Ten key replay battlegrounds

Having extensively reviewed the drawn game, Edwin McGreal takes a detailed look at some of the key areas ahead of Saturday’s All-Ireland Senior Football Semi-Final replay between Mayo and Kerry.  

1: Mayo finding a way late on
After Cillian O’Connor put Mayo a point clear in the 61st minute, there were eight more attacks in the game and it is telling that Mayo had five of them.
Having scored seven points from their first eight attacks of the second half, Mayo dipped alarmingly and had only one point from their last five attacks – Paddy Durcan’s late equaliser – while Kerry struck two points from three attacks.
Kerry’s only unsuccessful attack was when Paul Geaney was dispossessed after Keith Higgins superbly stood him up when he seemed destined to pull the trigger and put Kerry two up.
Mayo’s lost attacks were more their own fault though. Stephen Coen was blocked, Chris Barrett and Paddy Durcan kicked wide and Andy Moran kicked a free rather too speculatively for the time of game and saw Peter Crowley come away with the ball.
That Mayo had more attacks than Kerry might point to greater energy levels but the conversion rates are what we should focus in on.
We’ve said it before that it is a problem for Mayo finding a way to win such tight games against top level opposition.
When was the last time Mayo kicked a winning point in injury time or the last five minutes of normal time in championship? Their victory over Roscommon in the 2014 Connacht semi-final.
Granted, that might be a moot point in games where Mayo were comfortably home but that’s the point – Mayo have a tendency to struggle to find a way over the line in tighter games. Even recall the games against Derry, Cork and Roscommon (draw) this year, all of which Mayo failed to win in 70 minutes.
It does not help either that Mayo did not have too many shooters on the field that late in the game. David Drake and Stephen Coen bring plenty of qualities but shooting is not one of them.
Meanwhile higher percentage shooters like Shane Nally, Danny Kirby, Conor O’Shea, Alan Dillon and Conor Loftus waited on the bench behind them.
Loftus did come on but arguably too late and he coughed up the possession which led to Bryan Sheehan’s late free. He looked like a player not at the pace of the game after coming on two minutes into injury time.
Finding a way late on in what is sure to be a game which will go to the wire is the big challenge for Mayo on Saturday. It was telling that after O’Connor kicked that lead score, he, Andy Moran or Jason Doherty did not have any more shots at goal. With less shooting options outside them, it makes it easier for Kerry to concentrate more on reducing the trio’s path to goal.
Having a wider range of shooters the next day might even free up space for the main marksmen.  
Of course, one alternative is to win comfortably and make it easy on their fans. But we won’t be betting on that!

2: Match ups
We’ll leave the most obvious match-up under a separate heading at the end.
But aside from Kieran Donaghy and AN Other, there are a number of significant match-ups.
Going into the drawn game, Mayo would have been delighted if they kept Paul Geaney and James O’Donoghue to 0-4 from play.
Brendan Harrison and Chris Barrett did good jobs and Stephen Rochford will undoubtedly entrust them with the same responsibilities again.
Keith Higgins was superb in one cameo on Paul Geaney late on, denying him the chance to kick Kerry two up. But Higgins can offer Mayo so much more on the front foot so that is unlikely to change.
He is so dynamic too that he can fill in and sweep quicker than anyone else Mayo have.
It’s a luxury Kerry would love to have. Their full-back line had a torrid time on Sunday. Mark Griffin was in real trouble on Jason Doherty before being pulled ashore at half-time. Andy Moran took Shane Enright for 1-5. Killian Young performed best of the Kerry trio but still saw 0-3 from play against Cillian O’Connor’s name.
Tadhg Morley was better on Doherty than Griffin, Fionn Fitzgerald is an option to come in but you’d have to think Kerry are stretching to come up with answers in a short timeframe. More anon.

3: Mayo’s kick-outs
Mayo really struggled with their kick-outs in the first half. Kerry pushed up as they tend to do against most teams and Mayo were hemmed in. Mayo players struggled to free themselves up for a short kick-out and so David Clarke went either long or lobbed balls into the wing-back positions.
Of his 13 kick-outs in the first half, only six found a Mayo jersey. Four of these were short kick-outs, one was a kick to space and one was a break.
Kerry won five breaks and two line balls. Many of these breaks were off kicks Clarke put into space and were spoiled by Kerry.
But the mad thing is Kerry did not actually get much of a scoring platform off Mayo’s kick-outs. Across the full game they only scored 0-2 from possessions won from Mayo kick-outs.
Mayo, by contrast, scored 1-7 from Clarke’s kick-outs. Of this, 1-4 came from short kick-outs, 0-2 from kick-outs to space and 0-1 from a long kick-out.
Considering the work that is involved in bringing the ball forward from short kick-outs, harnessing 1-4 from them is extremely good going. It shows a much greater ability from Mayo to work the ball upfield when teams are defensively set, something which was not as apparent last year.
But Mayo will know that losing over half of your own kick-outs in one half is not something that you are going to get away with week on week.

4: Goals
We all know the old adage and it was clear Mayo had goals in mind last Sunday. Whenever they got the chance, they tried to go for goal.
They struck two in the first half and should have had a third. They will likely need at least two again in the replay.
However, as crucial will be not conceding goals, particularly in the manner Mayo did on Sunday.
Both Kerry goals came from sloppy Mayo turnovers, although they can thank David Clarke it wasn’t three, after his fantastic save from Jack Barry.

5: Sweepers
One of the benefits of playing Aidan O’Shea at full-back was that it reduced the need for a full-time sweeper. Sure, Keith Higgins got there whenever he could but he was not tied to the spot.
The fact that both teams played without a full-time sweeper was a statement of intent.
Kerry were saying ‘we have the best full-forward line’. And that’s absolutely true, but Mayo would have felt their full-back line was much more capable of restricting the Kerry full-forward line than was the case at the other end of the pitch.
And that turned out to be very true. Kerry kicked 0-5 from play from their three inside men, Mayo got 1-9 from play off Messrs Moran, O’Connor and Doherty.
Sure, Kieran Donaghy might have had a hand in 1-3 on top of his point from play but 1-3 was exactly what Andy Moran had assists for too.
So which team adjusts now, if any? It’s a fascinating question.
Kerry playing a sweeper and still having three inside is unusual, though not impossible. However, it does reduce the amount of bodies they have in the middle third and also their ability to push up on Mayo’s kick-outs, unless they get the sweeper to push up for the kick-outs.
Donnchadh Walsh a huge loss in middle third. If he is back, it gives Kerry much more flexibility in deciding what to do.
Kerry cannot improve dramatically in the full-back line in six days. As Dara O Cinneide said on Newstalk, there’s a reason why they are there - they are the best Kerry have  - and there’s a reason why veterans Marc Ó Sé and Aidan O’Mahony were there until last year, they were needed.
But Kerry may try to drop their half-back line deeper. That brings its own problems as we will explore next.

6: Mayo’s source of scoring
It was impressive to see how Mayo attacked versus Kerry. With Kerry looking to press in the middle of the field, Mayo utilised the kick-pass to a full-forward line that had a lot of space.
It’s a ploy Cork tried to use and Mayo also made hay against, recall Cillian O’Connor’s six points from play in Limerick. Mayo used a lot of kicking in the NFL and many of us questioned it. But in the drawn game it became a very important tool in their arsenal.
Recall Keith Higgins’s fine kick-pass to Diarmuid O’Connor to turn defence into attack for Mayo’s first goal and also O’Connor’s subsequent speculative left foot pass into the Kerry goalmouth which fell for Andy Moran to find the net. Higgins could not have played that ball a few years ago, his kicking was not reliable enough.
Seamie O’Shea picked out Jason Doherty with a kick-pass which helped to unlock Kerry for Colm Boyle’s goal. It was telling that for Boyle’s goal Kerry had 14 men in their own half. Mayo still managed to pick them apart, though Kerry facilitated that with some very passive defending.
In the Quarter Final replay Roscommon sat much deeper but that had its pitfalls too – it allowed Mayo to run at them and unleash their strong ball carriers from every corner of the field. Recall that every single Mayo starting defender that day had a shot at goal. Thirteen different players scored.
So Eamonn Fitzmaurice will know that Mayo can play it whichever way. Sitting back to protect the creaking full-back line will see Mayo revert to their running game and possibly draw a lot of frees.
Mayo’s improved movement is very apparent these days as is their ability to swiftly offload hand-passes with quick hands.
But there’s no doubt Mayo still want their inside trio of Moran, O’Connor and Doherty on the end of moves. From open play this trio kicked ten scores from 14 shots. The combined total from the rest of the Mayo side was also 14 shots but only five scores.
There’s no doubt who you want pulling the trigger.

7: Lee Keegan
The Footballer of the Year struggled to get into the game. Kerry’s Paul Murphy is an outstanding defender but it will be interesting to see how Keegan does six days later.
The game was played on Murphy’s terms, Keegan was the forward being picked up by the defender and Keegan was the player with his back to goal at number 11 - ironically a position Murphy had played in to good effect himself in the past.
But it is a different dynamic for Keegan. Instead of being behind the ball and running on, he’s often ahead of it and looping around.
However, as Colm Parkinson pointed out, playing Keegan at eleven and forcing him to be marked by Kerry’s centre-half back did free up space for others. Keegan often went deep and Jason Doherty came out to win six balls out in front on the forty and both Andy Moran and Cillian O’Connor also profited from the space left vacant.
But how will Mayo use Keegan in the replay? Will he be fresher, that bit further along from the cellulitis in his leg which necessitated a stay in hospital before the Roscommon replay? And will Kerry leave Paul Murphy on him or try to free up Murphy’s attacking talents from elsewhere?  
It’s certainly hard to see the Footballer of the Year being as peripheral again.

8: The referee
Kerry have made their feelings quite clear this week once David Gogh was announced as the referee. Gogh was the man in the middle during last year’s All-Ireland semi-final and Kerry are aggrieved that he did not give a free when when Peter Crowley was shouldered in the chest by Kevin McManamon late in the game.
Gogh was blindsided and Dublin went up field and opened a two point lead. It has clearly animated Kerry folk.
Mayo will be hoping that incident will have no material impact on the game and they will be happy it’s not Maurice Deegan that’s in charge.
Deegan got a number of big decisions wrong. From a Kerry perspective they will rightly point to Colm Boyle taking at least eight steps for his goal and a foul by Tom Parsons on David Moran at a crucial stage in the last ten minutes which went unpunished and saw Mayo turn Kerry over.
Mayo will feel they had two scoreable frees not given for fouls on Colm Boyle and Andy Moran while they should have had a penalty when Mark Griffin touched the ball on the ground inside the small parallelogram.
They will wonder why Deegan did not hop the ball after Jack Savage was booked for pushing Diarmuid O’Connor seconds after a free in was awarded while Paul Murphy was lucky to be booked and not black carded for pulling Lee Keegan back off the ball. It stood in stark contrast to the foul by Lee Keegan on Dublin’s Diarmuid Connolly in last year’s All-Ireland Final replay which Deegan deemed to be a black card, but which was only a yellow card offence.  
These things often cancel each other out in games. But not always. Mistakes are inevitable in refereeing but the hope is that any mistakes made in the replay are not the winning or losing of the game.

9: Fatigue and strength in depth
In the press conference after the drawn game, Kerry manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice almost tripped himself up to say how much the game will help Kerry. He’s probably right but was it a case of trying to spin the best thing out of a poor performance?
Kerry can improve, absolutely but perhaps Mayo were a major factor in the Kingdom’s display.
It is Mayo who have played much more football this summer but it did not look like that was a problem – indeed it was Mayo who had more of the ball and more of the attacks late on, even though they had used their bench less.
Will Kerry be road-tested now for the replay or will Mayo continue to grow with every game?
Certainly, if Kerry start Jack Barry and Jack Savage, you would have to think they’ll be much less likely to have as much impact from the bench from Anthony Maher and Mikey Geaney as Messrs Barry and Savage gave them.
Still, Barry John Keane and Darran O’Sullivan gave Kerry plenty from the bench while the precocious SeΡn O’Shea could give Kerry some more x-factor from the bench too.
And what of Mayo?
There’s common consensus that Stephen Rochford is picking from 16 players to start, the 15 who started the drawn game and Paddy Durcan. As risky as it might be to make assumptions with this Mayo management, we think this is a fair conclusion.
So who misses out? It’s clear Paddy Durcan might be ahead of some others who started on the basis of form but will they give you as much as Durcan might from the bench?
Given that Rochford does not seem prepared to give Colm Boyle more than 55 minutes – and we can understand it given his age and attritional style of play – might he consider holding Durcan back, bringing him on at half-time for Boyle and then sending Boyle back into battle with 15 minutes to go?
Certainly when Mayo are looking for key scores late on, you’d prefer Boyle in the mix than other defenders like Stephen Coen or David Drake who are often asked to play more advanced positions than where they are best.
As we said above, it would be important for Mayo to be bringing on shooting subs like Conor Loftus, Shane Nally, Conor O’Shea, Danny Kirby and Alan Dillon if they are trying to find a way to win down the home strait.

10: And, finally, what to do with Donaghy
No matter what your opinion on Aidan O’Shea at full-back, you will probably find a columnist or scribe to support your point of view this week.
The world and its mother has had its say and answers vary across the spectrum from being a disaster from the start, being something that was worth a try but should have been binned during the game to something Mayo should persist with.
We’ve rationalised the decision at length in this week’s paper but ended up suggesting placing Seamie O’Shea at full-back and freeing up his younger brother to more open country.
The longer the week goes on, the more we are not sure Aidan O’Shea should be moved.
Did Kieran Donaghy win the battle? Absolutely. Could he have done even more damage on some of the other options floated? We think so.
Placing O’Shea on Donaghy is not disrespecting the Kerry man as some have suggested. The very opposite. Putting one of your best players away from where he does his best work is showing huge respect to the threat Donaghy holds. There’s no other player in the country who would force Mayo to do what they’re doing with Aidan O’Shea.
As Kieran Shannon rightly pointed out in The Examiner this week, more accustomed full-backs like David Heaney and Ger Cafferkey came unstuck in the air against Donaghy.
Mayo appeared quite content to take the hit on Donaghy influencing the game across the ground rather than risk being devastated in the air by Donaghy. No county knows more about how devastating a goal from a high ball into him can be.
We saw Aidan O’Shea go to ground on a couple of occasions when trying to tackle Donaghy. It shows the sheer strength of the Kerryman. Just imagine how great the gulf in power might be against Donie Vaughan, many people’s, this writer included, suggestion in advance. Would Vaughan be any better than David Heaney, for instance? We’re not so sure.
And do you know what might help greatly for Mayo - the extra game. Aidan O’Shea now knows what it is like to play full-back on Donaghy. Mayo know how Kerry will seek to exploit where O’Shea is weak.
You cannot magic into a natural full-back in six days but O’Shea will surely now know the importance of staying touch tight, of staying on his feet and not overly committing to a tackle and getting easily turned. What appeared to be a tactical ploy of staying back to mind the house when Donaghy went to the wings is another thing Mayo can dispense with.
Last Sunday will have been a massive learning curve which ought to stand to O’Shea. It does not mean he will best Donaghy the next day but if the name of the game is damage limitation, O’Shea might look to make enough incremental gains in this battle to help tip the balance of the war in Mayo’s favour.
A dry day will make it easier for O’Shea to defend Donaghy on the ground and not worry as much about slipping. It will also give Kerry more of a license to hit long ball to Donaghy and see if the dry ball sticks to the glue-like hands Donaghy is renowned for.
Mayo also have the option of moving O’Shea out if they are seeking to drive on in the last quarter. Remember Donaghy is 34 and though playing the football of his life, two games in six days will be an ask of him. Barry Moran, though he hasn’t played much football, might be an option down the home strait for Donaghy.
There’s every chance it could be the key battle on Saturday. It certainly will be the most talked about.
And that’s assuming Stephen Rochford does not change things. But we’ve all fallen into that trap before.