LIAM HAYES: I GOT IT WRONG, I THOUGHT MAYO WERE WASHED UP
also a good chance that there could also be a point in time in this All-Ireland final when they have greater bravery.
Their fighting qualities are most probably far superior.
After all, Dublin are younger, they have been handsomely feted for many years, and despite their manager’s wideeyed wariness they are a team who might now be close to absolute certainty that they are unbeatable.
THE fantastic, long and agonising duel between these two teams over the last six years might actually be swinging back in favour of Mayo — leaving the Connacht men with the greatest opportunity yet of claiming a precious All-Ireland title.
It is an ongoing duel which Cavanagh, for one, mistakenly thinks is over.
It began in 2012 when Mayo won the All-Ireland semi-final by three points, and sure, since then Dublin have won two crucial replays and have also won two All-Ireland finals on a single point, but this brilliant duel is still awaiting a closing scene.
Remember at the start of this year when Aidan O’Shea told us all that winning AllIreland titles should not be considered the be-all and endall for footballers and hurlers? And remember how we scoffed?
We asked ourselves was the giant on the Mayo team trying to lighten himself of his responsibilities?
It turned out, however, that O’Shea’s words were somewhat prophetic. Mayo played this summer one day at a time. They chased nothing.
They almost lost some of those days, but even when they survived they never looked like a team that was thinking of winning the All-Ireland.
Is this a Mayo team that has now calmed itself, and has arrived at a place in its history when it can live with itself, whether it wins or loses an All-Ireland in 2017?
If that is so, then Mayo are a brilliant and more dangerous football team than ever before.
And if Mayo have stopped worrying about losing, and if at the same time losing is something that Dublin dare not even consider when the ball is thrown up on this occasion, then Rochford might indeed have his team on the cusp of winning it all. It can happen. In a flick of a switch, Mayo might be 2017 All-Ireland champions.
They are a more dangerous team than ever before