GAELIC GAMES/All-Ireland SFC quarter-final/Kerry v Mayo: Mayo return to Croke Park borne down by a heavy residual of bad form and poor vibes. The natives are restless and seeing Kerry coming towards them over the brow of the hill doesn't help.
If you'd sat down on Monday 27th of September last and said that Kerry and Mayo would meet again in August of 2005 and one-third of the Mayo team would be different you wouldn't have bet any money on the same full-back line still being in place. You'd have been wrong.
And if you'd looked at a tape of Mayo's performances against Tyrone or Roscommon last year you'd have said they were a team on the rise. Now it's hard to be quite so confident. The Connacht final was a dog's dinner of a game which went to a young Galway side by a two-point margin. Galway have been handed the mantle of promising; it has been decreed Mayo are dire.
Last Saturday's game with Cavan in Hyde Park has been submitted in evidence. That Mayo owned the ball and had 19 wides seems to have impressed nobody. Mayo are coming to town for a quick scalping. Then home to the horrors.
It may be so. Worse, Kerry on paper look better than Kerry on paper did on September 26th last. Not only have they been nourished by an All-Ireland, they have the big kahunas Darragh Ó Sé, Séamus Moynihan and MF Russell back on the teamsheet.
It's hard to call a Mayo win but surely a case can be made for them. Liam McHale thinks the trick is for Mayo to make sure it's still a game going into the last 15 minutes and then see what happens.
Mayo can argue that the full-back line shredded last September has been a good deal better this summer and that they have taken the precaution of practising what to do under a bombardment of high balls. Last week against Cavan they won most of the breaking ball on offer.
The wing backs Gardiner and Kelly still raid down the sidelines with joyous abandon, compensating somewhat for the ponderous nature of some of Mayo's attackers.
Both Fergal Kelly and David Brady have been mislaid from the list of midfield options and it is hard to see Shane Fitzmaurice and Ronan McGarrity breaking better than 50-50 with Darragh Ó Sé and William Kirby, but a long, slow look at the Munster-final video suggests it can be done.
And Mayo's forwards. Austin O'Malley from Louisburgh is more of an addition than the advertising suggests. Conor Mortimer's dip in form this year deprives the unit of a little speed and unpredictability, but presuming Billy Joe Padden moves to the edge of the square and Ciarán McDonald roams, there is a glimmer of hope that scores might come.
Enough of them? Kerry's half-back line is so strong looking that perhaps it is best to just offer them three human sacrifices at the throw-in and loft the ball over them all day long after that. If Mayo can claim they haven't played well this year, Kerry can say the same. The difference is that Kerry have mastered the art of winning regardless.
Mayo should be motivated and better than the popular perception of them. Kerry to win, but questions to be asked.
KERRY: D Murphy; M Ó Sé, M McCarthy, T O'Sullivan; T Ó Sé, S Moynihan, A O'Mahony; D Ó Sé, W Kirby; L Hassett, D O'Sullivan, E Brosnan; C Cooper, D Ó Cinnéide, MF Russell.
MAYO: D Clarke; D Geraghty, D Heaney, G Ruane; P Kelly, J Nallen, P Gardiner; R McGarrity, S Fitzmaurice; M Moyles, A Dillon, BJ Padden; T Mortimer, C McDonald, A O'Malley.
Referee: B Crowe (Cavan).
Croke Park, Sunday, 3.30 On TV: RTÉ 2
