McStay names his team for Kerry

THE championship’s all-time leading scorer, Cillian O’Connor, has not been included in Mayo’s 26-man squad for tomorrow afternoon’s All-Ireland SFC clash with Kerry in Killarney at 3pm.
As expected, O’Connor will miss the game due to injury.
However, Enda Hession has been named among the Mayo substitutes after being out of action for almost three months with a knee injury.
Mayo manager Kevin McStay has made three changes to the team that lost to Roscommon in the Connacht SFC quaarter-final six weeks ago: David McBrien and Sam Callinan return to the full-back line with Donnacha McHugh and Eoghan McLaughlin dropping to the subs’ bench.
In attack, fit-again James Carr is named at number fourteen with Tommy Conroy held in reserve.
The ten players not to make the match-day squad tomorrow are: Rob Hennelly, Aidan Orme, Conor McStay, Frank Irwin, James McCormack, Michael Plunkett, Ruairi Keane, Rory Brickenden, Brendan Harrison and Cillian O’Connor.
Mayo are chasing their first win against Kerry in the championship since the 2017 All-Ireland semi-final replay.
The counties have met twice in the championship since; Kerry running out ten point winners in the ‘Super 8’s in Killarney in 2019 and romping to a comfortable eight point victory in last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final at Croke Park.
It’s easy to see then why the reigning All-Ireland champions have been installed as hot favourites to hit the ground running against a ring-rusty Mayo team that have been watching from the sidelines for the last six weeks.
However, two recent challenge games against Tyrone and Kildare will hopefully have helped to sharpen their edge again.
Kevin McStay was asked at a press briefing last Friday morning in Castlebar if an away mach against Kerry was ‘the ideal way’ to start the Sam Maguire group stages with games against Louth and Cork to come in the coming weeks.
“I don’t see it like that,” replied the Mayo manager.
“It’s just a game, a big game, and I’m expecting a reaction. Nobody was happy with what happened against Roscommon and we’re better than that.
“Right now, our injury situation is really strong but that may change during the week because they’ll be half killing each other out here trying to get into the match-day 26.
“Fellas will get bangs and wallops and nobody can control that, but if we keep building the way we are we’ll be very competitive in our next game.”
Just over 15,000 tickets had been sold for Saturday’s game last Monday evening.
The capacity of Fitzgerald Stadium is understood to be approximately 36,000.

Mayo
Mayo C Reape; J Coyne, D McBrien, S Callinan; P Durcan, C Loftus, S Coen; M Ruane, D O'Connor; F McDonagh, J Carney, J Flynn; A O'Shea, J Carr, R O'Donoghue.
Subs: R Byrne, T Conroy, J Doherty, E Hession, D McHale, D McHugh, E McLaughlin, K McLoughlin, P O’Hora, P Towey, B Tuohy.