In February 2001, 12 months after Crossmolina had lost an All-Ireland club semi-final, we found ourselves back at the same stage of the competition again. Once more the challenge facing us was trying to get to a final for the first time.After all the match-ups and tactical elements had been explained, I remember our team captain, Tom Nallen, standing up and breaking the game down to one very simple benchmark: accountability.Can you win your personal battle?And I’d imagine that is the challenge Andy Moran and his management presented to the Mayo players this week. There will, of course, be specific plans around curtailing the likes of David and Paudie Clifford. But fundamentally the question asked of each Mayo player will be: “On one day in Croke Park at the end of July in 2026, can you consistently beat your man?”And, for me, the place Mayo can win those battles is on the ground. Mayo are not suddenly going to become a dominant primary possession winning team at midfield. But they can win the battle on the ground. Dublin got their best success against the Kerry kick-out when they broke the ball. Mayo will have identified Shane Murphy’s strongest side, who his preferred target is and they must create a plan that will disrupt this and deny Kerry clean possession. Mayo need to be smart in how they create traffic and don’t allow Kerry’s jumpers in, while also being careful they themselves don’t get screened off.You can trial various scenarios in training to help you get on breaking ball, but at play, too, is also the primitive desire of who wants it a little bit more.Kerry have been the performance leaders when it comes to winning primary possession from kick-outs. Mayo can’t choose to ignore that; instead they’ve got to hammer the hammer, they’ve got to go after the kick-out and get the ball on the ground, make it ugly for Kerry.Kerry goalkeeper Shane Murphy. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/INPHO When there’s a contest on the ground, it has to be a win-possession-at-all-costs mentality for Mayo. They have to be better down in the trenches than Kerry. And when Kerry do have possession, Mayo must make it uncomfortable for them by bringing heavy pressure.There are essentially just two ways to source possession: one is kick-outs and the other is turnovers.From the five games both sides have played in the All-Ireland series, all the core performance indicators point to Kerry winning this game: they have a 75 per cent retention rate on their own kick-out compared to Mayo’s 56 per cent. Kerry also have a 64 per cent shot-to-score productivity rate compared to Mayo’s 60 per cent.But sport doesn’t always operate in a rational or linear sense.Moran got his punch in first during his post-match press conference after the semi-final, calling a very public snap survey of the national mood as to whether anybody believes Mayo can beat Kerry. No harm.Because the management won’t have spent the last few weeks trying to create the dream of winning Sam Maguire for the players, creating belief is what they will have been about.I don’t expect Mayo have spent any time discussing Kerry posters about brides and bridesmaids or giving much credence to podcasts declaring Mayo have been playing Tailteann Cup football for most of the summer.But the Mayo players will have heard about it from friends or family during the week. So, too, though, will the Kerry players.And obviously they will also be aware of their superiority in the stats, so there is a logic floating around the fixture that has the potential to make Kerry feel just a tad comfy.But complacency softens hard. And I’d say there’s a part of Jack O’Connor a little bit worried and irritated about the stuff that has been flying around over the last week or so. That is why he came out so strongly at Kerry’s media event last weekend.Kerry manager Jack O'Connor with Paddy Tally, who is now part of Mayo's backroom team. Photograph: James Crombie/INPHO Another string to Mayo’s bow is the presence of Paddy Tally in the backroom team. Tally was involved with Kerry when they won the 2022 All-Ireland, so he knows what makes them tick. He could have a few valuable nuggets on players. Just little things, but if you accumulate enough little advantages, eventually the scales tip.It will be interesting to see what the Mayo management have learned from Donegal and Dublin’s decisions to allow Paudie Clifford have the freedom of Croke Park. I reckon they will designate a marker, most likely Enda Hession. And I see Donnacha McHugh given the man-marking job on David Clifford.If Mayo don’t concede goals, they have an in-form confident attack that should keep them in the game coming down the stretch. That would be a real gut-check for Kerry. This will be the biggest test yet for Mayo’s defence.But nothing is ever impossible.Famously, at the 1980 Winter Olympics the much-vaunted Soviet Union ice hockey team – who had won gold in the previous four Games – were beaten in the final by an inexperienced and unfancied United States side.In an exhibition game a few weeks out from those Olympics, the Soviets had hammered the US 10-3.Last March Kerry beat Mayo by 16 points in the league. Chances are Kerry didn’t suspect the next time they’d be seeing Mayo was on All-Ireland final day. But, again, sport does not always turn out like we predict.The US gold medal win in 1980 has become known as the Miracle on Ice. But Mayo don’t need a miracle to beat Kerry on Sunday.They just need players to win their individual battles.Crossmolina got the better of Bellaghy in that semi-final 25 years ago and we ultimately overcame Nemo Rangers in the decider. It was our first and remains the club’s only All-Ireland senior title. But we got over the line.All the metrics suggest Kerry would come out on top of this All-Ireland final nine times out of 10. But Mayo aren’t trying to win it nine times, they only need to win it once. Why not Sunday?