Connacht SFC quarter-final: Mayo 0-10 Roscommon 2-8
A perfect ambush. Favourites Mayo had spent the previous week banishing thoughts of their warmly welcomed league final win over Galway and focusing on the Connacht championship visit of Roscommon to Hastings Insurance MacHale Park.
There had been the nagging precedent that their previous three league titles over a period of 53 years had each entailed losing to their neighbours in championship but all the more reason for wariness.
It may have encouraged Roscommon but there was more to this accomplished raid than superstition. Davy Burke’s team had been targeting the match since the draw was made. Obviously Mayo had as well but as part of the All-Ireland shortlist and with a restorative league campaign, this provincial quarter-final may not have been uppermost in their thoughts.
“When I met Donie Smith first in November,” said Burke afterwards, “he told me they’d be ready for Easter Sunday. They had it marked in the calendar a long way out, massive rivalry there. I’m not going to tell anyone about Roscommon-Mayo rivalry. They know more about it than I do.”
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Their game plan worked brilliantly. It was designed to make scoring as hard as possible for the league winners – no yielding easy space or conceding needless frees and to pressurise the ball carrier at all times within scoring range. A phalanx of defenders blocked the path to goal and pushed attacks out wide.
There were a couple of significant junctures. Had Aidan O’Shea, who caused the most trouble of all the forwards, been more ambitious with turnover ball in the 51st minute, Mayo might have been able to seize the lead, which would have been a telling response to a four-point deficit at half-time in a low-scoring match. Instead he opted for the safety of a point to reduce the margin to one.
If that got the favourites back on to their opponents’ shoulder, they never managed to kick for home. In fact it was Roscommon who picked off crucial scores, making smart use of counterattacks to stretch their lead back into something more comfortable. The one-point deficit was as good as it got for Mayo.
Then in the 66th minute, after a sustained spell of pressure moving the ball backwards and forwards, Tommy Conroy spied a gap in the defence that wasn’t there and was dispossessed. The roars from the travelling support increased to a crescendo, as Diarmuid Murtagh raced away at the other end to kick a point for a three-point lead, 2-6 to 0-9.
It was symbolic of the difference between the teams. Mayo found it so hard to create chances that a big score never looked likely. In addition, it has been one of Burke’s calling cards that Roscommon are tighter at the back. They averaged a concession of 0-13 in the league and brought that parsimony to bear here.
Even last week’s Mayo success gave encouragement to Burke.
“Mayo scored 0-14 in Croke Park last Sunday and 10 came from frees and marks. We had to limit the frees. I thought last weekend they got a few soft ones as well. I thought the referee was brilliant today. We blocked up the middle, got physical with them but disciplined and see what happened.”
The day was wet, windy and as unpleasant as any championship day might be. Initially Mayo were hitting their stride and had two goal chances in the opening 10 minutes.
Tommy Conroy was pushed wide by Roscommon goalkeeper Conor Carroll as he broke onto Ryan O’Donoghue’s pass over the top in the fourth minute and could only attempt a fisted point which went wide. A few minutes later, O’Shea touched on a Paddy Durcan long kick to Stephen Coen but his shot cannoned off the crossbar and safely out.
If that suggested Mayo had goals in them, it was misleading. Roscommon’s defence, well marshalled by Brian Stack, gave little away thereafter. At centrefield Enda Smith and Keith Doyle had the better of things, even though Diarmuid O’Connor worked hard.
The Roscommon pair did well under Carroll’s long – in every sense – restarts, slipping up slightly at the end of the first half when the home side got a grip in a run of scores.
Two first-half goals proved critical. The first, a penalty, came about after a shot from Dylan Ruane was blocked by Jordan Flynn but Conor Loftus was deemed to have pushed David Murray in a contest for the rebound.
Enda Smith expertly dispatched the penalty in the 25th minute and just after Mayo had strung together a response – three unanswered points – Roscommon struck again. Donie Smith was alert to ball deflected loose by Jack Carney’s block on Ciarán Lennon and drilled it back into the net for a 2-2 to 0-4 half-time lead.
It was further tribute to Roscommon’s mental strength that although Mayo threatened that lead in the second half, they never impacted on it.
“From the time the ball was thrown in,” said Mayo manager Kevin McStay, “we really had a sense that we could keep Roscommon off the goals and maybe get one ourselves and we applied the pressure. We had two great early goal chances and fluffed our lines and then Ros got through. Hats off to them. They were terrific and well done.”
MAYO: Colm Reape (0-2, one free, one 45); Donnchadh McHugh (0-1), Conor Loftus, Jack Coyne; Eoghan McLaughlin, Stephen Coen, Paddy Durcan (0-1); Jordan Flynn, Diarmuid O’Connor; Fionn McDonagh, Jack Carney, Matthew Ruane (0-1); Aidan O’Shea (0-1), Ryan O’Donoghue (0-2, two frees), Tommy Conroy (0-1). Subs: Darryl McHale for McDonagh, Darren McHale for McDonagh (both 52 mins), Jason Doherty for McLaughlin, Conor McStay for Flynn (both 62), Cillian O’Connor for Ruane (69). Temporary sub: Cillian O’Connor (0-1) for McHale (53-69).
ROSCOMMON: Conor Carroll; Conor Hussey, David Murray, Conor Daly; Brian Stack, Niall Daly, Eoin McCormack; Enda Smith (1-1, penalty), Keith Doyle; Ciaráin Murtagh, Dylan Ruane, Ciarán Lennon; Donie Smith (1-0), Diarmuid Murtagh (0-6, four frees), Ben O’Carroll. Subs: Conor Cox (0-1) for D Smith (60 mins), Richard Hughes for N Daly (67), Niall Kilroy for Ruane (69), Cian Connolly for O’Carroll (72). Temporary subs: Cian McKeown for Lennon (53-ft).
Referee: Noel Mooney (Cavan).
