GAA FOCUS ON MAYO:THREE SUMMERS ago, Dublin and Mayo played out a thrilling All-Ireland semi-final in Croke Park – a match that was followed by the most anti-climatic final of modern times.
In a way, everything and nothing has changed since that time. Tyrone and Kerry are still vying for the All-Ireland titles. Dublin are still trying to figure a way to reach their first All-Ireland final since 1995.
Getting to finals has never been Mayo’s problem: winning one is the big demand. And on Sunday in Ballina, the counties face the more immediate prospect of needing a league win to ease themselves away from the bottom of Division One.
“The next three games for us – and I am sure for Dublin – are relegation four-pointers,” John O’Mahony admits. “The Derry game got away from us. Forgetting the first half against Donegal, which was abysmal, our form has improved.
“I am sure Dublin will be building on their form too and we are expecting that there will be a backlash from their defeat against Derry. But we do see it as a four -pointer. There will be a few quirky results over the next few weeks. We need two more points to be getting close to safety.”
This is O’Mahony’s third year back in charge of Mayo, having led his county to the brink of an All-Ireland title in 1989. Their form has open to interpretation.
Mayo is a football county defined by infinite patience and quick exasperation and their low-key form in the past two summers has been disappointing for those who half-expected the return of O’Mahony to hasten immediate glories.
They have yet to feature in the All-Ireland quarter-finals under his watch. But last year, Mayo were two points away from a significant season: Galway edged them by a point in the Connacht final and Tyrone scraped past them by the same margin in the final round of the qualifiers.
It was forgotten, in the blinding light of Tyrone’s subsequently dazzling displays, how closely the Mayo men had run them.
“It certainly was something that I wouldn’t have predicted that day,” says O’Mahony of Tyrone’s bolt for glory. “But maybe we were underselling our own performance and that we were not as far away as people felt we were.”
O’Mahony knows Mayo are out of fashion when it comes to talk of All-Ireland candidates.
“Right now, we are not spoken of in that first breath of four or five teams mentioned. And that is something we have to get used to.”
But Mayo’s ambition has not gone away. O’Mahony preached patience when he took over the job and – as he alluded to after last week’s narrow loss to Kerry – the message hasn’t changed.
He fielded a predominantly young team that day and, because of Mayo’s U-21 championship commitments, will be forced to delay naming his side to play Dublin until tomorrow morning. So far, Mayo lost an edgy game to Derry, drew with Donegal, beat Westmeath and lost by two in Kerry: hardly disastrous form but enough to leave them in the danger zone.
“We feel we have a young squad that is working very hard and progressing. But we are at a different stage than Galway, for instance. Last weekend was a perfect demonstration of that when the counties met in the U-21.
“They had two of their present senior panel playing whereas we had five. We do have some senior players like James Nallen and David Heaney coming back and they are needed now more than ever as we try and phase younger players in.
“I think too that in counties like Mayo when people have been waiting to get a breakthrough can look at things more negatively. For instance, against Westmeath, we beat them fairly comfortably in the end but we didn’t score for 15 minutes. And I was interested in some of the local comment which stated that it was worrying that we hadn’t scored. But I watched the DVD of the Kerry-Derry game and Kerry went 18 minutes without a score.
“And that wouldn’t cost their supporters a thought. So it depends on how you look at things. But Mayo is still a work-in -progress.”
That is a trait they share with Dublin, as Pat Gilroy tries to balance the usefulness of Division One league football with building a team capable of challenging for the All-Ireland.
The Dublin roadshow has the fascination of a public audition, with players vying for the guarantee of hot days in full and blue-toned Croke Park.
Dublin will have big days in the capital later this summer. Mayo are among the teams hoping to feature on those days, even if expectations are not as high as in previous years. It is not a position that alarms O’Mahony.
“Well, that gives us a better opportunity, that if we can make that sufficient progress, that we can slip in under the radar,” he concludes.
