The wild west is wide awake now that this acute rivalry is roused from dreary slumber
TIMES have changed. During the four years that James Horan was at the helm of this Mayo team, re-establishing them as a force in Gaelic football, Galway weren’t even considered a threat.
Horan had a 100 per cent record against his neighbours in competitive football — three Championship and one National League games. And the extent of his team’s dominance was underlined on a warm afternoon in Salthill during the summer of 2013 when they crushed their oldest rivals by 17 points — a record Championship defeat for the Tribesmen.
In those days, it was Mayo who bullied Galway. Not anymore. The recent league encounter in Pearse Stadium proved how much those roles are now reversed. Horan concedes that it was his former players that were pushed around in Salthill in February but says the memory of that fractious encounter should be fresh in Mayo minds as they take the field in Castlebar today.
‘I think Mayo have seen this game from a long way out,’ says Horan, who will once again work as a Sky Sports analyst this season. ‘They have been well warned about it. Galway are improving, the League encounter was very feisty and this is going to be another real battle. But I think Mayo will be ready for the bat- tle. They will need to be.
‘Mayo know what to expect of Galway. They know how they will set up defensively and that they are a fairly physical team. Galway did bully them to some extent in the League game but Mayo won’t be bullied in this game, they won’t be bullied on their home patch.’
And Horan believes that Mayo and Galway were in different stages of their preparation for the season when the pair clashed earlier in the year. Keith Higgins has returned as has Seamus O’Shea. Donal Vaughan and Chris Barrett, though not named to start, are both back in the fold, too.
‘Mayo are in a much stronger position now than they were during the League,’ Horan points out. ‘Chris and Keith back, and there has been a couple of additions to last year’s team.
‘Eoin O’Donoghue has come in and looked good, Stephen Coen has got an awful lot of gametime, Conor Loftus has showed some promise last year but gave a few displays of real intent in the League. You will be looking for him to kick on.
‘So, there will be a lot of the old faces but I think you could see one or two players really driving on and pressing their case this year. And I think there will be need to be, because when it comes to the Super 8s, it will be the teams with the strongest and deepest panels who will be able to handle the extra load in terms of games.’
The Super 8s will seem a long way away for the losers in Castlebar, as they will have to face into a gruelling schedule of four games in five weeks just to make the revamped All-Ireland series. Given the miles on their clock, Horan agrees it is probably more critical for Mayo that they avoid another summer on the Championship backroads.
‘It is a very important game for Mayo, and the players will realise that,’ says the former manager. ‘It is important for the Mayo public too, think it is important that they see the team win in Castlebar, the record there has not good in recent years. And I don’t think the supporters will look forward to another roller-coaster season through the backdoor.
‘As we saw last year, with the Derry and Cork, anything can happen with those games.
‘Perhaps, Galway would be able to handle the back-door route better, and learn a bit more about their team, as Mayo did last year, just by going through the qualifiers,’ Horan feels although he does admit to being impressed by Kevin Walsh’s side.
‘You have to be impressed by what they managed to do in the league, coming straight up from Division 2 and not just holding their own but being one of the two best teams there. And Division 1 is a dog of a division, every game is tough, a scrap for points. And Galway relished the challenge.
‘They have brought Paddy Tally in and he has worked on their defensive structure, they have been very impressive. But I just think we will see a different Mayo in McHale Park. I think we will have to.’
Whatever happens, it will be a bit different to the days when Horan was in charge of Mayo and there was no sense of drama over the west’s greatest football rivalry. Things are as they should be in Connacht again. Galway are playing Mayo it’s a 50-50 game.
It will be a long time before a manager can boast a 100 percent record in this rivalry again — just as James Horan was able to do.