All-Ireland Football Semi-Finals Preview: Louth v Mayo & Kerry v Dublin

Croke Park hosts a proper football feast this weekend, with both All-Ireland Senior Football Championship semi-finals played within twenty-four hours of one another.

Saturday’s card opens with the Tailteann Cup final between Down and Wicklow at 3.30 pm, a curtain-raiser that leads into an eagerly awaited Louth v Mayo semi-final at 6 pm. Sunday brings the marquee tie, as champions Kerry take on a resurgent Dublin at 4 pm, live on RTÉ Two from 3.15 pm.

Here is what the form, the team news and the odds tell us about both games, along with a couple of picks worth weighing up rather than treating as certainties.

Louth v Mayo (Croke Park, Saturday 11 July, 6 pm)

Louth are the story of the summer. Gavin Devlin’s side reached a first All-Ireland semi-final since 1957 by playing over an hour with fourteen men against Monaghan. A Seán Callaghan red card inside seven minutes did nothing to stop a 0-27 to 2-18 win, with Dara McDonnell winning nine restarts to take the man-of-the-match award.

Callaghan is now suspended. Mayo, under Andy Moran, needed a late surge of their own to get past Cork. Teenagers Kobe McDonald and Darragh Beirne both caught the eye in a 0-23 to 0-18 win that sent the county back to the last four for the first time since 2021.

Ryan O’Donoghue, twenty-seven, remains Mayo’s talisman up front and their most reliable free-taker. Captain Sam Mulroy, the reigning Footballer of the Year at twenty-eight, carries similar weight of expectation for Louth. Manager Moran has confirmed Cillian O’Connor is back in full training and available, though Paddy Durcan and Diarmuid O’Connor remain doubtful.

History offers little guidance here. This is only the third championship meeting between the counties in one hundred and thirty-nine years. The most recent was in a 2023 group game, which Mayo edged by three points.

With Mayo priced around 1.82 and Louth out at 2.30, the Connacht side look the more likely winners on paper. But a team that has already shrugged off a red card and a long wait for a final is not one to dismiss lightly. As an editorial view rather than a certainty, Louth each-way at the higher price looks the more interesting angle for anyone tempted to get involved.

Kerry v Dublin (Croke Park, Sunday 12 July, 4 pm)

Kerry’s response to a shock Round 1 defeat by Donegal has been to reel off three straight wins. The latest, a 2-25 to 0-27 quarter-final escape act against Tyrone, was sealed by a stoppage-time Armin Heinrich goal after David Clifford (1-8) and Dylan Geaney. He took the man-of-the-match award with 0-8, having done the early damage.

Dublin’s route back from relegation and a mid-season ban for manager Ger Brennan has been just as dramatic. Con O’Callaghan’s 1-7, including a clutch penalty, dragged his side past Galway from six points down with thirteen minutes left.

Brennan has spent the build-up playing down his own side’s chances, calling Kerry “the aristocrats of Gaelic games” and pointing to the experience of Jack O’Connor’s backroom team. Nathan Doran and Killian McGinnis are both ruled out for the Dubs with Achilles and knee ligament problems. Seán MacMahon, who marked Clifford well in the league, is a doubt of his own, while Eoin Murchan is closing in on a return from the hamstring injury he picked up against Wicklow.

This is the eighteenth championship meeting between the counties, with Kerry well ahead over the decades but Dublin holding the more recent bragging rights from their 2023 All-Ireland final win.

Kerry, at 1.39, are the shortest price of the weekend and hard to oppose outright. But pairing a Kerry win with David Clifford (twenty-seven) to score anytime, around 1.80, looks better value than the bare match odds on their own. For anyone leaning the other way, backing Con O’Callaghan (thirty) for a goal at 2.63 covers the other side of the coin if Dublin’s late-game momentum holds up again.

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