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In the IV century a. C., an invading Macedonian army led by King Felipe II annexed all of ancient Greece with the exception of Sparta. Philip sent a message to Sparta saying: “We recommend that you submit without further delay, because if I bring my army to your land, I will destroy your farms, kill your people and raze your city.”
Sparta replied with a single word: ‘Yes’.
Neither Philip nor his son and successor Alexander the Great attacked Sparta.
A magnificent football team will take to the field on Saturday to represent Dublin. Their strengths are well documented and they have ruled out every challenger with ease in this championship to date. However, they are still required to produce a performance that is close to their best to retain their title and Mayo has a brilliant opportunity to hold the champions to account.
Regardless of what has happened before, that ‘yes’ offers a path to victory for Westerners.
What is to be done?
There are fundamental gaps in May’s performances that hopefully James Horan will have addressed in preparing for this tilt at the crown. It goes without saying that their individual performances will need to be eight and nine out of 10, but collectively there are three crucial team goals that must be achieved.
i) Kicks: May has to find a way to break even with possession.
ii) Fenton: The colossus’s attack influence from open play should be toned down.
iii) Defensive structure: May has to tackle deeper and minimize the space behind.
Projecting invincibility
When any team wins an All-Ireland, there is an immediate payoff for them in terms of their own self-confidence and external perception of the team’s abilities. The media greatly contributes to the latter and, in the modern game, the aura that social media can create.
Building on five historic titles in a row, the impact of this Dublin team’s legend before he takes the field is significant for most opponents. Like everything else around Blue Wave, what they project is carefully cultivated. The five-in-a-row champions are a brilliant group of footballers and athletes. They don’t need the artificial help that most opponents present to them before an angry tackle is made.
The impact of those assumptions lies largely in your opponents’ own play. If you expect Dublin’s pace, power, aggression and precision to be at the forefront of Mayo’s individual players’ image of how the game will play out, then it will manifest itself in hesitation and indecision when the ball is thrown.
So many opponents take on Dublin in early match exchanges to give them room to play. It is not very obvious, but it can be seen with and without the ball. Markers follow instead of relying on their judgment, players are wary of the space around them and step out of a courtyard for fear of being flipped and making “safe” decisions with the ball in case they are thrown back at you.
Mayo’s first task is to acknowledge, but put aside Dublin’s potential and bring aggression and faith in his own game long before the serve, personally and collectively.
A coherent game plan
“The intelligent combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the will of the enemy to be imposed on him.” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War
The value of consistently planning how to approach Dublin cannot be underestimated. There are symmetries between Mayo’s own strengths and how champions can be stretched and that will open the door to opportunity, but there are natural patterns in Mayo’s plan that will feed them to the lions if it doesn’t fit.
Everything is related. The way you defend should complement the way you reboot, the way you attack, and the way you flow through each scenario. At this level, those changes should be smooth and instinctive.
Despite their recent phenomenal record and the path they have blazed in this year’s championship, Dublin is not far ahead of Mayo, Kerry or Donegal in their best days. There have been periods in games where each of their opponents this season has matched, held, and even surpassed them.
The challenge for James Horan, his staff and, most importantly, his players, is to relentlessly pursue Dublin for a period of 80 minutes. Taking on Dublin in increments will not be enough. Challengers have to optimize whatever period of dominance they create, but also use all their art and energy to minimize the damage they take when Dublin is on the rise.
Kicks
The numbers around the kicks to date are clear for the Connacht champions. Their own retention of long serves is comparatively weak against other top-tier teams and in particular against Dublin. Although they are a more direct source of scores, Mayo has lost the battle of long kicks in every championship game and against Tipperary they were eliminated on both their own and the opposition long kicks. The Munster champions won 67% of the longest deliveries from both ends.
Mayo has a 0.18 point per possession rate (easier ball to secure) compared to 0.08 for longer kicks. Although kicks aren’t a massive source of scores for them, they have created more than twice as many shorter restarts.
Dublin is much more balanced in the same area. They have points per possession rates of 0.22 and 0.21 for short and long kicks respectively. With the exception of their first day against Westmeath, the Dubs have controlled long kicks against all opponents this year.
The data is pretty clear. Mayo has neither the personnel nor the strategies to go into a lengthy kicking battle with Dublin and the implications of doing so are a hemorrhage of possession and scores.
From his own restarts, David Clarke has to find movement and work possession. As frustrating as it is to watch, the most pragmatic approach to Cluxton’s restarts is to give them the short ball and prepare to tackle.
Fenton Monster
Brian Fenton’s impact on the overall performance of this Dublin team has been well documented. Although they will be far from beheaded without him, you cannot expect to beat the Irish champions with Fenton playing well. Kerry has submitted a job template in the recent past through Jack Barry.
Fenton demands the undivided attention of a designated tracker when Dublin has the ball. His loading of the ball into the opponent’s court and his ability to move into space where he can threaten causes chaos and requires a marker who can equalize that, deal with him at tackle and give him worry on the counter.
Lee Keegan has shown weaknesses in scoring on the defense line, but he’s one of the best middle third trackers in the game and has the skills to go toe-to-toe with Fenton on the ground. If Mayo doesn’t plan to compete in the air in kicking, Keegan is the right solution for Fenton.
Defensive structure
By far, the biggest source of scores for May this year has been turnovers. Against Tipperary, his pressure took more than half the ball that the Munster champions had and resulted directly in 3-12 of his account. That ability to put pressure on the ball has been a pattern in every game and they are great at making it count.
To understate the problem, pushing as high as Mayo has been pushing leaves a lot of room behind. A broken inning and an overlap will hit them quickly from 100 yards. Dublin’s power and ball retention are the perfect antidote to Mayo’s high pressure. Betting to take the ball away from Dublin in their own field without protection behind, as they have done, will be suicide.
Throughout the year, Mayo’s defense line has been exposed to the early kick pass. If Galway had kept a winning goal close to the goal with the wind in the second half of the Connacht final, it would have cost him that game. Given the same opportunity, Dublin will break tackles, kick early and take advantage of that space against Con O’Callaghan and Dean Rock.
There really is no other option for James Horan than to drop a covering player from the middle third and withdraw his tackle line into his own half. It’s an adjustment to last year’s defensive form, but he retains his ability to counterattack after turnovers, only from a little deeper.
Yes
Mayo’s players and management will see this weekend as a wonderful opportunity to break through what has been an imaginary ceiling for their county. I have no doubt that they will see beyond the mythical aura that Dublin sells us and will haunt them from the start.
The task is not insurmountable and contrary to popular belief, the opposition is not unbeatable, but getting the job done will depend on those massive “yes” variables.
Can James Horan find a way to retain possession of his own kicks? Can you find ways to minimize Brian Fenton’s influence? Can you defend with a collective mindset to protect your own weaknesses? These are no different than the challenges Peter Keane and Kerry faced in 2019.
If they can achieve all that, then Dublin can come and they are defeated. If it is what fuels most of our dreams and May it will be no different.
Philip and the Macedonians never challenged Sparta in the end, but Dublin will show up on the battlefield this weekend.
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Watch the all-Ireland senior soccer final between Dublin and May live on RTÉ2 starting at 3:40 PM on Saturday, listen to the commentary live on RTÉ Radio 1 or follow our live blog on RTÉ Sport Online and the RTÉ app News. The highlights of Saturday’s game (9:55 p.m. RTÉ2).
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