A novel and welcome pairing for the All-Ireland football final
TYNAN'S TAKE: By Stuart Tynan
SO now we know. For the very first time in the history of the championship, Mayo and Tyrone will do battle in the All-Ireland SFC final.
You would have to go back to 2012 final between Mayo and Donegal for the last time we had a first-time pairing for the All-Ireland final. It has been one-way traffic since 2015 with the runaway train that was Dublin. While they will go down as one of the all-time great GAA sides, too much of anything is never a good thing and already interest for this final is at a level that hasn't been seen since the Mayo and Dublin battles of 2016 and 2017.
The pundits (myself included) were pretty confident that it would be Mayo and Kerry that would be the pairing ahead of last Saturday's semi-final but, just like Mayo did a number of weeks ago against Dublin, the Red Hands tore up the script and wore the Kingdom down to deservedly book their place in the showpiece at Croke Park.
Watching the game unfold on television, Kerry will be kicking themselves. Losing talisman David Clifford for extra-time was always going to be a blow, but their decision-making at key moments really came back to bite them.
The disallowed goal in the first half, due to a square ball, should never have occurred in the first place. Looking back, Paul Geaney will be seething with himself that he didn't just put it away himself instead of teeing up Stephen O'Brien and it was ruthlessly punished moments later as Tyrone went up the field for Conor McKenna to coolly slipped it past Kerry 'keeper Shane Ryan.
Kerry were far too reliant on David Clifford and Sean O'Shea for scores (they accumulated 0-16 of their 0-22 points) and once Clifford went off injured, the gig was up once Tyrone had all 15 players back on the field after two earlier black cards.
But for Tyrone's great victory over Kerry, there is plenty of optimism for Mayo ahead of the final. Tyrone's kickouts from goalkeeper Niall Morgan were poor throughout and their discipline let them down through the aforementioned black cards. This is still a much changed Tyrone team developing under the new joint management of Brian Dooher and Feargal Lohan.
Unlike Kerry, Mayo will be ready for anything Tyrone throw at them. We'll take a look why in next week's All-Ireland supplement.
*You can read Stuart's column in our All-Ireland supplement this Tuesday.