Great rivals serve up epic draw AGAIN as Durcan rescues brave Westerners

IT GOES back to a question of ambition now for this Mayo team and this seemingly never-ending quest for All-ireland glory. Mayo people are into year 66 of the wait – and this summer has felt nearly as long as their team were bundled out of the Connacht Championship and stuttered through the qualifiers. This latest thrilla-minute clash with Kerry was their eighth game this summer – their sixth in eight weeks.

And all throughout there have been queries made about the mileage in the legs of their key men, most of whom have seen action as far as this All-ireland semi-final stage for the past seven years.

Their seventh game in nine weeks is just five days away and already they’ve played in four drawn games, emulating the Meath footballers of ‘91, who drew three times with Dublin and also Wicklow.

Mayo required extra-time to beat Derry and Cork in the qualifiers before the quarterfinal went to a replay, and now there’s Saturday’s next semi-final instalment to look forward to.

Stephen Rochford was bullish afterwards about his players’ stamina to go again but the fact is Kerry, who have only played four times since June 11, are fresh and will benefit hugely from this tough match in the wind and rain.

The sides produced another fabulous battle against the backdrop of a dreary August day and if stalemate was the right result, both Mayo and Kerry will feel they be better next Saturday.

At this early juncture it seems that Aidan O’shea is the key to it all for Mayo.

Rochford can argue that he was right to throw the 27-year-old into the full-back role on Kieran Donaghy, given that Donaghy didn’t score a goal, and Kerry seemed to shy away from pumping high ball into their target man.

But O’shea had proved very difficult to stop, having rediscovered some of his best form in recent weeks, and so the