If your midfield gets on top, immediately you've got one up on your marker.
If you're an attacking half-back, you can gamble to get going ahead and put your man on the back foot that he's chasing you. As a half-forward you're making your break. You're not going in necessarily for the breaks. You back your man to win it.
So whoever wins the midfield battle has a knock-on effect to the whole middle third and you've got Paul Cribbin and Tommy Moolick of Kildare against Anthony Maher and David Moran and it's hard to see who will dominate there.
Cribbin and Moran on the ground is going to be absolutely fantastic and then Maher and Moolick will have more of an aerial battle.
But Moolick's good on the ground too and he's good at direct running straight down the middle as well.
If Kildare can get on top in midfield, you've got Eoin Doyle, Emmet Bolton and Kevin Murnaghan who love to get forward. If they start running forward, feeding Niall Kelly and him giving it inside, even feeding Eoghan O'Flaherty, Kildare can cause problems.
But they need to win midfield.
Colm was speaking on Off The Ball:
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