Connacht SFC quarter-final: Mayo 2-20 Sligo 2-17
For the second year running, Sligo came up agonisingly short of causing a major upset at the first hurdle of the Connacht championship when pushing Mayo right to the final whistle in sun-kissed Castlebar on Sunday.
Unlike last season, however, when Sligo led for practically the entirety of their contest with Galway, only to be felled by a stoppage-time goal, they had to do all the chasing here.
To score 2-17 away to the side that topped the Division One table was no mean achievement by the side which finished fifth in Division Three – but it still resulted in a three points defeat for Tony McEntee’s side.
Mayo, playing just seven days after a league final defeat to Kerry, handed out six championship debuts, three of them to starters Davitt Neary, Fenton Kelly and Dylan Thornton. Yet to play a single minute of league football, midfielder Thornton was an interesting inclusion, but it was old-timer Aidan O’Shea who was Mayo’s star of the show, scoring a goal and two points from full forward and having a telling hand in umpteen more Mayo scores.
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And when Niall Murphy was awarded two points by referee Noel Mooney for a kick that was clearly inside the arc to reduce Sligo’s deficit to three points with one minute left to play, it was O’Shea who rose above all on the halfway line to spectacularly fetch Colm Reape’s kick-out and deny Sligo one final possession.
“We’ve a lorry load of work to get done now,” said Mayo boss Kevin McStay, whose team can plan for a Connacht semi-final against Leitrim.
“We just couldn’t get any flow to the game. We were a bit patchy.”
The manager suggested that four high-pressure games on consecutive weekends, including trips to Derry and Dublin, had taken a toll.
“We’re happy to get out of it. Today we were just a little bit flat but the result was everything,” he insisted.
Mayo looked to be showing no ill effects from their Division One final defeat to the Kingdom when racing into a 1-4 to 0-2 lead, the goal coming in the sixth minute when Reape’s kick-out sent Neary and Darren McHale on an attack down the right wing before Ryan O’Donoghue planted the ball past Daniel Lyons into the bottom left corner.
Sligo, however, gradually grew into the game and with Pat Spillane scoring two points and posing problems for his marker Sam Callinan, and Murphy ending the half with four to his name, Mayo’s lead was just three points at the interval, 1-8 to 0-8.
The hosts made the best possible start to the second half when David McBrien’s route one delivery to Jack Carney ended with O’Shea dancing past defence and goalkeeper to boot home their second goal. But Spillane fisted across the Mayo goalmouth for Luke Towey to raise green for Sligo just two minutes later, and when Cian Lally saw another Sligo goal chance whistle just over the crossbar, the visitors were back to within four points, 2-10 to 1-9.
The game was now hugely entertaining, and the tit-for-tat nature continued, with Neary and O’Donoghue drawing saves from Lyons at one end, and Spillane having a palmed goal effort cleared off the line by Donnacha McHugh at the other.
McHale’s fourth point from play, a pair of frees by O’Donoghue and singles by Enda Hession and sub Fergal Boland helped ease Mayo into a nine points lead by the 56th minute, but Sligo refused to go away. Lally again showed a devastating sidestep and turn of pace to drill home his side’s second goal before two pointers down the stretch by Alan McLoughlin and Murphy brought Sligo to within a kick of parity inside the final minute.
“What you saw there was a super display by a Sligo team that fought ‘til the end and against a number of different adversities throughout the match,” said beaten manager McEntee. “The goal early on, the second goal by Aidan, the mistakes we made, the chances we missed, the opportunities we lost. But we kept fighting until the end.
“While it is a defeat, it’s a defeat we can learn and grow from. We will get over that [disappointment] quickly and we’ll see it for what it was, which was a super performance,” added McEntee whose team had lost to Mayo by 20 points when last they played in 2021.
Sligo must wait until May 10th/11th before commencing their Tailteann Cup campaign.
“We’re going to give it our best effort. This is important for us, we really want to win something here and we really want to win the Tailteann Cup,” added McEntee.
MAYO: Colm Reape; Jack Coyne, Donnacha McHugh, Enda Hession (0-0-1); Sam Callinan, David McBrien, Stephen Coen; Jack Carney (0-0-3), Matthew Ruane (0-0-1); Davitt Neary (0-0-1), Darren McHale(0-0-4), Fenton Kelly; Aidan O’Shea (1-0-2), Dylan Thornton (0-0-1), Ryan O’Donoghue (1-0-4, 4f).
Subs: Diarmuid O’Connor for Ruane (43 mins); Fergal Boland (0-0-2) for Kelly (52); Niall Coggins for Neary, Seán Morahan for McHugh (both 58); Conal Dawson (0-0-1) for Hession (61); Paul Towey for Thornton (67).
SLIGO: Daniel Lyons; Evan Lyons, Eddie McGuinness, Paul McNamara; Brian Cox, Nathan Mullen, Luke Towey (1-0-0); Canice Mulligan, Patrick O’Connor; Cian Lally (1-0-1), David Quinn (0-0-1), Alan Reilly; Alan McLoughlin (0-1-3, 1f), Niall Murphy (0-1-5, 2f), Pat Spillane (0-0-2).
Subs: Ross Doherty for Quinn (45 mins); Shane Deignan for Spillane, Lee Deignan for McNamara (both 61); Oisín Flynn (0-0-1) for Reilly (62); Mikey Gordon for O’Connor (66).
Referee: Noel Mooney (Cavan).
Attendance: 9,179.
