This is worse than the countdown to Christmas.
Count to 10 there quickly, good job you’re now 10 seconds closer to All-Ireland football final day!
It’s the best day of the year for many, nothing quite beats it and this year it has the two best-supported teams in the country involved…again.
Can Mayo break the curse and secure their first All-Ireland title since 1951 or will Dublin be the first team to win three titles in a row since Kerry in 1986.
All signs point to Dublin but all signs also pointed to Mayo being dumped out of the competition a long time ago after a number of close shaves against Derry, Cork and the likes.
But here we are, the players are getting ready for the biggest game of their lives but what will they be doing in the build up to the final.
One man that has experience in all of this is Paul Kerrigan, the Cork man lifted the Sam Maguire back in 2010 and played another final in 2009.
“I’d say this weekend now they’ll probably play their last internal game,” Kerrigan said.
“They showed it one night on the Sunday game (Dublin’s) sub forward line so I think it’s the last weekend for guys to really make an impact and push for the team.
“The weeks gone would have been the heavy weeks in terms of competitive stuff and then fine tuning the small things like their kick outs and their kick out defence and maybe just making sure I’d say after this weekend, Tuesday and Thursday a lot of it is mental. Tuning into the game and the occasion and how big it is.
“Dublin have been fantastic on the big occasions and how they can get into the right frame of mind for it.
“Mayo will be drawing on it as a positive given the level of hurt that they’ve had and I suppose an All-Ireland final the whole occasion and the parade and the lead up isn’t alien to them and they know what it’s about so I suppose they’re just really focusing on their performance like they did against Kerry in the two games.
“The week of a game, players are always visualising, maybe for five minutes every day. Say if you’re a wing forward, yeah, you’re visualising kicking the winning score, but for the most part, you’re going to be getting under breaks and tracking back. You have to get your mind right for doing that hard, hard work.
“Everyone is saying Dublin but it’s getting harder to call the closer we’re getting to it,” Kerrigan concluded.
Paul Kerrigan was training parents and kids at SuperValu’s #BehindTheBall Volunteer Camp at Christian Brothers Secondary School in Middleton, Co Cork. SuperValu’s volunteer camps are taking place nationwide and are designed to encourage more parents to lend their support and get involved in their local clubs throughout the country.
