Final trauma for Mayo as neighbours spoil the party
Eoin Delaney, who scored 1-3 from play for Mayo, is challenged by Roscommon's James Dillon.
They scored 22 times. They shot 20 wides. They dropped some balls short. They had three strikes for goals blocked. It all amounted to a near half century of scoring attempts and utter tragedy.
Mayo saved their worst display in this year’s Nickey Rackard Cup for the day when even a miniscule improvement would have seen them crowned champions. Instead, it’s Roscommon, the team they had beaten by a combined 26 points in two previous league and championship encounters earlier this year, who earned the trophy and even more significantly, promotion to the Christy Ring Cup for 2026.
To further put this result into context, in Croke Park a few hours later, the London team who Mayo beat in this season’s National Hurling League Division 3A final, won the Christy Ring Cup and so next season will operate two championship tiers above the Green and Red.
For so long the joke has been on Mayo football and its results in championship finals at GAA headquarters but this one point reversal for the hurlers was their fourth defeat in five finals in six years, the exception being a 2021 win against Tyrone in the Nickey Rackard Cup. This, undoubtedly, will be the hardest loss to swallow. It denied them a league and championship double.
Even accounting for the sub-standard nature of their performance – there seemed a nervousness about them throughout – Mayo had arrested a worrying slide mid-game to go from five points behind after 53 minutes to three points in front after 67. It looked like that momentum would lead Ray Larkin’s side to atone for last year’s final defeat to Donegal, however, having gone fifteen minutes without a score at all, Roscommon struck four points in four minutes to pip the favourites right on the whistle.
Mayo’s management wandered the sideline stunned, Mayo players slumped and buried their heads into the turf, as all around them Roscommon greeted the full-time whistle as though they had just heard their lotto numbers called out. Some Mayo punter did win €255,000 in the weekend’s Euromillions draw, their odds of victory a million times greater than Mayo but proof – just like the Rossies had shown – that nothing is impossible. Not only had the Shannonsiders lost to Mayo in the opening round of this championship but they were held to a draw by Sligo in Round 2, all after an underwhelming league that saw them lose as many Division 3A matches as they won. But look at them now.
There had been no indication of the upset to unfold when Mayo raced into a 0-9 to 0-3 lead after sixteen minutes, making light of the greasy conditions caused by the day’s first rainfall right on the throw-in. Liam Lavin fired over three points from play, there were singles by Ryan Duffy, Eoghan Collins and Danny Huane, Shane Boland picked off his first free (after a foul on Lavin), while full-forward Eoin Delaney fired two points, the second a goal chance that whistled between the posts.
Collins, Huane and Duffy were dictating all the play around the central third at this stage, and until the 21st minute all that Roscommon had to show for their efforts were points by Robbie Fallon, a free, Conor Mulry and Eoin Fitzgerald. And yet in a seven minute window they stormed into the lead, as a quartet of points by Sean Canning, Fionn Killion, Brendan Mulry and Eoin Fitzgerald preceded the game’s opening goal. Canning, already displaying his threat with that first point which flew narrowly over, sped in from the Cusack Stand side towards the Davin End, getting in behind Mayo corner-back Conal Hession. Nor was Oisin Greally able to sweep across in time to stop the Padraig Pearses attacker from flashing the ball past Bobby Douglas in the 28th minute, sending the Rossies 1-7 to 0-9 ahead.
Mayo centre-back Kieran McDermott immediately levelled but already by the 33rd minute the Green and Red’s wide count was up at ten, including frees by Douglas and Cormac Phillips, and a goal-chance that Liam Lavin kicked past the post.
Canning and Boland, from a free, exchanged points before disaster hit Mayo on the stroke of half-time. Phillips was hooked when trying a shot that never looked on and when Conor Cosgrove pounced on the loose ball, the corner-back from Ardrahan in Co Galway launched a huge puck towards the Mayo goalmouth that Brendan Mulry flicked to the net.
The Roscommon full-forward line had now outscored Mayo’s from play by 2-3 to 0-2 and the result was that three points stood between the teams at the break, 2-8 to 0-11.
It was a margin that would have been wiped out had Roscommon goalkeeper Enda Lawless not pulled off a stunning save to deny Eoghan Collins a goal inside three minutes of the restart. It was one of four more Mayo misses prior to Roscommon raising the first flag of the second-half, courtesy of Conor Cosgrove’s long range free.
Mayo corner-forward Shane Boland saw his first point from play negated by a third from Ros’ midfielder Fitzgerald, and further singles by Huane and Boland only preceded a Robbie Fallon pointed free, as the Saffron and Blue preserved their three points advantage.
The crispness and sharpness that you had associated with Mayo’s passing and shooting throughout their unbeaten run to the final just wasn’t to be seen and while Boland’s free and a terrific point from distance by substitute Jason Coyne did reduce their arrears to the minimum, Mayo suffered a further hammer in the 53rd minute. A point within moments of his arrival by Ben McGahon was supplemented when fellow sub Liam Og Coyle combined with the excellent Fitzgerald to place Fallon who scored Roscommon’s third goal, leaving them 3-12 to 0-16 in front. Rubbing further salt into the wound was that Cormac Phillips had just seen a goal attempt deflected to safety at the other end.
Finally, however, Mayo did raise a green flag of their own, in the 57th minute, when a long clearance by Douglas was superbly caught by Phillips who laid off to Eoin Delaney who shot low past Lawless. Allied with inspirational points by Douglas himself, from play, Boland and Lavin, Mayo were suddenly in front – 1-19 to 3-12 – with eleven minutes left to play, and now it was Roscommon who were feeling the heat, with Cosgrove sending two efforts the wrong side of the posts.
Lawless batted away another Mayo attempt on goal, this time from Coyne, but the Mayo momentum resulted in another Eoin Delaney point and one by substitute Sean Kenny, as a run of 1-5 without reply saw them lead by three points after 67 minutes. But crucially, and fatally, that was their scoring done for the day; wides by Phillips and Boland were sandwiched by Roscommon points from McGahon, a free, and Conor Mulry, before sub Eoin Kiarnan levelled matters in the first of two minutes of stoppage time.
Kevin Sammon’s team were now ravenous for possession and they secured the next break out the field too, off which Ryan Conlon fed Brendan Mulry for the match-winning point. Fifteen seconds remained but Cormac Phillips was bottled up 13 metres out from the Roscommon posts and referee Conor Doyle’s long whistle was the sound of Mayo heartbreak.
Scorers – Roscommon: Robbie Fallon (0-2f), Sean Canning and Brendan Mulry 1-2 each, Eoin Fitzgerald 0-3, Conor Mulry and Ben McGahon (1f) 0-2 each, Finn Killion, Conor Cosgrove (f) and Eoin Kiernan 0-1 each.
Mayo: Eoin Delaney 1-3, Shane Boland 0-6 (3f), Liam Lavin 0-4, Danny Huane 0-2, Eoghan Collins, Ryan Duffy, Kieran McDermott, Jason Coyne, Bobby Douglas and Sean Kenny 0-1 each.
Mayo: Bobby Douglas; Conal Hession, Oisin Greally, Conor Murray; Eoghan Collins, Kieran McDermott, David Kenny; Danny Huane, Simon Thomas; Liam Lavin, Cormac Phillips, Ryan Duffy; Shane Boland, Eoin Delaney, Joe Burke. Subs: Sean Kenny (for Burke 40), Jason Coyne (for Hession 47), John Heraty (for Duffy 62).
Roscommon: Enda Lawless; Conor Cosgrove; James Dillon, Mark Ward; Darragh Finn, Adam Donnelly, Micheál Hussey; Eoin Fitzgerald, Jack Donnelly; Finn Killion, Conor Mulry, Cian Murray; Sean Canning, Robbie Fallon, Brendan Mulry. Subs: Liam Og Coyle (for Killion 47), Ben McGahon (for Hussey 50), Jack Dowling (for Murray 54), Ryan Conlon (for Fitzgerald 58), Eoin Kiernan (for Fallon 60).
REF: Conor Doyle (Tipperary)
