THE MIDDLE THIRD:The hurling semi-finals showed the value of getting in opponents' faces but Kerry will be prepared for Mayo's intensity

I DON’T know if James Horan is much of a hurling man but I’d say he’s been cursing Waterford and Dublin over the past two weekends. No game exists in a vacuum. You’re always subject to the things that are going on around you, no matter how hard you try to shut everything out. So any danger there was of Kerry walking into their semi-final against Mayo on Sunday and thinking they’d win it handy must be gone now.

When you’re preparing to play a team in any game you’re serious about, the one thing you have to do is sit down and look at it from their point of view. Try to get into their mindset. Mayo are going into an All-Ireland semi-final after seeing two less-fancied teams put up massive performances in the hurling.

Dublin, especially, were an example to all underdogs. They never once cribbed about their injuries, even though they were missing a third of their team. They just went out and got in Tipperary’s faces and came close to catching them on the hop.

If I was a Mayo footballer looking at that, I’d be thinking there’s nothing in the world to stop my team from doing the same. They’re coming in with no expectations weighing on them, no pressure except the pressure they’re putting on themselves. But as long as the Kerry players are aware of that, I’d expect them to have enough in hand to beat James Horan’s team.

I’ve been very impressed with Horan this year. He’s been pretty ruthless with his team. Only seven of the team that started the London match started against Cork in the quarter-final, hardly any of them in the same position.

He has to know this week that a semi-final is a place to go for it all-out.

Everybody was saying to Anthony Daly on Sunday that the future was bright and that Dublin would be back to loads of semi-finals. But you don’t know that for sure. Mayo haven’t been in one for five years so I think Horan will be driving it home to them that they have to make it count.

Kerry will have prepared for this game the way Jack O’Connor likes to do it, which is to go at the points where Mayo are strongest.

The two O’Sheas at midfield have been a revelation and there’s a consensus out there that Kerry are maybe a bit weak at midfield. That’s huge motivation for Bryan Sheehan and Anthony Maher and I fully expect Kerry to attack Mayo’s midfield from the get-go.

Mayo will be very dogged, very physical. I really like that midfield partnership. Aidan O’Shea tends to get more of the headlines but I actually think Séamus is the one who stands out. He was very impressive against Galway in the rain on a hard day when you needed a fella like him to horse into challenges. For a young lad, he’s very manly and very abrasive in the way he plays the game.

And when one or other of them tires, Mayo will bring on Ronan McGarrity.

Horan is using him in a very similar way to how Conor Counihan used Nicholas Murphy last year. He brings him in to close out games, to make the right decisions with a calm head. The fact that he’s a substitute doesn’t diminish his presence in the team at all.

That’s what Kerry are facing into on Sunday. Mayo will be pumped up and mad to get after it. If I was a player facing into an All Ireland semi-final, I would rather the atmosphere and mindset that’s in the Mayo camp this week over the one in the Kerry camp. I’d love to be going into a game where everyone is against you and everyone thinks you’re going to be beaten. Mayo have confidence, they have a backline they trust and a system they like.

There are no prima-donnas, no bitching about being taken off or sitting on the bench. Why wouldn’t they believe they can have a right good go on Sunday?

What Mayo can’t go into the game without are contingency plans. How will they react if one team or the other has a man sent off? What will they do if Kerry get an early goal? That’s what you talk about inside as a team in the run-up to a game like this. It might be something as simple as, “Right, if Kerry get an early goal, we batten down the hatches and one of the O’Sheas makes damn sure of the next kick-out.”

The two boys then have to take responsibility for it and when one of them goes and wins it, the whole team is lifted. The goal is forgotten about and you get on with the game. Good managers will throw that responsibility onto the players. Make them look around and take on the challenge for each other.

Make them think, “Right, I need to be the one that gets this next ball, that’s my job.” People have been telling them for years that they can’t beat Kerry and they’ll be told that all week as well. I’m going for Kerry to win so Mayo people will probably think I’m doing the same thing here! But they definitely can and I’d be fairly confident that the one place they won’t be treated lightly is inside the Kerry panel.

There’s a consensus around that Kerry don’t respect other counties, Mayo among them. It just isn’t true. When we beat Mayo in All Ireland finals in 2004 and 2006, of course we respected them. We respected them enough to beat them well both times. We respected them enough to be careful not to make a mistake or be lackadaisical about it. Things worked out for us and we won both matches well. But there was never any lack of respect. The opposite was the case.

It will be the case again on Sunday. Kerry only need to remember the Down result from last year when they were caught cold and any trace of complacency they might have will disappear. To be humbled in Croke Park like that is a hard thing to swallow. You feel the embarrassment for a while afterwards and you’re mad to get back and put things right.

I’ve always maintained that a lot of the success we had with Kerry was down to the Meath defeat in 2001 and the Tyrone defeat in 2003. You need to get cuffings like that to make you come back stronger and better.

Jack O’Connor is in a great position. He will be reminding them of that Down game, pulling out the DVD to show each player where he made his mistakes.

He’ll be well able to give fellas a hosing. I just can’t see a complacent Kerry team going out onto the pitch on Sunday as a result.

They’ll be a happy team though. I always enjoyed the run-up to an All-Ireland semi-final. August is a mad month in Kerry because there are festivals all over the place – Puck Fair, the Dingle races, the Rose Of Tralee. You can feel the summer coming to a close and there’s a lot going on around the place that you can’t be involved in. So you’re determined to throw yourself into the thing that’s keeping you away from it all.

You’re so focused and so remote from the world around you. Training becomes a retreat from it all. A happy bubble where only you and the fellas in there with you understand each other. You have one face for the public and another for when you get inside the bubble. You’ll meet people on the street who’ll ask will you beat Mayo and you’ll say, “Ah yeah, sure we’ll give it plenty anyway.” But you’re dying to get to training where you can talk honestly about what it is you’ll actually do.

It’ll be the same for the Mayo lads. They’ll have people asking them all sorts of questions and they’ll be polite and answer them but all they’ll want to do is get in amongst the people they trust and get their attention on the game properly. You can really only do that with the players you’re going to be playing with.

I always enjoyed coming back from training in the car with Paul Galvin and Kieran Donaghy and the pair of us motivating each other and talking away about what we were going to be facing.

A semi-final is different to a final because it’s a game first and foremost.

The final is an event with a four-week run-in to it. You’ll always have a few teachers on a panel and getting over a semi-final eases them back into their working year and gives them something to look forward to in a month’s time. The four weeks are good fun, with nice distractions like getting your suits and your gear and little things like that.

But to get there, you have to get through a game like Sunday’s. This is high-intensity stuff now, a world removed from league or provincial level. I expect Kerry to come through it but Mayo won’t be walked over, be damn sure of that.