Pete’s Picks – Dublin v Mayo – All-Ireland SFC Semi Final Replay Tips

Nobody can tell this writer the whole Diarmuid Connolly ‘will he, won’t he’ play conundrum hasn’t impacted negatively on Dublin’s preparations for this All-Ireland SFC semi-final replay.

Connolly and Dublin are taking their case to the DRA on Friday night to see if they can finally get the suspension overturned following his automatic dismissal last Sunday.

Whether Connolly is available or not, Jim Gavin must surely be conscious of the potential knock-on effects all of this is having on the panel. Obviously, Gavin and co will argue it isn’t distracting them whatsoever. However, that’d be really hard to believe.

Dublin are 10/11 with BoyleSports, however, the Irish firm are correct to keep Mayo onside at 13/10. If momentum is a commodity that Dublin may well be short of this week, especially in the manner they relinquished their seemingly unassailable seven-point lead in the final quarter of the drawn match, Mayo have no such problems. In fact, is it possible Mayo should now be marginal favourites instead? I certainly think so.

We tentatively opted for a minor, supplementary punt on the westerners -1 last weekend.

However, the confidence behind Mayo should be much greater for this replay and at 13/10 the Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly-led side rate a knocking bet to reach the final in regulation-time.

The more I see of Dublin the less convinced I am regarding their capacity to match teams such as Mayo and Kerry. At the start of the year, Dublin were extremely short-priced favourites to land Sam Maguire. In contrast, Kerry were lurking around the 10/3 mark while Mayo were as big as 17/2. Yet, those gaps in the market always seemed laughable.

The Boys in Blue hype machine had clearly parked up outside of the odds-compilers’ offices. Of course, the layers may well still be proved right. Yet, unconvinced of that occurrence transpiring, our faith is being put in Mayo to sink the Leinster champions this time.

Mayo are performing with a raw energy that their opponents are struggling to contend with and Dublin might even be in for a rude awakening at headquarters. Self-belief is not something Aidan O’Shea and his fellow soldiers are shy of and it is likely that has grown further since last Sunday. The temptation existed to tip Mayo -2 at 2/1 but we will settle instead for the 13/10 and add two other bets to the list to smaller stakes.

It’s been illustrated regularly how proficient Mayo are in terms of their goalscoring and the 15/8 available about them scoring at least two again is worth a minor outlay. Furthermore, a token bet on Diarmuid O’Connor out-running a quote of 28/1 in the RTÉ Man of the Match is advised. He was absolutely superb last Sunday and may excel once more.

Pete’s Picks:
Mayo @ 13/10
Total Mayo Goals – Over 1.5 @ 15/8
Diarmuid O’Connor RTÉ Man of the Match @ 28/1