MAYO TIPPED TO DOWN CHAMPIONS

A REMATCH of last year’s final and the meeting of the ‘two capitals’ will headline next weekend’s All-Ireland SFC quarter-finals. Wobbling All-Ireland champions Donegal will face Mayo — the team they beat last September by 2-11 to 0-13 to win their second All-Ireland title — in an intriguing last-eight game on Sunday, 24 hours after Dublin and Cork go head-tohead in Saturday’s headline game in Croke Park. That means that the allUlster Monaghan v Tyrone clash will raise the curtain on Saturday evening (throw-in 5pm) while Kerry v Cavan will provide the support act for Sunday’s

All-Ireland final rematch, which completes football’s annual August weekend festival. The market reacted to Saturday night’s draw by tipping Mayo to strip Donegal of their national crown. The Connacht champions have been priced at 4-6 — and if they deliver they will have set an unprecedented record of having dethroned three successive champions, having cut down Cork in 2011 and then Dublin last year. Meanwhile, the meeting of Dublin and Cork will be the first since the two teams met in the 2010 All-Ireland semi-final. That was a game which the Dubs looked primed to win for long periods but they were reeled in late on after conceding a penalty, losing in the end by a single point — 1-15 to 1-14. With four Ulster teams in the last eight, the probability of Monaghan — fresh from their first provincial triumph in 25 years — facing another team from the province was always high, but they will hardly be pleased with the fact that they have been drawn against bogey team Tyrone. Mickey Harte’s men beat them comfortably — 1-14 to 0-7 — when the counties last met. That was the 2010 Ulster final and Tyrone had also beaten Malachy O’Rourke’s (left) men three years earlier in a provincial decider. Cavan will be making their first every appearance in the last eight and have been virtually written off as 6-1 outsiders against Kerry — a team they last played in the 1997 All-Ireland semifinal when they lost on a 1-17 to 1-10 scoreline.