Boyle, Vaughan, Keegan, Barrett, it’s as if they were poured into the one mould. A new brand that could attack with all the ferociousness and quality they brought to the art of one-to-one defending.
Even when their liquid middle would get exposed and they’d concede goals and get publically hammered for it in the era of double-sweepers, Mayo would persist with what they knew best.
As a group, their sands ran down at the wrong time. Those men in their 2014-2017 prime against the current Dublin attack? There’s only one winner.
But just as Dublin are trying to rebuild their attacking arsenal, Mayo are having to replenish their defensive stocks too. That’s partly why the door gapes for Kerry.
The problem with Mullin and O’Hora potentially missing the game this evening is that they knock the whole team completely out of sync.
That Mayo couldn’t achieve that balance was why they lost last year’s All-Ireland final, and indeed why they’d struggled in 2018 and 2019.
Lee Keegan spent much of the previous two years in the full-back line. He played corner-back and picked up Paddy Small in December.
Paddy Durcan has arguably usurped his team-mate as their most potent force from half-back. He played the first half of last year’s final at full-back, marking Ciaran Kilkenny.
Eoghan McLaughlin couldn’t get into his first big game against Niall Scully, Stephen Coen is a different player on the other wing and in Oisin Mullin lay the problem that Dublin solved at half-time.
He played centre-back in the first half and was brilliant against Con O’Callaghan. With Durcan off injured and Keegan taking a heavy belt at one stage, Dessie Farrell pushing O’Callaghan to full-forward took Mullin with him.
Keegan came out but they needed the two of them in the half-back line to give it any real punch. Mayo’s attacking game simply ran out of legs, and Dublin were able to smother them without much kicking or screaming.
In the eight months since, Mayo have made further significant improvements. Tommy Conroy and Ryan O’Donoghue are like men who’ve been eating steak three times a day since. They will be more confident now going into the contact that Dublin will always bring.
O’Donoghue had been another key fulcrum in the first half of the 2020 final, but once Eoin Murchan moved on to him, it shut another key link in the Mayo attacking plan.
Of course we all thought they were done for the day Cillian O’Connor damaged his Achilles. And that will have an impact here. Michael Fitzsimons will be free to mark Conroy, and Dublin will be able to pick between Jonny Cooper and John Small for Aidan O’Shea.
But mostly it’s about how Mayo could find themselves in the same hole as in last year’s second half if O’Hora and Mullin aren’t fit.
At least one of Lee Keegan and Paddy Durcan would have to go into the full-back line, if not both. There’s less interchangeability in the current Dublin attack though, meaning we’re unlikely to see Kilkenny and O’Callaghan inside together.
If O’Hara and Mullin are fit, it all matches up perfectly. O’Hora takes his pick of Costello and Rock, while Mullin plays full-back on O’Callaghan.
Unlike last year, that leaves them Durcan and Keegan in the half-back line along with probably Eoghan McLaughlin again, who did enough in the second half against Galway to suggest he’ll get back into the starting XV.
Matthew Ruane will have the biggest test of his new-found leadership against James McCarthy, while James Horan will undoubtedly be tempted to put Diarmuid O’Connor on Brian Fenton again after the Ballintubber man’s brilliant first half in last year’s decider.
If Mullin and O’Hora are fit, the balance of Mayo’s defence is completely different.
Without them, it’s another hard fall from the tightrope that awaits.
