A TOUGH TASK FOR MCENTEE
The odds are firmly against Sligo as they take on Mayo in Saturday’s provincial quarter-final at Markievicz Park
THIS year’s longest day has just been – summer solstice was on Monday of this week, June 21 – but for Sligo GAA fans the longest day of 2021 could be this Saturday, June 26. This is the potentially tortuous day when Mayo – last year’s All-Ireland finalists – come to Sligo town’s Markievicz Park for a Connacht GAA Senior Football Championship quarter-final.
The good thing is that Sligo aren’t expected to do anything special or spectacular in this knockout fixture – although a shock defeat of their provincial neighbours would rank as the biggest upset of the year, bar Dublin falling to either Wicklow or Wexford in next month’s Leinster SFC quarter-final.
Covid-19 changed everything in the last 18 months or so, including Sligo GAA’s fortunes.
An outbreak of Covid-19 in the camp last November forced the county to give a walkover to Galway in their scheduled Connacht Senior Football Championship semi-final.
This means Saturday’s home quarter-final against Mayo will be Sligo’s first provincial fixture at Senior Championship level since the semi-final loss to Galway on May 19, 2019. Sligo, therefore, should be hungry to impress but their recent results in the provincial arena inhibit optimism. Since losing by 26 points to Mayo in the 2015 Connacht Senior Football Championship decider, Sligo have had half a dozen Connacht SFC fixtures. Yes, they overcame New York and London in successive campaigns, by margins of eight and 10 points respectively. That’s where the positive news ends, however.
Losses to Roscommon (nine points), Mayo (nine points) and Galway (21 points and 13 points) have reinforced Sligo’s failure to be a force in their own province.
This is hardly a new phenomenon, though, as in the history of the Connacht Senior Football
Championship, a competition going back to the start of the 1900s, Sligo have only ever won the competition on three occasions, with 15 occasions as runners-up.
The current squad, in the first year of manager Tony McEntee’s tutelage, shouldn’t be burdened with results from the past or the inadequacies or other Sligo teams and other Sligo managers.
Even when having to deal with a short pre-season, a truncated campaign, injuries and certain players not being available (for various reasons), it has been a tough term for McEntee. The Armagh native has brought a winning mentality to Sligo, but would have been frustrated by what he has witnessed so far.
Sligo have been both good and bad – infuriatingly so – in their games against Leitrim, Antrim, Louth and Wexford. Victorious against Leitrim,
they could have beaten Antrim and produced one good half in their next two games (the first-half against Louth). This is not the kind of form that will have Mayo quaking.
Mayo negotiated a way back to the Allianz Football League’s top tier, emerging from a Division 2 North that included Meath, Down and Westmeath, with Clare then beaten in the semi-final. Even with sharpshooter Cillian O’Connor ruled out of Saturday’s trip to Markievicz Park (and several high-profile retirements since 2020), it would be foolish to consider Mayo vulnerable.
Every team CAN be beaten (even Dublin, some day) but would Sligo have beaten any of the teams that Mayo triumphed against in this year’s AFL? Maybe. Maybe not.
Such has been Sligo’s inconsistencies, with only Sean Carrabine emerging with credit from their four competitive games thus far in 2021, Saturday’s occasion is one to be viewed with intense trepidation.
There are too many lingering questions. How will Sligo’s defence fare, especially at centre-back? How much possession will be won – or lost – in the midfield sector? Who else will add to the scoring power of Niall Murphy and Sean Carrabine? Will Red Óg Murphy come good? What about Mayo native Peter Naughton?
In a year that has already delivered a national title for Sligo’s Senior hurlers and provincial honours for Eoghan Rua Ladies Footballers, surely Sligo’s Senior Gaelic footballers can provide a breakthrough, however unlikely. Saturday’s game, which has a 4.30pm start, is being shown live on Sky Sports. The referee is Down’s Paul Faloon. There has to be a result on the day – extra-time is pencilled in, if necessary.