Confirmed: Mayo to wear all-white kit in All-Ireland final meeting with Kerry

The last instance of a team in white winning the All-Ireland was Cork against Down in 2010.

Kobe McDonald of Mayo and Joe O’Connor of Kerry in action. Pic: James Lawlor/Inpho

Stars aligning or extra pressure? Either way, Mayo will hope that things will be all-white in Croke Park on Sunday week, July 26.

On Monday, the Connacht county lost the toss for colours against Kerry in the All-Ireland SFC final – generally, both counties change in such instances but when there is a similarity in alternatives, as was the case with the two having backups in shades of blue, one is allowed to field in traditional colours.

However, fears that Mayo’s all-navy second kit, featuring a turquoise and pink pattern, would be difficult to distinguish from the darker green of the current Kerry jersey mean that Andy Moran’s side will take to the field in their white 1951-inspired retro offering.

To mark the back-to-back victories of 1950 and 1951, Mayo and kit manufacturers O’Neills this year released two commemorative tops – the green and red was used in the home league win over Dublin, with the white version worn in the defeat in Tralee.

One potential change from that game might be a more prominent sponsor’s logo – the initial iteration featured the Elverys wordmark ‘ghosted’ on the sleeves.

The 1951 triumph was of course Mayo’s last All-Ireland win: the white of Connacht was used due to the colour-clash with Meath, who had a less dramatic switch as green is the Leinster colour.

While Mayo did wear white against the all-blue of Kerry in the 1981 All-Ireland semi-final loss, by and large since then red has been the back-up colour. In the 1996 semi between the counties, no change was ordered but for the 1997 final the gold band on the Kerry shirts was doubled in size to aid distinction.

Mayo were in red as they lost to Kerry in the 2004 final, but both the 2005 quarter-final and 2006 decider saw both in first-choice offerings – however, in both of those years, they met at minor level with Mayo wearing white.

Kerry in blue beat Mayo in red in the 2014 semi-final after a replay, and a second game was also required three years later as Mayo prevailed in a black and red change kit.

The last instance of a team in white winning the All-Ireland was Tyrone in 2021. It is the second year in a row that a colour-clash has arise in the decider - last year, when Kerry, playing in blue in a final for the first time since 1972, beat a white-clad Donegal.