All-Ireland SFC quarter-final: Kerry v Mayo (tomorrow, 4pm, Croke Park, live on RTÉ2)
KERRY: forwards, goals, big scores, fluidity, brilliance, Paddy Tally’s fixed the defence.
Mayo: not what they were, no forwards, nobody for Clifford, too open, mentally weak in Croke Park.
To paraphrase Amber Heard’s attorney, have I read that right?
If you can avoid the Kerry Yerra Brigade, the above is how most of the rest of the country views this game.
The only real tangible justification for it is the league final mauling dished out by the Kingdom back in March that while offering some clues for tomorrow, is really only a faint outline of what we might expect.
While there was no Sean O’Shea for Kerry, Mayo were without Oisin Mullin, Paddy Durcan, Eoghan McLaughlin, Diarmuid and Cillian O’Connor.
It showed. The first four in particular, along with Lee Keegan and Mattie Ruane, are the men that make Mayo’s running game tick. And for a team that doesn’t really have a kicking game, they kinda need their running game.
The big problem they have now is their two major injury concerns. Hopes that Ryan O’Donoghue will recover from a groin injury have faded. There is also some doubt over Oisin Mullin, who came back from a hamstring injury to play a match-winning role against Kildare.
O’Donoghue would be too big of a loss for James Horan’s side to overcome. He got the better of serious battles with Tom O’Sullivan in both league meetings this season, and he now carries pretty much all of their reliable threat from open play.
If he’s not fit, Kerry will win for sure.
James Carr is capable of genius but displays it far too infrequently to think you can count on it tomorrow.
Jack Carney has grown into the full-forward slot the last few weeks. He’s green but it suits Mayo to have him in there. Tadhg Morley and Jason Foley will protect that space no matter who’s in it. They might quieten Carney but that could create spaces for others.
We must remember that Oisin Mullin being absent for last year’s semi-final against Dublin was the cause for most predictions going against Mayo. Yet they coped, and ironically coped much better in the second half when they brought the chaos back.
Dublin’s forwards saw far less of the ball because rather than being preoccupied with the spaces Kilkenny and Rock and O’Callaghan wanted to play in, Mayo had nothing to lose and went after the supply instead.
Padraig O’Hora has found himself out of the team the last few weeks but expect him to start here. Mayo need combative, aggressive defenders and he’s as combative and aggressive as it gets.
The big question is two-pronged. Does David Clifford start? And if he does, who picks him up?
Jack O’Connor said at the start of the week that he “should be ok” after missing out completely on the Munster final with what seems to be a calf injury.
He has been what Kerry haven’t been in recent years – better in Croke Park than on the southern patches.
Painting by numbers can lend falseness to the picture, but there are clues contained within.
You’re going back eight games and five years to the drawn 2017 semi-final between these two since Kerry last scored more than a single goal in a Croke Park championship game.
Their headquarters record in those five years is two wins, four draws and two defeats.
In defeat by Tyrone last year, Kerry were ultra-efficient in their point-taking, moreso than the winners were, but conceded three goals.
They were turned over 35 times in 90 minutes and when Tyrone squeezed the space in the middle of their goal, Kerry hadn’t the running game to pick holes.
You can look at it that rather than fixing the attacking problems, they’ve gone after the defence first. They might still only score the 0-17 they had at the end of normal time that day, but the way Kerry are defending now, Tyrone’s 2-11 would be 0-11, and that would do the same job.
Yet when the same two teams met on the last day of the league this year, Tyrone won. Kerry were turned over four times in their last five attacks, scored 0-1 off a feast of late possession, and lost the game.
Operating in the tight spaces remains a big question mark over them.
Their attack was the best in the league and so was their defence, but that was the same as in 2021, when they finished their league campaign by putting 6-15 on Tyrone.
Basically all we know is that they will win an All-Ireland some day soon, and that given their age profile that standing at the door knocking now is just about on schedule, but none of that guarantees they will win this weekend.
Mayo have plodded through the qualifiers and looked half-gone against Kildare but when it was needed, there was enough steel about them to rescue it.
There was a very pessimistic air around Castlebar before their win over Monaghan and while the two performances haven’t helped lift it, the knowledge that they tend to play their best football from here on will hearten them.
Marking Paudie Clifford is almost as much an issue for them as marking David. Paudie was outstanding in that league final too. It’s very un-Mayo to go with a sweeper but given the way Kerry will play, leaving Tadhg Morley back, it would seem remiss of James Horan to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Stephen Coen’s form is picking up a bit after a middling season and playing him as the covering man might be the ideal role against a Kingdom attack with the ability to really hurt Mayo down the middle.
Mayo might not have the same big scoring power in their attack but they never have. Something Dublin figured out well, particularly in the 2020 final, was that Keegan and Durcan are a lot less threatening if you can make them play in the full-back line.
They’ll always create a big percentage of their scores out of half-back and midfield, rely on Cillian O’Connor to nail the frees and hope that a couple of their forwards can pick up enough else to get them to 16 or 17 points. After that, it’s about how often their backs can win their battles.
So much about the league final looks like a lie. Mayo have always had the ability to bring something to these games. The only big championship tie in recent history they’ve looked out of at half-time was last year against Dublin, and they came back to win in extra-time.
Kerry have no history of plundering the goals in Croke Park championship games that would make this the mismatch many are presuming it to be.
A team that looks and feels and plays like the ultimate Croke Park team have shown no evidence yet to back that up.
It is in them, and we can see it in them, but it has to come out of them to be any use.
Mayo will feel they can ask the right questions and that maybe Jack O’Connor doesn’t yet have the answers.
But Kerry, eight years with no All-Ireland, waiting patiently on this team to come of age, simply have to win tomorrow.
And win they will, with very little to spare.
