Better that Mayo were reminded of shortcomings before championship

A disappointing result and a tame enough performance, but not a fatal blow. Even in defeat, Mayo will still have gotten more from Sunday’s league final than if they had been at home on the couch watching two other rivals duking it out.

Although not at full tilt or with a full complement available to them, Kerry delivered a few harsh lessons to Mayo on areas that need improving ahead of the championship. With the new rules, kick-outs are fast becoming the most important tactical aspect of the game. If you’re not close to breaking even on them, you’re not going to win.

Kerry easily won the kick-out count and middle-third exchanges. They fetched more ball in the sky and, more importantly – whether by design or good fortune – won much more of the dirty ball on the ground too. Shane Ryan’s short restarts were superb; Mayo couldn’t decode them at all. And when he kicked it long, Mayo didn’t fare much better either.

The powerful Joe O’Connor was a commanding, impressive figure in the middle. It’s an area where Kerry have struggled, but a partnership of him and Diarmuid O’Connor would be a force to be reckoned with – if O’Connor can get fit before the summer is out.

Not happy with merely dominating their own kick-outs, Kerry also rumbled one of Colm Reape’s short ones to pilfer the game’s critical score. Reape has had a great league, but Sunday wasn’t his day. Apart from the mishap for the goal, he suffered a worrying injury that sent alarm bells ringing around the county. Let’s hope it’s not too serious but for a goalkeeper, any hand injury puts his championship participation in serious doubt.

While Sunday’s defeat was not a mortal wound for Mayo’s season, losing their number one could prove to be a major setback for the team’s ambitions. It’s a big ask for Adrian Phillips to make his full inter-county senior debut in the team’s opening championship game. The Mayo management may well rue not giving Phillips game time earlier in the season, knowing a situation like this could arise.

Apart from the total systems failure on kick-outs, another area that badly let Mayo down was their shooting from mid and long range. Their kicking from these distances had been excellent in recent weeks but kicking at the posts in Croke Park is a totally different ball game. In fact, kicking in an empty Croker is even harder, as depth perception is all over the place. It looked like the “bad old Mayo” in front of the posts, with some wild and errant pot shots littering their play.

We looked really impotent up front, with a blunt enough edge. Eoghan McLaughlin’s goal was a brilliant piece of individual pace and a superb finish, but beyond that, I can’t think of any other goal chances – even half-chances.

Aidan O’Shea performed really well, particularly in the first-half, but some of our brighter lights of late were well snuffed out by Kerry. Jack O’Connor and Cian O’Neill specifically targeted Jordan Flynn, Mattie Ruane, and Jack Carney, keeping the influential trio fairly quiet and winning the midfield battle.

He’s a good player but I would have thought Paul Murphy was a great match-up for Ryan O’Donoghue to do some real damage. Murphy is a lovely, stylish footballer, but he’s not a dog, so you’d have fancied O’Donoghue’s strength and speed to be too much for the Rathmore man. It just didn’t really ignite for ROD, however, and credit to Murphy – he stifled him well.

It wasn’t a bad performance from Mayo, just not a great one either. Despite the shortcomings mentioned above, there were some positives. I thought Mayo’s tackling, harrying and hassling were excellent. There was real intensity in how they tore into the Kerry lads when they had possession, ensuring Kerry never had an easy shot at the posts. They had to work hard for every score. The fact that Kerry missed so many chances is probably a testament to Mayo’s work-rate and doggedness.

Some of the tackling may have been a little overzealous, with jersey tugging and hands left in too long consistently punished by David Coldrick. A more lenient referee might have allowed Mayo more leeway, particularly against David Clifford, but he’s so powerful and skilful that stopping him legally in full flight is nearly impossible.

The Clifford brothers had varying degrees of success on Sunday. David is sheer class – always dangerous – but he had one of those days where he scored plenty yet missed quite a bit too. You can just imagine him at the pitch in Fossa this week, bag of O’Neills in hand, kicking hundreds of balls to perfect things ahead of the championship. He looked very frustrated with himself at the weekend, so you can be sure some team will pay for that wastefulness later this summer.

While David mixed the sublime with the human, his brother Paudie was superb throughout. He has some engine on him—not only wreaking havoc in Kerry’s attacking third but also showing for (and winning) short kick-outs from Shane Ryan in the 65th minute.

As if he wasn’t already a complete enough player, he has now added monster 45s to his arsenal. He’s simply an all-round footballer who makes Kerry tick.

Going forward, man-marking him is non-negotiable. And I mean really man-marking him – not just shadowing him or nominally picking him up. It’ll require a player to sacrifice their own game just to keep him off the ball. It’s a negative approach, and I hate that managers will set out to contain such a beautiful footballer, but if you nullify his threat, you smother the source of much of Kerry’s creative play.

At the end of it all, Mayo got an awful lot out of that league campaign – some good performances, some not-so-good ones and plenty of different challenges faced. But it’s time to park all that now and focus on another championship season. It’s all been building towards this. Let the championship games begin.

One more thing… 

Mickey Harte is some man. What an incredible record he has, wherever he goes. In next year’s Division 2 campaign, his Offaly will face Tyrone, Derry, and Louth – teams he has all previously managed. That will be spicy!