THE first of the All Ireland football semifinals has presented us with a fairly balanced contest and one which, ultimately, may come down to which of the two sides in action tomorrow displays the greater hunger for a return to Croke Park in September.

There seems little doubt that the required determination will be present in the Kerry team for this side will know that their county has sat for far too long in the wilderness and they will know that this is a fine opportunity to make it to an All Ireland final.

There is, however, a false perception in Kerry that because the team are playing the Connacht champions that this match will provide an easy route to the final, and that may prove to be the rock on which Paidi O Se's men end up perishing. The fact of the matter is that at the moment standards in the west are improving while, by and large, they are dropping in Munster. As they go into this weekend's clash there is a great deal less between these two sides than many in the Kingdom would like to think.

For Mayo the disappointments of 1992 and `93, when the county reached this stage of the championship only to suffer major disappointments, will provide ample motivation, while John Maughan's presence will, in itself, be a considerable boon to morale. I have seen at first hand the impact that he had on Clare football in his time there and we can be sure that his Mayo team will be fit, disciplined and well organised for the task at hand tomorrow, while they will have made sure that they are familiar with their opponents' strengths and weaknesses.

The Mayo manager may also feel, with some justification, that he has a nice blend of experience and youth in his team. Players like Liam McHale, Pat Fallon, Ray Dempsey and Anthony McGarry all remember the bad times, and they should combine well with the youthful enthusiasm injected into the side by the likes of John Casey, David Nestor and Ken Mortimer.

They will also approach this game in a confident mood. They will feel that they are not playing a great Kerry team and they will draw some satisfaction from the fact that when the two sides met in a challenge match before their respective provincial finals it was Mayo who came away on top.

If Mayo are to win this time, though, they will have to have a good day around the middle of the field. It is that diamond which will have to provide their platform, with James Nallen, McHale and Fallon, as well as Colm McMenamon, all needing to do well if their side is to make enough of an impact in attack. This was an area in which they did well against Galway in the Connacht final and if they fail to repeat that sort of performance then they will be put under all sorts of trouble in other areas of the pitch.

Fallon is a good player, but the loss of the athletic David Brady will be a blow there, particularly when it comes to curtailing the work of Kerry's Seamus Moynihan. Brady is young, a quick mover and he works hard, and his absence will be a bonus to Moynihan who will be keen to improve on his performance in the Munster final against Cork.

In fact, both Moynihan and Dara O Se will need to do better than they did that day. Moynihan should do well in loose open play this time, but a lot more will be expected of O Se in the aerial duels where he is likely to face quite a contest with McHale although more than once before the Mayoman has failed to deliver his best when it was most needed.

Given the personnel at their disposal, the team as named may not be the best way for Kerry to play and it wouldn't be entirely surprising if there are few positional switches by Pidi O Se once things get under way. When Sean Burke was stretchered off against Cork, Moynihan went to centre back, Maurice Fitzgerald moved to midfield and Liam Hassett went to centre forward. From that point on Kerry moved with far more fluency and purpose and Fitzgerald and Hassett, in particular, excelled in their new positions.

Before the Cork game I thought that the Kerry full back line looked vulnerable. They came through that test with flying colours, though, with Stephen Stack looking especially strong but then Mayo's full forward line of Nestor, Casey and Dempsey looks formidable.

Nestor, who looked particularly impressive when playing with UCD in the Sigerson Cup, is a good finisher while the other two are also well capable of scoring for themselves.

Their Kerry counterparts are also skillful with the full forward line of Dara O Cinneide, Hassett and Gene Farrell all capable of causing opponents a great deal of trouble.

O Cinneide, in particular, has done well so far, while against Cork Farrell fared less well. He desperately needs a low, fast and preferably dry ball put into space for him if he is to thrive and with the sort of close marking outfield that Mayo tend to employ it might be difficult to deliver the "perfect ball" to him with the result that he may find himself marginalised somewhat again this time.

The trump card for Kerry, though, is the pace of their forward division generally rather than the ability of any one man. Billy O'Shea and John Crowley have the speed and ball carrying ability to cause havoc braking in from the wings but they will be looking, in the main, to Cinneide to finish the job for them and if Mayo manage to mark him out of the game or he simply has a poor day then Kerry could start to find themselves in trouble.

The Mayo backs will certainly be looking to deprive their opponents of any space when they are in possession. If they are able to do that effectively and make it very difficult for the Kerry forwards to get good attempts to score, without simply handing a string of easy frees to Fitzgerald, then they may gain the upper hand for their side.

Overall, Paidi O Se's effect on his team is that they play a more direct game that virtually any other side that I have seen this year. That quick movement of the ball, particularly with the foot, could cause the Mayo defence more problems than the sort of passing game that has become the norm has done in their previous outings.

On balance I would expect McHale and Fallon to gain a slight advantage in midfield, but whether they can use the possession effectively enough to punish a tight marking defence is another matter.

Even with less possession of the ball to play with, Kerry will have a little more potential for scoring in the forward line and, combined with their superior free taking, they should have just too much for the Mayo team.