Dara Ó Cínnéide: Mayo must bring chaotic madness, and then they just might win

They tell us that 91% of Stephen Cluxton’s kick-outs were secured by a man in a Dublin jersey this year. So why do we still obsess about the 9% that weren’t?

It’s simple really. Beating Dublin is all about the amount of damage you inflict when you manage to disrupt their possession game. Dublin know this too and that is why they have gone short with so many kick-outs over the last few years.

When Tyrone’s Pascal McConnell started the recent fixation with retaining possession from kick-outs in the 2010 All-Ireland quarter final against Dublin, we thought that it was a passing trend, but, as usual, Mickey Harte was ahead of the curve. It wasn’t Tyrone’s short kick-outs that cost them that game but the 17 wides they kicked at the other end. Maybe the energy expended in trying to bring the ball 130 yards upfield had something to do with their waywardness but the short kick-out has evolved since then.