We will have fierce trouble bringing the ball into scoring range against Mayo.
They tackle high up the pitch, one short kickout that gets turned over and I can see Ken losing confidence and going long.
And thats going to be a problem, we will get cleaned on the long kickouts.
Its going to be hard to score against them, but we will make it hard to score against us, I was impressed how well COD played as sweeper,
I would prefer to have Pa Kelly in for Collins, I think Mark is too lightweight for the bulky Mayo lads.
I think we have the better forwards, getting them consistent supply of ball will be the winning and losing of the game.
Spot on.
Mayo will have their homework done. They'll target KOH's kick-outs and cut off the short option knowing that they'll clean up when he goes long. That's going to be a huge issue for us.
Kerrigan is going to get man-marked by their fastest defender and obviously Colm O Neill will come in for huge attention.
They'll have noted how we gave away so many soft frees and how long ball into our FB line caused confusion with 2 men sometimes goinf for the same ball. I'd expect us to improve here.
I'd see Kelly as having the edge on Collins too but they are both very good footballers - the experience at CP and strength swings it Kelly's way for me but I can't see how Collins can be dropped.
Dropping 6 guys was way OTT. COD should have been on v Kerry anyway and BOD is probably a better defender than Cahalane at this point in time but it's a toss of a coin between those 2. Gould, Goulding and Kelly should not have been dropped - we should have used the Sligo game to prepare for Mayo and a QF v Mayo is not the place to be pitching in lads like Maguire and Donal Og.
At least, we'll go to CP with some belief.