Lee Keegan has challenged the misfiring Mayo attack to come up with the scores to beat Dublin.
Mayo were the highest scorers in Division One en route to winning the League title earlier this year but their tallies have dropped off since.
Their average score across their five Championship games stands at 14.6 points, though the win over Kerry, in which they posted 1-19, was something of an outlier as they could only manage 0-10, 0-14, 1-11 and 1-10 against Roscommon, Louth, Cork and Galway respectively, an average of 12.75 points per game.
The starting attack contributed just 0-5 to last Sunday’s win over Galway but ex-Mayo star Keegan believes that the Dublin backline is vulnerable if his former teammates have the conviction to punch holes in it.
He said: “I think there’s chinks in Dublin’s defence where they can exploit. My worry is that Dublin set up with a good system and structure early on and keep away from that chaotic stuff that Mayo love against Dublin, I think that Mayo might struggle a little bit.
“I know they’re going to keep Aidan O’Shea up top, I think that’s a smart idea. The thing I like about Mayo is they have a bit of depth now and they can rely on James Carr coming off the bench, scoring, Cillian [O’Connor] came on the last day and scored so that’s a huge bonus.
“I would still like to see some of their forwards score more, definitely. A bigger spread up in their offensive half.
“We had Paddy Durcan scoring the last day, we had a bit more of a spread but I still don’t think we’re scoring enough to win these games and if they don’t get over that threshold on Sunday and score more than 1-11, then I can’t see us winning the game.”
As Keegan sees it, there’s a high risk/reward factor if Mayo are bold in how they attack Dublin.
“Defensively Dublin are there for the taking if they (Mayo) want. But how much risk are Mayo willing to take when you have the likes of Con O'Callaghan, Ciaran Kilkenny, (Sean) Bugler has been playing brilliant football, do you just go all out and go for it or do you go just go with the structured stuff?
“I think those are the challenges which will be posing Kevin (McStay) a lot of problems this week. Not problems, more headaches that can they get around that and can they break down Dublin enough.
“I think they're going to get chances and they're going to need to take them but I just allude to that point, can they score enough? And we haven't seen that in the last three games.”
The high-octane games that Keegan was involved in over the past decade or so were largely decided by the impact that Dublin had off the bench in comparison to Mayo, something that he now feels has flipped.
“Definitely. I think Mayo have more in reserve and they have better quality to come off the bench where before, the only way for us to beat Dublin was to go man-on-man. I don’t think any other way would suit us because I think we would have got hammered.
“I think going man-to-man was the only way, and people will say ye didn’t win the All-Ireland as a result but I think it’s the closest we got to them as a result and we just didn’t have enough in reserve.
“You look at the ‘17 All-Ireland as the best example. Kevin McManamon coming on, Diarmuid Connolly coming on, guys like that who have multiple All-Irelands, All Stars, just quality kind of guys.
“I think Mayo have that now and we’re starting to see that. Is it going to be enough for Sunday? That is the biggest question. I think they have the quality to do it, it’s just if Dublin manage the game in the manner that I think they can, that’s the biggest challenge for Mayo on Sunday.”
Keegan played on the Mayo team that beat Dublin in the 2012 All-Ireland semi-final but they then endured a miserable run of fortune against them, failing to win any of the subsequent eight Championship meetings before finally ending their run as All-Ireland champions in the 2021 semi-final.
“We had two draws and probably the outlier was the one victory in 2021. It was in the moments that matter most that Dublin just probably beat us. Because they were just better and you just have to accept that sometimes.
“But we never got hung up about it before because if you let that filter through and fester you'd just be thinking about the what ifs and 'I should have done that'.
“We were very much in the present when we were playing Dublin because you'd have too much baggage by worrying about the game beforehand.
“Dublin were so good that they made you so honest. You were just thinking about the time on the pitch then, and if you got hung up about the one-point loss in '16, or the one in '17, then we were sitting ducks again. There was no point letting that fester.”
There was no great mystery to either side ahead of the games over the past decade but there is a different dynamic now, with Dublin having laboured through much of the season, which started in Division Two, while Mayo have mixed the good with the bad.
“I just don’t know where Dublin are at,” Keegan admitted. “It’s so hard to get a reading on them. For me, I think they’re a team that look a bit bored sometimes and this is the game that they want and need to get them up and running.
“I do think the sight of a Mayo game is the ideal scenario for them and we’ll know come half five on Sunday where they’re at.
“For me, at the moment, if [Dublin] play to their capabilities, I still think they might just have enough, just about.”
Lee Keegan was speaking at a media event for BoyleSports.
Big rivals, Dublin and Mayo, look to fight their way into the last four in the All-Ireland quarter-finals this weekend. And BoyleSports have an Epic offering:
Dublin to win @ 6/4
And Mayo to win @ 11/4
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