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“We had enough ball to win the game.” That was James Horan’s immediate reaction as he attempted to deal with the fall-out of another Croke Park nightmare for Mayo.

I know it sounds like an old cliché but tickets for this All-Ireland final do seem to be like gold dust. If I believe everything I’m told some Mayo folk are willing to give limbs and/or offspring just to get their hands on one. Never mind a Willy Wonka golden ticket, just give me a ticket for the All-Ireland seems to be the message. Even with our minors through to the final there seems to be a scarcity in the county. The main reason for this is because of our opponents, they will have an even bigger problem than us because of their large following. Any neutral county players I spoke to in the last few weeks don’t want to offload their tickets as they feel this game could surpass the semi final encounter between the Dubs and Kerry and want to be there to watch it. Spare a thought for Paddy McNicholas, Vincent Neary and the county board who have the grim task of distributing the tickets to success-starved Mayo fans.

A certain brand of Danish lager does not do GAA weekends but if they did it would not be a patch on what unfolded in Croke Park last Sunday (as long as you’re from Mayo). I had a dream last week that we had two teams in Croke Park for All-Ireland final day- that dream is now a reality. Not since 2008 did any county have teams in both minor and senior finals when Tyrone were successful on both occasions. I sat beside Barney Rock for most of the minor game and at full-time he and Oisin McConville could not have heaped any more praise on our minor team when both described them as a serious outfit. Mayo ripped Monaghan apart, scoring goals at crucial times, culminating in a very impressive total of 3-19 and they had contenders for man of the match all over the field, I opted for wing back Michael Hall who seems to be trying to emulate another number five on our senior team. On a day that had mixed emotions for the minor camp, may I wish Cian Hanley a speedy recovery from his very unfortunate injury.

They say winning ugly is a sign of a good team. Well that is exactly what Mayo managed to do on Sunday but manager James Horan wasn’t getting carried away after leading his side to a second successive All-Ireland final.

Mayo 1-16

While most of the attention that is paid to the Mayo sideline is concentrated on what James Horan is doing and possibly thinking, one of his main lieutenants, Tom Prendergast, is as much an important cog in the Mayo wheel. Horan’s trusted ally since their days together with Ballintubber is another deep thinker on the game, but likes to keep things simple when talking about how Mayo have got to where they are. “It's like everything in life, you get out of it what you put into it,” he said last week.

They have been there and done it three times in the past decade, while we are still waiting to do it for the first time in over 60 years, and on Sunday in Croke Park the Mayo juggernaught will collide with the Tyrone colossus for a place in the All Ireland final in four weeks’ time. Mayo have breezed through Connacht and swatted aside the challenge of the reining All Ireland champions en route to this showdown, while Tyrone have taken the scenic route that has taken them from defeat in May in Ballybofey, on to Tullamore, Roscommon, Newbridge, and Croke Park to get to the semi-final. James Horan named an unchanged side from the one that beat Donegal in the quarter-final on Thursday afternoon, with Tom Cunniffe getting the nod despite limping out of the Donegal game.

1.Aidan O'Shea is playing the football of his life:

Mayo 4-17

Once Monaghan had ended Donegal’s three-in-a-row Ulster championship dreams in St Tiernach’s Park in Clones, a couple of hours after Mayo had wrapped up their own hat-trick of provincial titles, this Sunday’s quarter-final pairing was the one that the neutral and plenty of non-neutrals wanted to see come out of the hat. And so it came to pass, not long after 8.30pm last Saturday, the gods conspired to set up a rematch of last year’s All Ireland final, with Cavan man Joe McQuillan the man brokering the peace in the middle of the two packs.