1. Will Donegal be at full strength?
Donegal named their team on Friday afternoon and, crucially, it includes both Karl Lacey and Eamonn McGee.
Lacey missed last week’s win over Galway with a knee injury while McGee was substituted at half-time after rolling his ankle, but Rory Gallagher remained optimistic that both would be ready to face Mayo.
Their inclusion suggests that they are fit — but will they actually start? Gallagher made three late changes to his team before throw-in against Galway, and it wouldn’t be out of the question for him to mix it up again to keep Mayo guessing.
Donegal are unquestionably stronger when the two key defenders play and, psychological trickery aside, it will be to Mayo’s benefit if they don’t start.
2. Should Mayo embrace the sweeper?
Playing with a defensive sweeper is definitely in vogue and while it’s by no means a tactical cure-all, it is certainly an effective way of shoring up defences.
It isn’t a weapon that Mayo usually deploy but if they need any warning about the perils of giving this Donegal team a clear route to goal, they just need to look at last year’s All-Ireland semi-finals.
Dublin’s defence was pulled out of shape by quick counter-attacks and Donegal made them pay with two decisive goals early in the second half.
Ignore Mayo’s stroll past Sligo and cast your mind back to the Connacht semi-final against Galway. There were multiple instances — not least for Gary Sice’s goal — when their soft centre looked exposed.
Will Mayo be tempted to mix it up this time, or can they contain Donegal on a man-to-man basis?
3. Have Donegal’s demons been put to bed?
There are no shortage of similarities between the current Donegal run and their ill-fated 2013 season.
They started both campaigns as the Ulster champions but looked flat in provincial final defeats against Monaghan before coming through the qualifiers with wins which were more grind than glamour.
Now, as then, they meet Mayo in the quarter-finals — and Donegal don’t need to be reminded of their fate. Cillian O’Connor and Donal Vaughan set the tone with two goals inside the opening 15 minutes and Mayo romped to a 16-point win.
“They gave us a lesson in how to play football,” Michael Murphy reflected this week, “and it’s something that we still have to take on the chin. It’s something we have to keep moving on from.”
Now is their chance to make amends.
4. Can Tyrone’s corner men stretch Monaghan?
If any football county can be dubbed ‘qualifier specialists,’ it’s Tyrone and they arrive to the quarter-finals on the back of four straight wins and with no shortage of momentum.
But if they are to beat Monaghan and extend their championship run for another few weeks, they will need their inside forwards to be on their game.
In Darren McCurry and Conor McAliskey they have two dangerous talents but McAliskey was nowhere near his best against Sligo last week and it fell to McCurry to carry the can with some help from Sean Cavanagh and the magnificent Mattie Donnelly.
It is rare that Tyrone’s two corner-forwards have hit form at the same time this summer — the win over Tipperary, where both chimed in with five points, is the exception rather than the rule.
The Red Hand need to buck that trend.
5. Will Monaghan take their place with the Big Four?
It is now common to peg Monaghan as a fifth county on the fringes of the ‘Big Four,’ and bookmakers and pundits alike agree that they should be good enough to beat Tyrone.
So this is a new era for Farney football, one in which the thrill of hope has been replaced by the pressure of expectation, and there is a growing sense that they have the players and the management to deliver on that promise.
It is 27 years since they have been in an All-Ireland semi-final so that, at the very least, would be a milestone.
They showed last summer that they have the measure of their bogey team, and this is the opportunity to rubber-stamp their ascendancy.
– First published 19.38, 7 August
