All-Ireland SFC semi-final: Mayo v Tipperary, Croke Park, Sunday, 3.30 (RTÉ and Sky)

Aside from the obvious historical context, the first of this year’s All-Ireland football semi-finals is also notable for bringing two qualifiers together – the first time this has happened in six years. This isn’t merely a whimsical observation, as shocks at this stage tend to befall provincial champions rather than those teams who have made their way on the outside track.

It’s easy to understand why. A team that’s already been beaten once has far greater self awareness and also a useful thread of insecurity so it’s hard to make a case for Mayo being blind-sided by the team that beat the team that took their Connacht title this summer.

Tipperary’s historic run to the last four has already been the football event of the summer but it comes with its own dangers. The farther a team goes in championship, the fewer secrets they have and the tighter the room for further surprise. It also exposes them to unprecedented publicity and, taken together, that can be a tricky combination.

Tyrone 13 years ago are the last team to come from nowhere to win an All-Ireland without first losing a semi-final. Dublin, Donegal, Cork, Armagh, even Kerry – they all tumbled at the penultimate fence before surmounting the final one.

Pre-qualifier days

Tipperary could be compared to Offaly and Cavan 19 years ago, teams that stormed out of Leinster and Ulster as champions – in those pre-qualifier days – playing nice football before coming up against two seasoned teams (coincidentally Mayo and Kerry).  The relevance here is that neither played as they would have wished.

Arriving into Croke Park as the sole focus of a big crowd is daunting for inexperienced teams. Even the Tyrone of 2003 featured plenty of players who had won All-Irelands at minor and under-21 as well as back-to-back NFL titles.

Tipperary have the 2011 minor All-Ireland but they haven’t adjusted their league standing up to the top half of the competition and are at an obvious disadvantage playing a Division One side, however fearless and buccaneering they have been.

Liam Kearns is, however, a vastly experienced manager who enjoys the minutiae of team preparation. One former intercounty manager recounts how the Tipperary manager can be relentless on the phone seeking bits and pieces of information from teams that have played his opponents in challenges or elsewhere.

In the aftermath of the terrific quarter-final win, Galway's Gary Sice said that they had been surprised by their opponents' level of detail: "They knew more than they should have known," he said.

There’s not much more to know about a Mayo team, who have been on the road for six years at this stage, but Kearns will have been seeking out nuggets of information.

Mayo, for their part, are in the dangerous category of a team that has rediscovered its sense of direction in the qualifiers after a shock defeat. The win over Tyrone wasn’t an exhibition but it was achieved with impressive control.

Counter-attacks

They will be strong where Galway weren't in the quarter-final. It's hard to see Bill Maher, Robbie Kiely et al making the same headway on counter-attacks, while Mayo's centrefield is strong enough to take the battle to their opponents even when Michael Quinlivan comes out to join the troops.

Quinlivan, who is a top 10 rated punt in the footballer of the year lists, is having a terrific season and he and Conor Sweeney are massive aerial targets on the inside line when the former is situated there. It's an attacking route that has caused problems for Mayo before and if Tipp hit their rhythm, they will seriously test Stephen Rochford's use of Kevin McLaughlin as a sweeper.

In attack, Mayo will be more combative and Tipperary are unlikely to get the chance to build from the back unimpeded. Both Aidan O'Shea and Cillian O'Connor will bring the physicality that their opponents struggled with at times in the shape of Galway's Damien Comer.

Tipperary could turn this into a great contest if they limit the time needed to acclimatise and go at Mayo with the same abandon they showed in the quarter-final but sometimes inexperienced teams have difficulty locating their A game at this sort of altitude.