Aggression is needed to upset Dubs
CHARGING down the throat of the Dublin team should be Mayo’s Plan A,B, C and also X in tomorrow’s All-Ireland final. Luckily, too, Mayo are a team made for such an approach to football life. But, if they do so, what happens at the back? For the most part the experiment of placing Aidan O’Shea at full-back in the first game against Kerry worked as manager, Stephen Rochford hoped it would — O’Shea, despite his iffy man-marking ability, brought a greater sense of calm than a Mayo rearguard has enjoyed in a long time. But, that was then, and O’Shea would be skinned alive by Paddy Andrews or Dean Rock, and also mostly everyone else if he spent even half a minute in the full-back slot on this occasion. Rochford needs another trick. He has lots of choices for the No.3 position, but asking Keith Higgins to do the job is a simple enough decision. And that still leaves Colm Boyle and Lee Keegan to wreck as much havoc as they can on Dublin’s first line of defence. The pair of them — with O’Shea thundering down the middle in a less speedy but just as damaging manner — can order the defending champions onto their back foot for lengthy spells tomorrow. It’s so important than Mayo can do so, push Dublin back, push them around, and thereby demand that the likes of Ciarán Kilkenny and James McCarthy spend as much of the game as possible in their own half of the field. That’s how Mayo can beat Dublin, by making Kilkenny and McCarthy (the champions’ pair of primary generals) defend with sleeves rolled up. Charge after charge, after charge. In another close contest, as always between the two, this is going to be a game of clichéd ‘inches’ and if Mayo can make ‘yards’ in their offensive game then they will be closer to winning the precious title that has been playing footsie with them for far too long. It’s all about pressure — and if Mayo can create such a sustained ingredient in their play, it will be the first time since the spring (when they found Kerry more than a handful on two occasions) that Dublin will have met a team laying down an ambitious gauntlet. Dublin, of course, are everybody’s favourites, but this Dublin team as a unit — and many of them are brilliant young talents with still so much to learn about themselves — have not had a serious game of football in five months. It’s a perilously long period of time for the greatest team in the land to be waiting for someone to turn up and snarl at them. A draw is as likely as a victory for either. But if one team is to win it at the first attempt, there’s every chance it will be Mayo by two or three points.