Roscommon manager Anthony Cunningham was on Wednesday’s OTB AM and spoke about how Mayo can beat Dublin in the semi-final.
The Westerners are certainly up against it this weekend and Cunningham believes that Mayo will have to put in the performance of the season to dethrone the Dubs.
“They’ll have to bring their A-game. I think they’ll have to improve on last weekend’s performance to crack the Dublin defence.
“It will be interesting to see how they set up for sure. Attacking-wise, there’s a big reliance on Andy Moran coming off the bench.
“Cillian O’Connor, will he be getting back? He might not be back fully yet at his top, top best,” Cunningham said.
Mayo have struggled at times this season and lost to Cunningham’s Rossies in Castlebar in the Connacht semi-final.
They have improved considerably since then as they proved against Donegal but still have areas of weakness that Dublin will likely target.
“I think we saw how Mayo set up in the league final against Kerry. They really sucked them into the middle.
“So they are really quite suspect on the wings and I think Dublin will expose that this weekend,” Cunningham commented.
Harsh lessons learned
Roscommon were put to the sword by the Dubs in Round 2 of the qualifiers and the former Galway hurling manager admitted that his side just didn’t turn up on the day.
“When you look back at it we were disappointed in a lot of our play in the first half. We made some basic errors that we hadn’t made all year,” Cunningham explained.
Facing the All-Ireland champions in their home city is a daunting task and seemed to affect the Rossies as they were blown away early on by a ferocious Dublin performance.
“I think our guys might have been a bit nervous or a bit taken aback by the presence of Dublin in full flight and also Croke Park.
“That’s just something we really have to work on. It will prove good for us in time, I’m confident of that,” Cunningham said.
Mayo take on Dublin at 5pm on the 10th of August in a highly anticipated clash which has left fans scrambling for tickets.
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