Why Dublin need BB’s A game

We’ve seen a few different versions of James Horan’s Mayo this year. During the league we saw the side that lost three successive games in March before thrashing Dublin by 12 points on the last day of the month.

And what of the Mayo team that came from behind against Kerry only to have all their shortcomings laid bare two weeks later in the league final against Cork? In their three championship outings they’ve been ruthless against Leitrim, won ugly against Sligo and blitzed Down before getting the sucker punch of losing Andy Moran — “the heart and soul of the team”, as Horan said afterwards.

We saw last weekend how having only three championship games of questionable quality can militate against a team in an All Ireland semi-final and for all the times we’ve heard this week that Mayo are “in a good place”, the loss of Moran, the only consistent element in at times, wildly erratic full-forward line, must be severely destabilising.