Whistling past the graveyard as Mayo-Donegal head for the Hyde
Mayo and Donegal decamp to the 'neutral' venue of Dr Hyde Park for what is likely to be a do-or-die game for Stephen Rochford's team at any rate.
Personally, I could understand how Donegal supporters might be a bit miffed at the choice of venue.
But then other options were probably thin on the ground. The Markievicz pitch is closed for maintenance until the new year and Carrick-on-Shannon might struggle to accommodate the two sets of supporters.
Notwithstanding the backdrop behind one of the goals, the Hyde has been anything but a graveyard for Mayo in my time.
We haven't lost there in championship since the 2001 Connacht final, close to a quarter of a century ago.
Given our record in MacHale Park in the last decade or so, I've thought about petitioning the county board to nominate Roscommon as our home pitch in future.
The game inevitably sparks memories of the MacHale Park Super 8s game in 2019, which was a very similar scenario. Donegal were Ulster champions and unbeaten that summer. Our backs were to the wall. We had lost to Roscommon earlier that summer and took a pasting off Kerry in Killarney in the opening Super 8s game.
It was one of the best atmospheres I've played in at Castlebar. It was a damp Saturday evening but the place was electric. We turned them over for a famous victory.
All four teams have two points entering into the final round, which is an unusual situation in itself. But due to the sequence of results, Mayo are in much more urgent need of a result than Donegal.
You can probably tell from that that I don't much fancy Cavan's chances against Tyrone, a team who they've lost against relentlessly over the years.
The size of Donegal's win in Kingspan Breffni underlined again - if we needed reminding - how awful Mayo were in the first group game. It was a perennial Mayo problem. Deep down, failing to respect the teams we should beat. It could well prove costly.
We saw how transformed they were with a completely different attitude in Omagh, where we devoured them at midfield and on breaking ball.
It has to be a similar high-octane vibe this Sunday and the context surrounding the game should feed into that. There's no safety net now.
But let's not get carried away either. A defeat here and they're likely out of the championship.
Meaning that the past three years will have seen a quarter-final exit, a preliminary quarter-final exit and a group stage exit. Not a good trajectory to be on.
They also beat a flat Tyrone team, who were without their strongest ball winner in Brian Kennedy.
They're facing a different proposition this week. The Ulster champions have a multitude of aerial options. Michael Langan is an imposing presence and a major scoring outlet. Ciaran Thompson is there, Michael Murphy will be drifting into the middle to fetch kickouts. They've Jason McGee waiting on the bench.
Then, they'll have the runners shooting in to seize breaking ball and their wide players will be running off the shoulder and then they're pouring forward.
On top of that, Shaun Patton's booming kickouts are a ferocious weapon, which can set them off on attacks in a heartbeat.
They've an abundance of two-point shooters, from Langan to Paddy McBrearty to Oisín Gallen, an area of the game where Mayo's threat, as has been documented, is almost non-existent.
Mayo have a strong record against Donegal - since the 2012 final, we've knocked them out in big championship games in 2013, 2015 and the aforementioned 2019.
But looking at it dispassionately, it's hard to conclude that Donegal aren't three to four points the better team currently. Though Mayo being Mayo, I expect them to go down swinging.
Who knows? If the game is close in the Hyde and word filters through that Tyrone are winning well in Enniskillen, we might gravitate towards a draw - similar to that league finale in Ballybofey when Kevin McLoughlin scored the equaliser after taking about 86 steps or whatever it was.
There will be similar levels of anxiety in Group 4, where supporters will be scrolling their phones to check the other score constantly.
Armagh supporters needn't worry about any of that. But I don't see them easing off the throttle this Saturday evening. If anything, I reckon Kieran McGeeney could spy a chance to eliminate one of their chief rivals. Even if he does ring the changes, Armagh have so much depth currently they won't be substantially weakened.
We spoke about Donegal's two-point threat earlier. But Galway's two-point obsession was nearly the ruin of them in Celtic Park. Padraic Joyce was understandably happy to have survived at all but if you watch back the closing stages, they had more than enough time and chances to overhaul Derry had they taken more prudent options in attack.
Paul Conroy, Cillian McDaid and Dylan McHugh, three of their biggest players last year, were massively subdued and taken off before the end. You could say their depth did save them in the end, with Céin Darcy and, to a lesser extent, Peter Cooke coming good in the closing stages.
It's a huge game in Páirc Esler and a nervy one for the Hill. Imagine Dublin tumbling out of the championship this early?
Their performance against Armagh was borderline surreal at times. The wild shooting was bad enough. Being guilty of three 'three-up' infractions at this stage of the season was almost beyond belief.
Have Derry the tools and the men in form to take them down? They played with staggering intensity at home to Galway and Conor Glass is almost in Footballer of the Year territory (can you win it if your team can't win a match?)
Niall Loughlin had a super game the last day but I fear they're over-reliant on the midfield pairing of Glass and Brendan Rogers.
Shane McGuigan is still not hitting the heights of 2022-23. And they're still conceding too many goals. Five against Kerry in the league, four against Armagh in the league, four again against Galway the last day... and some of them have been plain chaotic.
A lot will depend on whether Con O'Callaghan is back in the saddle this week, but I don't expect as wasteful a shooting display again.
My hunch is a Dublin win in Newry, with possibly another drawn game in Cavan. Meaning the Connacht champions will sneak through without needing a win in the Group of Death.
Follow a live blog on the All-Ireland Football Championship on Saturday on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app. Listen to updates on Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1. Watch highlights on The Saturday Game at 9.30pm.
Watch an All-Ireland Football Championship double-header, Monaghan v Down and Donegal v Mayo, on Sunday from 1.30pm. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app. Listen to updates on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1. Watch highlights on The Sunday Game at 9.30pm.
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