The game is afoot.
Sunday will see Tyrone make their first All-Ireland football final appearance in 10 years and they could not have asked for a tougher team to welcome back to the big stage at Croke Park.
Dublin are going for four-in-a-row against Mickey Harte’s men. You would be hard pressed to find someone from outside of Tyrone to back them for an upset victory.
The game will be a sell-out, which should please the GAA after swathes of empty seats in the semi-finals. With both counties only allocated 12,000 seats apiece, it should lead to Hill 16 being populated by a fair number of fans from both counties.
Back in 2013, Mayo fans swarmed into the terraced end of Croke Park for a final clash with The Dubs. The men from the west would be edged out 2-12 to 1-14 but one of the stand-out memories from that day was the sheer number of Mayo fans that made their presence felt on Hill 16.
Three years on, sparked by this Diarmuid Connolly tweet, Mayo fans plotted to get as many bodies onto Hill 16 as possible.
16th man #Hill16isDublinOlny pic.twitter.com/qWtlMQM0ma
— – (@dermoc123) August 28, 2016
Ahead of the final, on Facebook, Mayo Club ’51 posted:
‘Now is the time, Mayo fans. We need to put in a Trojan effort to get as many tickets into Mayo hands as possible. And we need to do what we managed in 2013 and get as many Mayo fans onto the Hill as we can!!!
Diarmuid might have forgotten that Croke Park is not Dublin’s home ground (and it’d be hard to blame him seeing as the GAA have practically handed it to them) but Croke Park is everyone’s!! On the 18th we need to up the noise levels like never before and claim it as OURS!!’
A Facebook page from 2013 even returned.
Directly behind the goal, Dubs were out in light-blue force for that game, in September 2016, but Colm Parkinson got a great snap that showed how many green and red jerseys, and flags, were proudly on display.
https://twitter.com/Woolberto/status/777500780274323457
Dublin drew with Mayo that day too but won the replay and, last year, beat them again for their 27th All-Ireland triumph.
Tyrone are up next at Croker and ‘Tyrone Life’ are getting behind the planned ambush by ‘Tyrone Hill’. Their Facebook post reads:
‘Tyrone to take on the Dubs on and off the Field! Red and White invasion on Hill 16!!! WE BELIEVE!!!
‘We have been told that large groups of Tyrone GAA Fans are set for a party on Hill 16 come Sunday and we are certainly looking forward to the colour and noise that will bring to what is set to be an amazing occasion…
‘Tyrone Hill have set up a page on the prospect of a Red Hand party on Hill 16 and we are eager to know just how many are set to brave the Dubs’ home on all Ireland Final Day.’
Tyrone will need all the help they can get if they are to dethrone the Dubs.
Their players would definitely get a lift if they looked up at Hill 16 during the pre-match parade and saw it bathed in red and white.
