The time for hype is when we win it…..bar flags it’s very quiet in Mayo…yes enjoy the build up but come on…we are well used to this. Mayo are in 1/3 of all finals since I was born…it’s hardly surprising…

A little sprinkle of hype here and there can be good for the soul.
We should take some comfort from Spain performance in the world Cup, Two 18 year old playing star roles.
I think there is a strong realisation that games are won in the last quarter. We're doing ok. There must be no wavering of belief, no doubting of ability, no easing up on focus, in that last quarter.
Thankfully all is quiet in mayo camp, leave the hype to supporters

Tony Brosnan out of Kerry team according to Kerry GAA

Great piece, the hype is quiet but I think underneath there is a steely resolve. If we perform to our potential and ability then we win. If we don’t, Kerry win.

Great article Ann-Marie. I was down in Gods country at the weekend. Was in Bekan for the girls County finals and Castlebar for the league finals on Saturday. I didn’t see any hype anywhere. I saw flags and buntings and if that’s not allowed we might as well hide in our houses. I live in Maynooth and my next door neighbour, also a Mayo man have our flags out. A few others in our estate too. Nobody here thinks we’re losing the run of ourselves.

A great article Anne Marie. Even though people are drawing comparison with the hurling final there is one comparison they are missing. John Kiely in an interview talked about the hurt of losing AI finals in the nineties and said that hurt stays with you. If we draw the comparison with Andy Moran who lost several senior football finals he is a manager who is highly motivated to right that hurt. So we need to get behind Andy and our brave team. The motivation is there but needs to be nurtured against the arrogance of the men who would be kings. Shout it out. Onwards and upwards to victory.

You have to enjoy the fact that we're in the final,without losing the run of yourself. My kids are teens and non stop talking about the match and why not? I was the same at their age. No hype around Castlebar. But a lot of hope. If you can't enjoy this, what else can you enjoy? Maigh Eo abu.

Not being able to find a suitale horror movie on Netflix last night I decided to rewatch the 2004 All Ireland Final. Mayo V Kerry Mayo actually didnt play that badly that day its just that Kerry was ravenous and the hunger they displayed that day was unbelivable. I had forgotten that we had men on the field like Brady Nallen Gardiner McDonald of course the 2 Mortimers and Heaney, McGarrity to name a few not a bad side at all and they got some good scores and made some strong tackles but Kerry just blew them away and destroyed our small full back line. Praying for a different result on Sunday and hopefully its us that brings that hunger and hits them hard

Some interesting analysis on the upcoming final below from the Irish News, featuring Soupy Campbell from Armagh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aGWHreN3C4&t=72s

It Means Nothing To Me, the Monday Club podcast is always really good, I only discovered it this year and it's top of the rotation list. Did you hear the bit where Soupy talks about wearing the jerseys they wore all year, because they've "spilled blood" in them? I admit I cringed a bit when I heard that. But I like to think that our white jerseys represent a clean slate, without the scars and bloodstains of the past weighing us down.

I know I've said it elsewhere that the build up this year feels different. But I've just realised that it's not the build up that's different. It's us.

Well made the mistake of listening to The Football Pod this morning... general consensus being hope we manage to give Kerry a game seeing as they're going to the effort of showing up to collect Sam. And a little of hoping that Kobe has a few nice touches before he heads off to the sunset so that the Mayo supporters can have a little cheer on the day...
Some rain promised on Sat and Sunday in Dublin... hope the pitch isn't really greasy!

Unless you're getting a deep dive technical analysis style pod (p.s. if Tsu or anyone has a recommendation please shout) you're not going to get anything from listening in to generic pods that tells you what you already know - Kerry highly favoured for the match.

Don't let that get in the way of enjoying the week as best you can. If you're in Croke Park on Sunday make as much noise as you can manage, and keep the faith.

Had a listen to the Football Pod as well and was disappointed at the sometimes condescending nature of the analysis as usually it is fairly good. All the talk is Mayo are goosed if the full forward line is quiet without even mentioning that we are the top 2 point scorers all year. The talk of their 4 big men in the middle as if they are going to be standing there uncontested. Maybe the GAA should consider bringing the trophy presentation forward to after the parade and let us all get home in time for the Sunday Game

Lads, you’d honestly be better off heading down to the local pub and listening to whoever’s holding court in the smoking area than Paddy Andrews. This is the same fella who was in Old Trafford watching Ronaldo during the 2021 All‑Ireland final. He was a talented player, no doubt, but he hasn’t a notion about anything outside Dublin GAA. Tommy Rooney and James O’Donoghue are solid, but Andrews just hasn’t a clue what’s going on.

There is a chance Kobe will be marked very tight and he may start rushing things. I've seen this from him where he goes on his own rather than give a simple pass for goal. Typical of young lads. It may be better to be held back and Conroy start. I don't think Kerry will handle Conroy's directness. Conroy is fully in form now and could get early goals off the left full position. Kobe could be the winning of the game if he is kept until as late as possible when he will be rearing to go.

Agree the football pod final
Preview was disappointing.

Alternative view - That would be one way of confusing Kerry and guaranteeing Mayo wont win anyway

Best analysis from neutral point I've heard so far, was on Irish News, Stefan Campbell and Cahir O'Kane

The Football Pod is generally quite.good They are probably just saying what we don’t want to hear but let’s be honest - all logic points to a Kerry win whether we like it or not. If we want to cheer ourselves up a bit , the lads on the Pod got a lot of predictions wrong all year and actually admit to that. So hopefully they get this one wrong as well

@Exile: The Monday Club one mentioned above doing a great job of being a little technical & a little analytical without Cahair boring folks too much with the numbers. Would be right towards the top of my lists.

Huge fan of The Irish Examiner stuff as well. Maurice gets into the weeds on the numbers plenty and between James Horan & Paul Rouse (both with experience coaching at various levels of the game) they give out to him about it plenty to keep the non-analytical folks relatively happy too. Behind a paywall, but Maurice's stuff alone in the build up to a final would be well worth the cost imho.

Less podcast & more coaching coaches focused content, but I'm a big fan of the stuff Evan Talty (@iGaelicCoach on Twitter, actively coaching with Brigids [Roscommon] and Limerick footballers - https://www.patreon.com/iGaelicCoach/posts/free-access-v-163431301) is putting out. His 'free access' breakdown of the Kerry/Dublin semi-final with a lot of content that'll be relevant for us looking at Kerry too (though our defensive setup quite different to Dublin's, so how we'd go about solving those same problems we'd expect to be quite different).

Even the post match small stuff (https://x.com/iGaelicCoach/status/2076670818302537810) with some gold in figuring out where the game was won or lost. Makes it easy to see Kerry's efficiency off the charts in that Dublin game, without having to start manually tagging the game yourself or counting how many of the misses on either side were under what kind of pressure.

Further away from the podcasts again, but anything Paul O'Brien (Performance Analyst) is doing for The Irish Times this year is usually brilliant too. His breakdown of the Kerry/Dublin semi-final (https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/2026/07/14/dublin-asked-the-right-questions-but-kerrys-game-intelligence-helped-them-find-all-the-answers/), especially stuff like his heat maps on Paudie's possessions dropping deeper to help stretch the Dublin defense & create more space as the game entered the final quarter and Dublin sought to press more aggressively, would instantly improve the level of conversations offered by most pundits.

More just random stats on Twitter, but also worth keeping an eye on whatever Darren Devine (https://x.com/DarrenDevine92) puts out this year too. He's provided some incredible stats on team shooting, individual shooting & the most comprehensive breakdown on restart retention & impact I'd imagine you'll find outside of a county analytics setup (& possibly ahead of what you'd find inside a fair few of those). He has most (was all for much of the year, not sure if he or Maurice are 100% up to date right now) of all Championship games this year tagged and fairly responsive if you'd a specific query around a team or around a specific type of stat that doesn't get much attention usually.

Hype is to be embraced by the fans, let them enjoy it as Andy said.

Totally different sports/matchups/context but wonder is some of it has been become subdued having watched 2 one sided finals on Sunday in the hurling and the world cup where the clearly superior teams won without a glove being laid on them

I could live with a defeat to kerry but I couldn't forgive a Galway/Argentina type surrernder where we would lose with a whimper.

I still firmly believe the ambush is possible

Ive seen some madcap theories in my time on here but the proposal further up the page to bench Kobe might be up there with the most bonkers of them lol.

Imagine Jack o'connor turns around to his troops this week and said, "lads im dropping david clifford for the start, might bring him on when the game is stretched". He'd be laughed out of the room

Same thing

Thanks very much for the time taken on that Tsu!

I am a big fan of the Irish Examiner stuff myself. The only content I'd pay for, for those who aren't into reading stats yourself. Itching for them to drop the preview podcast, but I'd guess they're waiting until later in the week, I don't know if or when they might be doing a live show.
I actually can quite enjoy the OTB football pod review shows, but not the preview. They, especially Andrews, fall into rehashing the same stuff on the preview shows - a bitteen 'here's another podcast with the Man United class of 92' stuff. But it's entertaining when their eyes light up talking about some great moments over the past weekend and O'Donoghue gives insight into a great piece of forward play. I'd be a fan of Rooney.
I listened to The Monday Club (for my sins I'll listen to all podcasts even if I've promise myself I won't) and enjoyed it, but I don't want my biased ears to just be swayed by their relative positivity for Mayo....

If we can't get excited about a final, then what's the point of sport?
Regardless of the result, this team has represented us and our football the correct way. This team has given us something to look forward to going to watch next year, and has given us some respectability back in the wider footballing world. That's good enough for me for now.
We know where we're weak and we know where we're strong. Likewise Kerry. We need to go up another level, we need the rub of the green to go our way, and we need Kerry not to reach their heights. All of these can happen. If they do, we win. If they don't, we won't.

Having stood on the sidelines enough times and believing that I had every possible angle and "what if" covered off, you soon realise that things will happen in a game that you just could not predict. In finals, moreso. Mistakes will be made, momentum will shift, we will be under pressure at times and at times we will have chances to really hurt them. How we react in those circumstances and "keep the head" will dictate the result.
Hon Mayo.

Form is all important. If we have more of our players (especially our game changers) hitting top form than Kerry do then it's game on. Most pundits preview big finals by assuming all players will play to their normal level or the level they reached in the semi final which is quite ridiculous. Very rarely do all players replicate their previous performance and some will be much better than normal while others may be poor enough. Limerick definitely had one of those days when so many of their big players were close to their optimum while Galway will be disappointed that too many were below par.

I have two hill tickets. Looking to change for two Cusack’s tickets for two people who would need a seat as unable to stand for long periods.

Very true Joe G, I was deflated after our performance on Sunday, I consider that 6 of our players reached All Ireland Final standard which of course wasnt enough. Now I didnt expect us to reach a final and had Limerick down as the best team and likely winners a long way out, the closer to the match it got the more worried I got as I felt Limerick would of course peak and sadly for us they major peaked!!. Looking at the football Mayo have improved game by game and I didnt see them reaching the final either but there ye are. Kerry have been winning but not winning in their usual stylish Kerry way which gives me cause for concern for Mayo on Sunday. Somehow Andy Moran has to work out a way to stop Kerry getting into the groove and if that doesnt work have a plan B which Galway didnt have on Sunday gone. I wish Mayo luck as it will be a difficult game for ye if Kerry hit the pitch running. Its a long time since the Sam Maguire came west of the Shannon and Mayo will win some day, that is for sure so hopefully ye can do it on Sunday.

The tension is rising and we’ve all been traumatised by the past 37 yrs. But as I wrote a few days ago “go and enjoy the day”; Stephen Coen's remark"It's just another game" is exactly the mindset sports psychologists try to cultivate. The players need to stay in the present, not carry the emotional weight of 11 previous finals. That doesn't mean caring less; it means allowing ourselves to appreciate the occasion as well as the result. After all, reaching 12 All-Ireland finals in 37 yrs is itself an extraordinary achievement, even if the county understandably longs for the one that matters most. Maigh Eo Abú

Well said as usual Pebblesmeller….!!

Keeping Kobe in reserve… why not hold Ryan and Beirne while you’re at it and totally bamboozle Kerry

I think there is too much talk about Kobe. Even Jack o Connor comparing him to Clifford. How many times have star players been written up in the Sunday papers back the years only to flop on the big day. Nearly always happens. Andy needs to prepare Kobe and I believe the best way is tell him he will win the match for Mayo but during the the second half. Therefore start Conroy especially if playing into hill. Best chance to get goals.

Alternative view - we should hold Ryan back as well and start Andy Moran and while were at it put O`Shea at full back on Clifford. Kerry won't know what hit them.

No way I would be holding Kobe. The big thing here is we start well and gain primary possesion. Kobe is a huge kickout option and remember Kerrys kickout has been pretty good all year. I dont know why you would not be starting a man who can compete in this area so well. If we dont start well and let Kerry dictate it could be the same old story.

There's no need to do anything with Kobe .
He has the best of coaches at home , hes so grounded and nothing will faze him, ciaran , his mam, they have seen a lot and certainly wont fall for Jack O conors soft shite ..
He got some heavy man marking and opponents last seasons club championship and before anyone disrespects the county championship, were talking Keegan, Brick , O Hora, Sam , Mikey Murray , some of the heavier hitters who will leave you sore .

He s well tested no fears of him , just feel this team is better prepared than any team we had in last few years , the big drawn games v Dubs we were always missing one of the top players , covid final etc but this year feel lads are cool calm and collected and even bonded better by this team evolving and coming together and the selection coming together through tough challenges .

I actually think this is the strongest panel we have had for years and even back to the teams that contested against Dublin. Having DoC, Paddy, Mattie and Tommy all to come in, is a position we have never been in before. If we are in contention at half time with these lads still to come in I think we will get over the line. I think the first half performance will decide if we win or lose the game. Its the hope that kills us but I wouldn't want it any other way. Mayo Abu.

I can’t see Kobe being withheld, he’s been played every game with an X factor that can’t be coached including our recent early goal flick. He might be kept quiet early on but tell him to be patient. He’ll know that anyway. Also agree let him come out for the odd leap, it’s great to see, don’t think I’ve seen anyone jump that high for a ball in GAA, he may be about 6’2” or a bit more but well capable of out jumping any 6’5” + hardened midfielder if he gets a run at the ball. Just 1 or 2 of those can be a momentum changer. Opponents often don’t see him coming, he’s allusive. I’m fine with him and Beirne only scoring 3 between them in the 1st half if it’s tight and others are chipping in. Be good to see the half lines pop a few over or a Jack Carney 2 pointer in the 1st half. As for playing Tommy C from the start, it’s an option at 11 alternating with ROD but Towey did give us good control the last day in his half of football. If we go for frantic it’s Tommy who’s also able to get back fast tracking, if the aim is early good ball in it’s Towey. Tommy could do a lot of damage if getting an early score for confidence. There’s also a case for Mattie at half forward from the start with Flynn going to midfield. He caused Kerry awful problems the day we beat them a few years back. All hard calls. Bob has been improving and a good out ball but more needed again Sunday.

Why in the name of god and all that makes sense, would we hold back our youngest, fittest, and probably fastest player?!

A lot of finals are won by a tactical curve ball, the Kerry tactics particularly in the first half last year, very simple but won the game for them. Our main tactic has been the positional movement of our forwards. I'm thinking one of DOC, TC or Paddy will start as this game wont be won in the last 15mins more likely the first 15-20mins. What curve balls do others see ?

Hi folks, a query re ticket formats- trying to get a ticket through a contact on a different county board - wondering what format these are usually given in? I.e. is it a digital ticket that you print yourself at home or an old fashioned physical ticket. Last time i was at a final was 2017 and it was all physical tickets i think. Asking as I would need to make an 8 hour round trip drive to collect the physical tickets, definitely not opposed to it but would like to plan ahead if so! Many thanks

Glad to see that "Maigh Eo Abú", the traditional Irish sporting battle cry for County Mayo, has been adopted by so many supporters. "Maigh Eo" is the Irish name for Mayo, and "Maigh Eo Abú" means "Up Mayo!" or "Mayo forever!". "Maigh Eo" is usually written as two separate words and literally means "plain of the yew tree", though it is often understood as "plain of the yew trees".