Callinan relishing attacking half-back role

The question with Sam Callinan has long been whether he is best used as a marker in the full-back line or as an attacking half-back for Mayo.

It says plenty for his talent that he has performed both roles to a high standard, but this year Andy Moran clearly wants him on the front foot – and Callinan has thrived there.

He admits the greater freedom of the half-back line suits him.

“Every time you go out and play for Mayo, it is great and enjoyable. I think the half-back line maybe suits my strengths a bit more, I’m able to cover a lot of ground and help my teammates out all the time as opposed to maybe being constrained in the back three.

“Any time you get a Mayo jersey, you go out and do the job you are told to do. Happy out there with my performance and the win as well but always room for improvement.” London in Ruislip is always a different occasion than any other championship clash on the island of Ireland. It is a carnival occasion for supporters but for players there is a job to do and facing a Division 4 team adds to the ability to take one’s eye off the ball.

Callinan said that focus was central all week.

“It is a big occasion for supporters but it is obviously imperative for us as a team, as a high performance [group] that we get the headset right. We set the tone earlier in the week, we had our training week planned out, we knew what was going to be ahead of us as soon as we got off the plane.

“In games like this it can be easy to let the head slip a bit but we focused all week on certain metrics we were going after and we knew that the rest would take care of itself. I’ve to see the stats yet but off the top of my head it seems we hit a lot of those metrics and it kinda showed out there, how we controlled the second half playing against the wind. We looked a bit more composed than we had been maybe in earlier games in the league, that’s a big plus and just delighted to get the job done over here,” he said.

One metric they would not have been happy with at half-time was their shot conversion rate whilst playing with the aid of the considerable wind. They scored ten times from 22 shots, a conversion rate of just 45 percent. The second half was a marked contrast, an 88 percent conversion rate (14/16).

“With the wind like that, the temptation is to go after the twos (pointers) and we obviously have the shooters to do that but maybe trying to force a few of them, got a bit giddy but I think we rectified that in the second half,” he said.