Thrills, spills and sideline spats - there was much to ponder after Sunday's dramatic All-Ireland SFC final draw between Mayo and Dublin.
“What’s the greater challenge facing Mayo on Saturday evening 1 October?” asks sports editor Tony Leen in the Irish Examiner, “a greatly improved Dublin or the inevitable and seductive narrative that the All-Ireland champions could not be as bad again, ergo Mayo have blown their chance?
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"‘Keep writing us off,’ implored Andy Moran after the first drawn football final in 16 years.
"Doing so is more difficult than it seems. Mayo somehow trailed by three points with two minutes of the 70 remaining, but thoroughly deserved the second bite given them by Cillian O’Connor with 76.54 on the stadium clock.
"O’Connor’s contribution from open play wasn’t significant but no-one should doubt his bottle.”
In his analysis in the Examiner, former All-Ireland-winning manager Jack O’Connor thinks Jim Gavin faces some selection dilemmas around his marquee forwards ahead of the replay on Saturday week.
“Jim Gavin won’t overthink the malfunctions in his attack yesterday, but he’s got big decisions to make on the shape and substance of his forward division for 1 October.
"Paul Flynn and Bernard Brogan are two marquee names and while you’d expect both to be named for the replay, it won’t surprise me if neither start.
"They struggled more than most in Croke Park, but they were in good company - none of the six starters up front for the All-Ireland champions contributed greatly at the top end of the field, whereas Paddy Andrews and Paul Mannion brought a crispness and sharpness to their play when introduced.
"It’s an interesting dilemma for the Dublin management. Their free-flowing, easy on the eye approach is hampered by inclement conditions, all the more so when the pitch in question is Croke Park. How much of that was a factor in yesterday’s misfiring effort?
The obstacles, psychological and otherwise, Stephen Rochford’s side overcame yesterday will give them a huge impetus for the replay - Jack O'Connor
"The Dubs scored 12 points in a winning effort last year against Kerry, and only claimed nine points yesterday - with three of them frees.”
And the conclusion that most have come to, says O’Connor, that Mayo have lost their chance, may not be the case.
“The obstacles, psychological and otherwise, Stephen Rochford’s side overcame yesterday will give them a huge impetus for the replay.
"Going in five points down at the break despite playing well evidently wasn’t the crushing blow some might have thought it was if their start to the second period was anything to go by.
"Mayo reeled off the first five points after half-time, and didn’t concede until the 50th minute. At that stage Seamus O’Shea’s attempted pass to Diarmuid O’Connor was intercepted and Brian Fenton pointed to restore Dublin’s lead.
"That was significant in itself, as O’Shea and O’Connor looked wearier than any of the Mayo players in the third quarter. They both could have been replaced sooner.”
Pat Nolan, in the Irish Daily Mirror, reports that Dublin boss Jim Gavin played down the touchline spat between Diarmuid Connolly and Ciaran Kilkenny in the dying minutes of yesterday’s All-Ireland final.
The two Dublin forwards both appeared keen to take the sideline kick in the dying moments of the match as their side led by a point; Kilkenny anxious, it seemed, to retain possession, Connolly intent on having a shot.
“Maybe they both wanted to kick it,” Jim Gavin told Nolan. “Diarmuid, I’ve seen him kick them in training. So I have no issue with that. He’s well able to kick them over the bar from that distance and angle.”
Malachy Clerkin, in the Irish Times, marvels at the craziness of yesterday’s final.
“There is decent a chance that anyone who says they understood everything that went on here might just be bluffing a small bit. These are some facts from the game, none of which we could have plausibly imagined beforehand.
"No Dublin player scored inside the opening half an hour. Mayo walked in not one but two own goals in the first half to go in at the break five points behind. Dublin didn’t score for 15 minutes after the restart and still didn’t fall behind.
"Mayo were three points down in the 69th minute and still got out with a draw. The clock read 79:00 when Conor Lane’s full-time whistle finally called a halt to it all and sent us back out into the real world again. Oh, and the floodlights were on in Croke Park at 4.0 in the afternoon. Through-the-looking glass stuff.”
It’s a theme picked up by Clerkin’s colleague in the Irish Times, Keith Duggan.
“Not so much a football match as Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Gaelic football may belong now to the laboratory of tactical analysis and practice and repetition, but at the end of this mad, thrilling, error-ridden and sometimes heroic All-Ireland senior football final, everyone could admit they have been privy to some weird science.
"The remains of the day prompted a small smile from Jim Gavin: it was as good as an acknowledgement that nothing in the notebook he holds like a priest’s breviary contained anything that he had just witnessed. This All-Ireland final was possessed from the start.”
The Times’ football analyst John O’Keeffe feels Mayo desperately need a much bigger contribution from Aidan O’Shea.
“I think Mayo need to get a lot more out of Aidan O’Shea. It’s all right getting a big ball, or looking brilliant in the first 10 minutes, but the game is over 70 minutes. He’s an excellent go-to player but it didn’t happen for him today.
“Mayo made a lot of poor decisions, I mean that effort near the end of the game by O’Shea was unforgivable. Mayo are lucky they have another day out after stuff like that. It was a day to make sure of it. And he needs to have more composure.
"His brother Séamus was another culprit for bad decision making, he gave the ball away on four occasions and those instances summed up Mayo’s wastefulness in possession.”
In the Irish Independent, Eugene McGee, himself an architect of an All-Ireland final victory against the odds with Offaly in 1982, has plenty of praise for Mayo’s approach.
“Mayo's homework for this match was exceptional and was the reason for their relative success yesterday.
"They had taken the measurement of most of Dublin's star performers, analysed their play and were ready for practically everything they had to offer, based on their play over the past few seasons.
Mayo's homework for this match was exceptional and was the reason for their relative success - Eugene McGee
"As is always the case in these massive games, rocket science was not required, but instead enough Mayo players have been convinced by their mentors that with the knowledge they had acquired about how to handle the Dublin players, they were at the very least on a par with their vaunted opponents.
"This is how it worked out on the field: not one of the big names in Dublin turned in a star performance, which was a huge tribute to Mayo.
"Paul Flynn, Ciaran Kilkenny, Kevin McManamon, Diarmuid Connolly and others were at best just ordinary, but it is a tribute to Dublin's team organisation that they took control of the game in the final quarter in a way that seemed to be enough until Mayo came with a fantastic late surge to save the day.
"The new rule which decrees that every substitution has to add on 20 seconds after the 70 minutes has become the single most critical aspect of Gaelic football.
"In the semi-final, for example, Dublin and Kerry were level at 72 minutes before Dublin took over for victory. Yesterday, 77 minutes had passed when Cillian O'Connor scored that magical equalising point.”
