KEVIN CASSIDY: It could be a green and gold weekend

THIS weekend, we will find out the pairings for the 2024 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship final.

First up on Saturday, we will see Armagh lock horns with the Kingdom for a place in this year’s decider. Since the Ulster final, which they probably should have won, Armagh have bounced back again and they now find themselves in the ideal situation to right the wrongs of that result.

The quarter-final victory over Roscommon was a big monkey off their backs, and now they will go into this week’s semi-final with a certain degree of confidence.

There is no getting away from the task at hand, one that means they must try and close down probably the best forward unit in the country. It’s one thing doing that, but you must also score heavily at the other end of the pitch if you are to stand any chance of toppling this Kerry team.

Kerry, on the other hand, have had a practice run against the sort of structure that they may face on Saturday evening having disposed of Derry in the quarter-final.

Coming from that win, Kerry themselves will be confident that whatever Armagh put in front of them, they will figure out a way around it.

The quarter-final was a terrible game to watch but Kerry won’t care about that as the way they see it they can only play what is in front of them and if a team sets up defensively then they are quite happy to mirror that and win by a point if that’s what it takes.

The second semi-final on Sunday will see Donegal and Galway go head-to-head. This is a game that I am really looking forward to because I think it has everything it needs to be a classic.These two managers will go into great detail In terms of analysing the opposition so it should be interesting to see what sort of match-ups they come up with.

Looking at this as if I was a neutral, I would be saying if Galway were fully fit all year then this would be a tough ask, but given that their key players have been out injured for quite some time, it would be a great opportunity for Donegal.

Now this is not me trying to play Galway up or anything like that, it’s just how I see it when I look at the game.

On the Donegal side of things, two key areas stand out for me. The first one is whether or not Donegal have a good enough kicking game to beat the top teams and Croke Park and the second one is given how Donegal play with so few out and out defenders, how will they go about pairing up with this potent Galway attack? The answers to both of those questions will go a long way to deciding who takes their place in this year’s All-Ireland final.

I’m wondering now if Jim McGuinness is regretting helping his friend Pádraic Joyce out a while back and taking a coaching session because that gives the Galway players an insight into the sort of intensity that they are about to face this weekend. That session will make sure that they are not caught cold in terms of what is coming down the tracks.

The match-ups this weekend are absolutely crucial for this game. It will depend on who gets those right. I’m going to go with my heart this weekend and say that we will have a Donegal-Kerry final.

I covered the All-Ireland Minor final last weekend in Omagh and I have to say that I was taken back with the quality on show from both teams.

It’s clear to see that both of these counties have their underage structures going in the right direction and I’m sure we will see a lot more of these two teams in the coming years. Derry won back-to-back on All Ireland major titles so if they can bring some of those lads through onto what they already have at senior level then is clear to see that they will be a force in Ulster for years to come.

The news broke this week that Mickey Harte will be stepping aside as Derry manager, although I wouldn’t blame Mickey for anything that has happened this year. I just think that the mix didn’t quite work. It’s a positive that Derry are moving quickly to solve this issue because they have too many good players to waste any more years.

I really hope Mickey lands another job, because he doesn’t deserve to go out like that, it was just a case of the pegs not fitting and it was nothing personal.