Mort: Change it to avoid new disappointment
CONOR MORTIMER believes that Mayo will have to pull something out of left field to shock Dublin in Sunday’s All-ireland final.
Although former Armagh star Oisin Mcconville insisted last week that Mayo “don’t need to over-think it” and should just play their normal game, Mortimer feels that they’ll need to bring something else to the party having failed to beat the Dubs in their last 11 League and Championship meetings. He said: “I think something different has to be done as opposed to going out 15-on-15 because you won’t win a shootout with Dublin – or it’s very rare. “They’ll have to come with something a little bit different than we have done. “If you try something four or five times and it doesn’t work you have to keep changing. “I know we changed the goalkeeper last year, obviously that didn’t work but they were trying to change something as opposed to the norm because the norm hadn’t been good enough. You may see players you haven’t seen throughout the year having an influence on the game at some stage. “Dublin did it last year with Cormac Costello, he didn’t see an awful lot of game time before the final and then he came on and pretty much won the game for them. “You’d hope there’s something up Stephen Rochford’s sleeve. They’ll probably have one sweeper, I don’t emphasise having two. “I think our players seem to be a bit more mature this year and a little bit more clued into their actual roles, in particular around the middle of the field.” The county’s all-time leading scorer has played club football with Dublin goalkeeper and captain Stephen Cluxton for Parnells and says that Mayo should be careful not to expend too much energy trying to shut down his restarts. “There’s not a huge amount you can do,” he said. “Yeah you can press them and you can push players up but that takes a serious amount of energy. If you’ve Dublin’s bench you can do that, you’re bringing on players who are equal if not better in certain positions. We don’t have that luxury. “I think you probably press them at times. Press, drop, press, drop. I don’t think you’ll do it for 70, 75 minutes.” While Mortimer believes David Clarke has “probably been the best ‘keeper in Ireland this year”, he says his former team-mate’s kickouts may be targeted by Dublin in light of Kerry’s success in the first half of the drawn semi-final. He added: “Cluxton’s is more of a ping and it’s swish and away, whereas Clarkie’s have a little bit more air time on them and it makes it a little bit easier for teams to get a break on it. “Dublin will probably push up, when Kerry did it they got a lot of joy. But it also depends on the boys out the field, they need to be working that bit harder and getting the space.” Conor Mortimer is contributing a series of exclusive columns to the Paddy Power Blog in which he’ll discuss tactics and key matches