‘O’Shea would be unmarkable at full-forward’
Mayo must end debate over where to play their star man, says McHale
LIAM McHALE knows what it feels like to be in both the Mayo and Roscommoncorners after suffering a knockout Championship blow in the western rivalry. He was in a Mayo jersey when Derek Duggan converted a long-range free into the wind at MacHale Park in 1991 to force the Connacht SFC final to a replay.
It would prove to be the ultimate set-up jab as the Rossies went on to victory on the second day.
It was the last time that Roscommon beat Mayo in a knock-out contest.
‘Was it really? I had no idea,’ confesses McHale, but he has less difficulty recalling the last time Roscommon needed smelling salts after running into Mayo in a knockout encounter.
That was just three years ago in an All-Ireland quarter-final replay on a brutish Croke Park afternoon when MacHale was the Roscommon coach.
A Mayo first-half blitz that included three goals inside a fiveminute, second-quarter spell set the tone for what amounted to a battering, with 22 points separating them at the final bell.
‘It was difficult, there is no question about that,’ recalls McHale.
‘You play well in the first game, you get two goals, you have the ball at the end of the game and you could have won it.
‘But you only get one chance against the top teams and they attacked us right at the start in the replay, they put pressure on our keeper, they won a few of our kickouts at the start, kicked a few balls into the net and that was it done like that.
‘When you are a young team and that happens, you are gone. You have to understand that a lot of them were 22 or 23, they had just won their first Connacht title and while they were progressing in the right way, they were just not up to the speed of playing a Dublin, Kerry or Mayo at that time.’
And today? McHale believes that roles have been reversed as they face-off in Hyde Park in a Connacht semi-final.
It is not just that Roscommon seek back-to-back wins over Mayo – the qualifier safety net breaking the latter’s fall last year – or that they are the reigning provincial champions or even that they have just secured a third promotion to Division 1 inside five years.
McHale believes that the fragile team of three years ago now has the mental strength to take on a big hitter in a do-or-die Championship bout.
‘The dynamic of the whole thing has changed now. Three years ago Mayo were the settled, mature, grizzled team. Now Roscommon are the mature, settled and experienced ones,’ insists the former Mayo star. Even though a third of the Roscommon team that started in 2017 – Seanie McDermott, Niall McInerney, John McManus, Caoileann Fitzmaurice and Cian Connolly – are no longer involved while Mayo have lost just Andy Moran in the interim – there is no disputing about who is the more settled side.
Just three of that Mayo team – David Clarke, Paddy Durcan and Aidan O’Shea – started against Leitrim last Sunday and while that audit is corrupted by the fact that Lee Keegan missed the quarter-final through injury and Diarmuid O’Connor was on the bench – it still provides a measure of the rebuilding James Horan is overseeing in his second coming as Mayo manager. It is inevitable that it will have some bearing today and McHale – now managing Athlone having left when Kevin McStay called time on his reign as boss at the end of 2018 – has observed Roscommon grow under Anthony Cunningham’s watch.
‘Even if you are getting beaten they are tough experiences but they are the kind of experiences team need to make incremental progress and get closer to the top.
‘And that is exactly what this Roscommon team has done. They are well up there now and you would definitely say that they are in the top seven or eight teams in the country. ‘I saw them against Armagh in the League recently and even when they looked in deep trouble, they didn’t look rattled, they kept playing to their strengths and they got the win in the end to secure promotion. For that reason, the roles have changed.
‘Three years ago we might have been going into the game hopeful but I would think they are going into it now with something far more substantial than hope.
‘And when you have that belief and you have the firepower and the maturity they have now, it makes them a very formidable opponent.
‘Mayo are now the inexperienced team with some really classy experienced players as well but Roscommon are the experienced team that seem to be very comfortable in their skin.’
And yet when the inter-county scene resumed last month, it was Mayo’s new-look team that made waves when they filleted Galway in Tuam.
Inevitably, it prompted a little giddiness and invited loose talk about Mayo and the possibility of ending so many years of hurt.
However, McHale, who spent 15 seasons in a Mayo jersey, did not have his head turned.
‘I would say the Galway goalkeeper had as tough a day as he had in his life, Damien Comer went off straight away, Shane Walsh did not start and Galway scored 17 points off something like 35 per cent possession.
‘I was not as impressed as everyone else. I was saying to people, let’s see the Tyrone game and see what happens and then we will know where we are and that was very much a Jekyll and Hyde performance as well.
‘They were terrible early, went nine points down and then they rolled up their sleeves in the second half and probably should have won the game and stayed up (in Division 1).
‘What they produced against Tyrone in the second half is what they will they need to produce for 60 minutes against Roscommon.’
And it will also demand that Horan commits to playing Aidan O’Shea in the position where he needs him most.
In many ways, the current Mayo captain is tracing McStay’s footsteps, big men with personalities shaped to their size, a shared passion for basketball and a shared dilemma for everyone else as to where they are, or were, best deployed.
When it comes to O’Shea there is no dilemma, insists McHale.
‘I have always felt he would be an unmarkable full-forward. I know he likes to play at 11 or centre-field but he has got to do what is right, what is beneficial for the team.
‘I just think with his skillset, his size that you can’t get round him, you can’t mark him.
‘And with the mark in play now, he could be even more dominant. Mayo have a slight advantage because O’Shea, Cillian O’Connor and Tommy Conroy will be as good a full-forward line as you would get in the country.
‘If they get half decent possession, they will finish it.’
‘WITH THE MARK NOW IN PLAY, HE COULD BE EVEN MORE DOMINANT’