Mayo must get their shooting stars to align
ALOT of questions about this Mayo team will be answered come five o’clock this evening in McHale Park. There has been plenty of soul-searching in the past three weeks, and a lot of people have had to look into the mirror and maybe, some weren’t happy with what they saw.
When it emerged that the players had a meeting without the management to discuss the fallout from Pearse Stadium, it caused a ripple of surprise among Mayo supporters, with the player heave against Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes still fresh in the minds. But any concerns were swiftly allayed when it became known that Stephen Rochford had full knowledge that the meeting was taking place.
There may have been some home truths voiced in that meeting. The old cliche is that they haven’t become a bad team overnight but the real issue for Mayo was that they looked a mentally weary side in Salthill. The most worrying thing was they seemed to run out of ideas in how to break down a Galway defence that seemed very vulnerable at times.
They had nine full minutes to get an equalising score, and didn’t manage it. What we need to see in Castlebar this evening is a more cohesive approach from the Mayo attack. They need to display more team-work than they showed in Pearse Stadium.
The suggestion after the defeat to Galway was that every Mayo forward seemed to want to win the game on their own, and Evan Regan’s late chance, when he shot from a difficult angle, was held up as evidence of this. But having watched the video back, there was very little movement in front of him. None of the other Mayo forwards were offering Regan an option.
It is that lack of cohesion in attack that cost Mayo at least a chance of a replay against Galway. Coincidentally, last year Mayo benefitted from that flaw existing in a side, in their All-Ireland quarter-final, where Tyrone had the same weakness up front — and it is likely to be something that Mickey Harte will have worked on ahead of this year’s Championship.
Getting the ball into the hands of the right player at just the right time is a vital attribute in any winning team. It is something that Mayo lacked in Salthill — not helped because both Andy Moran and Kevin McLoughlin were off the field towards the end. But they need to show they have worked on that aspect of their game this evening.
However, more than anything in Castlebar, Mayo’s mental approach, rather than their physical approach, will be examined. Nobody can question their fitness. Even in Pearse Stadium, they looked well able to stand up to the physical stakes.
What they need to show is if they have the stomach for the fight, because they should get over this game. Even though Derry have won a game, they are still a side that were trounced by Tyrone and struggled in the first half against a Division 4 outfit in Waterford.
Of course, Derry will travel down to Castlebar with nothing to lose. And they will be driven by a sense that everyone is writing them off, which seems like the most powerful motivation around in Gaelic games at present — we saw it again last weekend with the Down footballers.
They also have a win under their belts, albeit against Waterford, but it will put a spring in their step. As with any Derry side, they have some quality footballers in Chrissy McKaigue, Benny Heron, Brendan Rogers, Mark Lynch.
But the problem in Derry always seems to be that they can’t transfer individual talent into unity of purpose within their team. You almost have to go back to the late Eamon Coleman’s reign for the last time the whole of Derry football was singing off the one hymn sheet.
If a county doesn’t have that unity of purpose, then it is very difficult to make any sort of impact in the Championship.
They have the sort of quality that will ask questions of Mayo and if they can get a few points ahead, there is every chance that confidence will start coursing through their team.
But I still expect Mayo to pull through, even if they don’t quite give us any definite answer on their current mental state.
Mayo ran out of ideas in Salthill