Throw everything at them and see where it takes us

Living in a football-mad Armagh household means next Saturday will be an interesting one for this columnist. There will be great interest here in how Kieran McGeeney's men get on against Galway in Markievicz Park before we even get to fire a shot in anger against Dublin in Hyde Park. It will be an interesting day to say the least.

Like all sporting challenges Sunday's battle in Hyde Park will be a mental battle as well as a physical and tactical one. Looking back on the great tussles between the counties over the past decade it's hard not to wonder what sort of psychological damage so many narrow defeats on the biggest days over the years has done.

Of course, luck probably played a part too with Dublin usually able to put out their best side while Mayo often had to deal with injuries to some of their top players. Mayo just didn't get that lucky in any of those big games and Dublin were invariably at their full complement and very often very close to their absolute best.

The first thing that this Mayo team has to deal with, is the mental approach. And I think

it's positive that Mayo beat them in the league this year, and Dublin aren't the same animal as the team of 2016/17 but they're still an exceptional team and favourites to win the All-Ireland.

So, Mayo's approach has to be all about putting together a mental approach that serves them well through the 76-77 minutes that will be played in the Hyde.

Roscommon did well against Dublin for 65 minutes and were then cut apart in the blink of an eye. When Dublin stepped up Roscommon couldn't deal with it physically or mentally. Mayo have to be utterly focused and not drop off for a second. The concentration levels have to be sky-high at all times. Mayo know they're already in the next round so they should throw everything at this one and see where that takes them, but the intensity of concentration is the key.

There's no doubt Mayo have been weakened by the injury to Paddy Durcan. Dublin have an array of players in that section of the pitch, whether it's Kilkenny or Scully or Bugler or McCaffrey if he comes off the bench, and of course there's Cormac Costello – so the loss of Durcan is huge.

The fact that the match is in Roscommon is a benefit to Mayo. It feels like a home venue at this

stage as they've played there so many times this year. I've also watched the national media comment on how good Mayo's record has been in Hyde Park. Now, playing Dublin in Hyde Park is a totally different thing to playing Roscommon there, but knowing your surroundings is a help.

MATCH-UPS

What will Mayo do in the match-ups? If David McBrien doesn't start that will be another huge loss. Eoghan McLaughlin had a fine game against Roscommon and he'll want to build on that. Who he will pick up is interesting. He does his best work on the left, but has been asked to cut in off his right the last few games. He doesn't look comfortable. They need to bite the bullet on this one.

Who will Donacha McHug pick up? He did a great job on Smith against Roscommon. Will they tell him to go and cover every blade of grass with Brian Fenton? I think they will. This is a great opportunity for him.

Where will Sam Callinan goand who will mark Con O'Callaghan if McBrien isn't fit? Will O'Hora come in and mark John Small? He'd be well-suited to him physically. Niall Scully is a good link man out the field so do Mayo put Hession on him? Hession has the ability to cause problems at the other end when Scully goes deep. Does Coen line up against someone like Kieran Kilkenny? They know each other well and that might be a match-up Mayo will consider.

Very often, you'll get two or three of the matchups you want, and then you have to live with the other ones. It all starts with who Mayo want to track Fenton. Is this Jordan Flynn's opportunity to go toe-to-toe with the best midfielder in the game? Mattie Ruane has been such a dynamic attacking force over the past few weeks that asking him to mark Fenton would nullify that, but Flynn might relish the prospect.

There are two options for Fenton. You either line Flynn up and say: 'That's the gold standard, Jordan. Let's see how close you can get to it.' Or you actually put McHugh to man-mark him. It will be fascinating.

STARTING FORWARDS

Where will Mayo's scores come from. Against Roscommon the scores came from a very small number of players but a team won't beat Dublin doing that. More scores have to come from the half-back line and around the middle, so you just can't give them totally negative jobs of closing down Dublin players all the time. You have to be willing to risk what you're asking your defenders to do. And definitely putting one of your defenders on to Fenton would be doing that.

Aidan O'Shea did his best work around the middle of the field the last day and he'll be moving in and out again on Sunday. Tommy Conroy looked sharp coming off the bench and Cillian O'Connor played pretty well linking up play smartly.

Ryan O'Donoghue needs to be closer to goal and that's definitely going to be the case in Hyde Park. Dublin essentially attack from their half-back line, so to beat them teams have to put them on the back foot and play as much of the game in their half as possible, therefore Ryan needs to be as close to goal as possible.

Put Cillian in beside him and then it's a toss-up whether you start O'Shea or Conroy. In this situation, I'd probably start Tommy and bring Aidan in. It gives flexibility to see how things are working out. That's just the way I'd go at it.

There are so many thoughts, so many possibilities, so many questions and then I haven't even thought about all the talk there will be here about Armagh's chances. It'll surely be an interesting Sunday – and a great one if the two results go the right way.