Four class games of football on tele this weekend

Niall McIntyre

Kerry’s season could be over before they knew it had even started.

On the back of their listless loss to Galway last weekend, Kerry’s trip to Clones this Sunday got a whole lot more daunting. When you couple the Kingdom’s inability to cope with the Tribemen’s system in Croker with their historic struggles against these tight, tough tackling systems, there’s no doubt that Monaghan will be favourites going into this one.

Under Malachy O’Rourke, the Farney Army have won seven of their ten championship games which took place in their home grounds so Eamon Fitzmaurice’s side are venturing into an absolute fortress this weekend.

The home side will be keen to turn this game into a type of disorganised chaos, they’ll be hoping to take the Kerry players out of their comfort zone just like Galway did where you saw James O’Donoghue and David Clifford tracking back while their lethal attacking weapon Gavin White was stuck man-marking.

If the Kingdom were to lose out this weekend, their Super 8s dream would be over and that would be a huge disappointment for them on the back of their early season optimism in Munster. All will be revealed on Sunday by 6.30.

By that time, Kerry folk who’ve travelled to Clones will face a four or five hour drive home that night. That’s not ideal and it’s hardly reasonable, and that’s why it’ll be tough to expect too many of them to travel.

That’s the tie of the weekend but before that we’ve the Battle of Omagh to contend with. It’s surely a good omen for the Dubs that a number of Tyrone players have come out this week to say that Healy Park never really felt like home to them. When you couple that with the fact that Dublin will more than likely outnumber the Tyrone fans on their home grounds due to a season ticket skew, the home advantage no longer seems much of an advantage for them.

They will be confident though, after successive hammerings of Cork and Roscommon following a tidy qualifier run, and as well as confidence, they’ll have a burning desire to last year’s semi-final hammering at the hands of the same opponents.

Then you’ve Roscommon Donegal where the wounded Rossies are fighting for their lives in front of their home crowd. It’s also a must-win for Donegal while Cian O’Neill’s Kildare also need a big performance against Galway.

Every single one of these Super 8s games are on tele, between Saturday and Sunday for what promises to be another bonanza of football action.

Here’s to hoping it delivers more than last weekend’s did