Making right calls with defences could be decisive factor

The beauty of team sports is the amount of variables that can occur in any competitive game. Tomorrow’s match, for example, is extremely interesting on many levels, but the defensive strategies of Kerry or Mayo are the deciding factor towards who will emerge victorious. Will this decision, taken by the respective managers, be their Achilles heel?
Not so long ago Kerry were regarded as the bastions of free-flowing forward football, holding strong to tradition and striving to contain the respect, well earned, through generations of gifted footballers. Eamonn Fitzmaurice has realised that time and tide wait for no man or, more accurately, that mighty folklore alone cannot halt the progress of the modern game of Gaelic football such is the emphasis on success as reward. Kerry have adjusted, they have had to.