Callinan content to cap "five long weeks" with victory

In 2025, Mayo played six senior championship matches. There was a seven-point win over Leitrim, a seven-point win over Tyrone, and four matches that were decided by a goal or less. Rewind back to 2024, and the last three games of that campaign were a two-point win (against Roscommon), a draw with Dublin and that heartbreaking penalty shootout loss to Derry.

Bloodless wins over London and anaemic collapses to Roscommon are not what Mayo football is about and Sam Callinan was delighted to get back to the type of blood-and-thunder fare that is the county’s trademark last Sunday in Clones.

“There were two teams with a lot to prove there and it was proper championship football, end-to-end, high scoring. Intensity was through the roof,” was how the Ballina man described the encounter.

“You always think you know what championship football is going to feel like, but you always forget what it's like until it rolls around!” 

Now that the bandage had been ripped off, it was finally acceptable to ask the question – what had happened in the five weeks since the Roscommon defeat?

“Yeah, it was a very disappointing defeat, but you have to take a step back and look at it with a bit of objectivity, then strip it back to the fundamentals. We went away, we looked at what went right, what didn't go right, and it was five long weeks.

“It was tough mentally, but we just went back to what we need to improve on and work on, and I think we're making progress bit by bit.

“We'll be disappointed at elements, we did let a commanding lead slip, but we'll be satisfied in the fact that we managed to hold on to it today, which is obviously something that we were looking at over the five weeks and something that we'll continue to improve on, hopefully,” he said.

“We've seen that Monaghan have been able to come back from these types of deficits and it's something we discussed in the lead-up to this game.

“We were up against it when the momentum started to swing, but I think we did well and we showed elements of improvement in controlling the game.

“After the goal, we managed to hold on to the ball, we managed to control it, we managed to maybe take the sting out of the game a bit better than we have been doing previously, but it's something that's important with the momentum since the new game that you can be able to face that and recognise when games are turning and what you need to do to face it.” 

So where does this win leave the group now?

“We’ve only been targeting this game,” Callinan replied.

“It was a huge circle in the calendar and we've got over a big hurdle here today. So, next up is to recover from this, go back, assess what we need to take from this game and look forward to a huge game now in two weeks.” 

And any preferences for who will be on the opposite side of that fixture?

“I don't think there's any weak teams in the winner's pot, so whatever team we take on, we'll look at it on their strengths and the weaknesses as we go after it.” 

At the other end of the pitch, Darragh Beirne was one of three players making their championship debut, and he made it count, landing 0-4 that included a two-point free and a point off his less-favoured right foot.

“I probably didn't really understand until this year the amount of detail that goes into say what our defenders are doing for the opposite attackers. The Monaghan boys were doing that to me as well and they probably would have known I was going to shoot with my left foot any chance I got, so to pull the dummy and hit on the right side is sweet enough,” beamed the young attacker afterwards, though he did seem a little disappointed that he didn’t get more than one chance from a free.

The Claremorris player did stand over one free just to the right of the posts on the 45m line earlier in the half, but Ryan O’Donoghue clearly had other ideas.

“I had the ball and he (Ryan) was like, ‘No I'll take it.’ And when he scored, you couldn't say anything! Then I was fouled for the second chance so I was definitely taking that one!” 

Beirne also played a key role in Kobe McDonald’s goal, floating up the pass that McDonald batted into the Monaghan net. It was very much a training ground score, according to Beirne.

“We've done a lot of work the last few weeks on kicking the ball, getting out in front of our men. So as soon as Ryan got the ball or Kobe got the ball, I knew I had to be on the move,” he replied.

“We’ve just built up that connection over the last five weeks so it's just been huge, it's all just come from training really, we have huge faith in each other.” 

It was all a far cry from his last outing, which was the heavy defeat to Kerry in Tralee two months previously.

“There's just a huge difference in intensity from the league games to the championship games, but I think we all rose to the occasion,” was his verdict.

“None of us shied away, we all went after it and that was the biggest thing. Andy gives great support so if you’re given the opportunity, you really want to take it.”