Questions. The adage is they are only easy if you know the answer.
Well for the week that's in it, observing others getting grilled in public and the consequences of them having the requisite answers (or not) appears quite the national pastime.
Maybe that’s where sports, particularly huge weekends like this one, have part of their fascination.
In big games teams are being asked questions and not just by their opposition. The whole country will have their doubts and queries about a team and the players within it. Take Monaghan this weekend. As a team, they’ve shown themselves able to compete and beat the very best over many years now.
Galway, Mayo, Tyrone, Dublin and Kerry have all come up short against the Farney men. But only in the league or provincial championship. Never a big game in Croke Park. In terms of this weekend that’s the question they must answer – can they take the next and biggest step of all?
Monaghan resent being talked of as the impressive plucky underdog. The platitudes about a small team able to consistently punch above their weight have long worn thin. To be honest, the platitudes are genuinely given.
Monaghan’s achievements for nigh on 20 years are seriously impressive and a great source of hope for many teams. Despite this, they are not talked of in the same way as top teams. Why? Because they have never done it when it really counts. That might sound harsh, but all such questions are.
Take Tyrone, we weren’t made of the right stuff to ever win an All-Ireland until we did. Now we can’t do back-to-back and the 2021 All-Ireland was a fluke. Harsh maybe, but until proven otherwise the questions stand. Once answered, they disappear.
I remember Glen being laughed at by other Derry clubs because all their underage minor titles still didn’t mean they had what it takes. No one is saying that now.
Dublin were once the poster boys for hype and thinking they were the big fellas but never had the brass tacks to back it up. Until they did. And then some.
Until the Tyrone game, Kerry’s midfield was deemed not up to much and then Diarmuid O’Connor came up with the answer that has put that one to bed. All those questions had a degree of validity; the way they are asked may determine how they are received, but no matter what, they still need answering.
Rightly or wrongly, the Irish predisposition to take such questions as a personal slight, an insult to be pinned to the dressing room wall, means they can become a key motivating factor. Oh, how we love to shove the questions back down people's throats.
Kieran Donaghy’s epic shout, "Well Joe Brolly, what do ye think of that?" is experienced in its own personal way by every team and player of our game at some time or another. Psychologists would question the value of such external motivation but if that’s how we are wired then that’s how we are wired.
This weekend our four semi-finalists have questions to answer. Monaghan’s big one, we have already touched on. Can they take down a top seed in championship in Croke Park?
It’s a hugely difficult task. Dublin have regained their mojo. A squad that have themselves been questioned relentlessly over the past few years now have a further All-Ireland in their eye line. One that, thanks to those very questions, would be one of their sweetest and mean more than many of their others.
For that very reason and despite Monaghan having genuine quality, it's desperately hard to see them having the firepower to take Dublin down or defence to hold them at bay.
Monaghan’s day will come but they may have to put up with another round of 'didn’t they do well’ this time around.
Having so emphatically answered the many questions hanging over them in the quarter-finals, Kerry and Dublin have the more rudimentary question of whether they can back those performances up.
I don’t believe either team will match the intensity they brought to their quarter-finals. Such performances only come about when the perfect scenario in terms of timing, occasion and opposition come about.
Derry and Monaghan will simply not stir the fires for Kerry and Dublin in the way Tyrone and Mayo did. That is no disrespect. That’s simply an outcome of the history of those ties. For Kerry and Dublin, complacency is a key danger.
Given the leadership in the Dublin dressing room and their refusal to fall to it during their six-in-a-row, it is very hard to think they won’t have their approach right.
Kerry are less proven in that regard. The only blemish on Jack O’Connor’s phenomenal record is the lack of back-to-back titles. That type of glitch would not likely worry most normal managers yet there is a clear sense that it is one of the motivating factors behind O’Connor’s return. The team, however, still has that to prove and certainly Derry would appear a better bet than Monaghan in terms of where any upset might come from.
For Derry, despite this only being their second go at this stage, there are already questions over them not being a ‘Croke Park team’. I don’t buy this for a second. They’ve played four, won two and lost two. The two they lost were to Dublin and Galway. Hardly aberrations for a team on a rapid ascent from Division 4.
In my view it’s not Croke Park they have struggled with but rather top teams in big games.
When a top team rolls in, fully prepped for Derry’s finely rehearsed style of play, can they still win out? They haven’t to date. Until they do, they remain a sub top-level team. We know from everything about them that they have a fire raging inside to reach the top of the hill. They have been relentless but against Kerry we are going to need to see a level of performance we have not seen from them.
The answer to the big question will come down to the smaller puzzles within the game. Will they continue to push all 15 players forward, even if Clifford holds back? Will Gareth McKinless put Seánie O’Shea on the back foot? Will they use Conor McCloskey to expose Paul Geaney’s legs like they did with Conor McManus and Jack McCarron?
Those type of things are where they have always been brave – will they continue to do so when they know they must keep out the goals against a Kerry attack that feels like it carries a goal threat on every attack?
Questions, questions, questions. At least in sport we only have to wait 70 minutes and we’ll have all the answers we need.
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Watch the All-Ireland Football Championship semi-final, Dublin v Monaghan (Saturday 5.30pm), and Kerry v Derry (Sunday 4pm) this weekend on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie/Sport and the RTÉ News app or listen to live commentary on RTÉ Radio 1.
Watch highlights of the weekend's football action on The Sunday Game, 9.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player.
