By Michael Devlin

Former All-Ireland winning Cork captain Graham Canty expects Mayo to produce a performance akin to recent seasons and push Dublin all the way in Croke Park tomorrow.

While Jim Gavin’s men are now two games away from completing an unprecedented All-Ireland five-in-a-row, Mayo are the team who have come closest to breaking that run of success.

They were defeated by Dublin by a single point on a scoreline of 2-12 to 1-14 back in the 2013 final. Three years later the Connacht side held the Dubs to a draw in the final and lost the replay by a point. The bare minimum was once again the difference when the sides met in the 2017 decider.

Those near misses, agonising to Mayo of course, serve as evidence that they are the county able to push the all-conquering All-Ireland champions right to the pin of their collar, and with another scintillating showdown set for tomorrow afternoon, Canty sees a big challenge coming from the resilient men from the west.

“When you look at it on balance, Dublin are still the team to beat, they have been for a couple of years. Just when I look back over at it, from the start of the Championship and I was wondering where was the challenge going to come from against Dublin, you were wondering and hoping maybe could it come from Mayo again, because they have proved it on the biggest stage that they can compete with Dublin. So, I think maybe if the challenge was going to come, it was going to come from Mayo.

“I think the belief that the group has shown is ferocious over the last number of years. The group has slightly changed as well. But the main drivers are still there, and the core of the group is still there. That's why the team is still here competing, and they probably will compete very hard with Dublin at the weekend, but I think it's going to be very hard to dislodge Dublin this year.”

The fact remains though, that while Mayo have been the team that so nearly touched the void, they have not conquered the Dublin mountain. The early 2018 exit at the hands of Kildare is something that had to be reconciled according to Canty. 2019 is a new year.

“During my career we had massive tussles with Kerry. We won some, we lost an awful lot. But like that, it's great when your group changes, when you have a small bit of change, as Mayo has had, it's still the same core but you have new players coming and pushing as well, changing the dynamic.

“They've had a change in management too, James Horan back in, so that'll change things as well. And every year is played on its merits. I think inter-county players now aren't looking to next year. They're looking to this season, to see what you can get out of this season.

“To a certain extent you just have to park whatever went on last year. Again, it goes back to that mental challenge, an awful lot of the work is done before the ball is thrown in at all with the mental side of things.”

Canty’s Cork defeated Dublin on the way to the All-Ireland title in 2010, but since then they have only lost two Championship games, an astonishing statistic says the Bantry man.

“It's a ferocious record. Brian Fenton there hasn't lost a Championship game, he hasn't experienced Championship loss. It's a massive record to hold. It's the level of performance, it's massive. A lot of that is down to Jim Gavin and the team around him.

“But also, the players’ approach to things is second to none. The squad that Jim has developed is top class. So even if something isn't maybe going right in a game, he has that arsenal on the bench to be able to change things.

“I think the game management piece that the group have developed is great as well. It's not all coming from the line. You see players and they adapt themselves. They're not looking for direction from the line in terms of how to cope with things.”

The Dublin wins have been in constant flow, but the personnel have changed significantly. One of the most frightening aspects has been the replenishment of the Dublin panel every season or two, with elder players moving aside and new players seamlessly slotting in without any diminishment of standards.

“I think what kind of hasn't changed is their brand of football, they still play complete football, total football, and they would love nothing better than a team going toe to toe with them,” says Canty. “That's why the match-up between themselves and Mayo is always fascinating to watch. It's two teams that go out to play head to head. They'll play complete football. It'll be fast flowing and there'll be a lot going on and it'll be a great battle.”

And what of Sunday’s entertainment, the youthful swashbucklers of Kerry under the tutelage of new manager Peter Keane, taking on longstanding Mickey Harte and his band of road-tested Tyrone troops?

“I don’t know. It’s a much tougher game to call,” assesses Canty. “A lot of the columns I’m looking at now are pointing towards the Tyrone performance against Cork, in the first half particularly. It wasn’t great.

“What I was impressed with, although Tyrone put in 35 minutes of football where Cork were on top and dominated, Tyrone came out and set the record straight. They had a blistering 10 or 15 minutes and really got on top of Cork. Then they were on top, they hit the scoreboard hard. Cork recovered then as well, but Tyrone showed their game management experience and just played out the game.

“I was impressed with Tyrone, how they were able to recover, how they were able to adapt and the changes they made at halftime, how the players came out hand and went about winning the game in the second half.”

“The game last week [Tyrone vs Cork] was a nothing of a game, they’ll be well-rested. Kerry’s form, they’ve come through the Super 8’s, and a team who come through will be very tough. A lot will depend on how defensively solid Tyrone will be against a potentially very potent Kerry attack.”

Graham Canty was in Croke Park at the launch of a new club focused app entitled PlayUs GAA, which has been designed to facilitate clubs to search for and arrange challenge matches. For more information, visit www.playusgaa.com.