Ahead of a busy weekend of All-Ireland Football action, six-time All-Ireland winner Paul Flynn looks ahead to the action.
You’ve got quarter-finals whereby all the teams coming into them will actually feel like they can win it.
First up we’ve got Roscommon and Armagh. This is an interesting one. You’ve got the ferocity of the Armagh defence playing up against the flair of the Roscommon attack.
Davy Burke and a couple of the players after the (Tyrone) game were mentioning that they feel that they’re peaking now at the right time and whether that’s by design or whether it’s just because of the form that they’re bringing into the game, it’s a great place to be psychologically coming to the quarter-final in Croke Park.
Armagh are favourites and probably justifiably. But if they have any sniff of complacency like their fierce rivals Tyrone, they’ll suffer the same outcome. Roscommon won’t let up.
But I just feel Armagh have learned their lesson from the Ulster final campaign. People love it when they press up but I think they’ll balance that press – pressing the kick-out, pressing Roscommon – but also a mindfulness that they need to shut down the four Roscommon key players in attack and if they do that, I think Armagh will come out on top.
Dublin and Galway is one where for now let’s plan for the fact that Galway have a full deck, that there are no injuries there which would be a first for them this year.
If that’s the case, it will be a classic. (Pádraic) Joyce will set them up very, very solid at the back. They’ll be led by (Dylan) McHugh and (Johnny) McGrath in the defensive structure which will not just be a zonal defence, it will blend that with a really fierce man-to-man on the key Dublin forwards.
They’ve a midfield that can challenge anybody, in particular the Dublin midfield, which is obviously well renowned.
And plus, if they can counter, get the turnovers, counter quickly and get quality ball into (Shane) Walsh, (Damien) Comer and (Rob) Finnerty, who we haven’t seen enough of on the pitch at the same time this year, they will really, really hurt Dublin.
Not dissimilar to the Louth game where Louth really hurt Dublin by frustrating them at the back. It’s really about making sure from a Galway perspective that they get those turnovers and move the ball quickly.
Dublin didn’t perform against Mayo and I think some players will be dropped as a result of that and you’ll likely see (Paul) Mannion, Jack (McCaffrey), James McCarthy maybe coming in just to try and drive the tempo from the start and not let Galway get into the game.
My gut feeling is that it’ll be tight but Dublin might just have too much down the stretch, the last ten minutes when they’re able to bring on the bench, Galway just mightn’t have enough in reserve for that.
So I’m going to tip a Dublin win here.
Louth have been awesome this year under Ger Brennan and they’re definitely in bonus territory, coming back to Croker for a quarter-final.
But this weekend is a really stiff challenge for them and Donegal. Donegal played them in the league and they beat them 1-17 to 1-15 in Ballyshannon and I just fear the efficiency that Jim McGuinness’ men in attack bring, the class and they’re very experienced at breaking down that set defence that the wee county will deploy, I fear for Louth this weekend.
But they’ve been so good this year and if they can really lock it down at the back and if they frustrate Donegal’s attack and get those counter-attacks that they did against Dublin, they absolutely could cause an upset.
But Jim McGuinness’ men are just efficient this year and they slipped up against Cork. I don’t think they will slip up again against Louth this weekend.
Kerry–Derry for me is the game of the weekend. These two teams, they’ve had very different paths to the quarter-final.
Kerry, people are asking are they under-cooked and they’re worried maybe that Derry might be over-cooked.
Kerry’s season has been calm if you like and calculated, whereas Derry’s has been chaotic and inconsistent over the last number of weeks in particular.
But this was the game of the year last year and if Derry, who won the league, bring that form this weekend, this could be an absolute classic.
They will need their main men to step up, in particular (Gareth) McKinless, (Shane) McGuigan and (Brendan) Rogers who led the line so well last year.
But even last year when they led the line and Derry nearly had a flawless performance, it still wasn’t enough and mainly because of one man, David Clifford.
He was absolutely awesome, kicked nine points, all of them exquisite and I feel like he’s been simmering along and I think he’s going to burst into life on Sunday in Croke Park and he’s going to lead Kerry to victory.
Paul Flynn was speaking on RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland
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Watch the All-Ireland Football Championship quarter-finals, Donegal v Louth (1.15pm) and Kerry v Derry (3.15pm), on Sunday from 12.45pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to commentary on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
