Gardiner excited by the occasion as Galway come to town

The mood in the crowd was mixed, and the mood among the Mayo U20 players as they walked off the pitch in Dr Hyde Park last Wednesday evening was mixed too. Peadar Gardiner’s young charges had shown enough quality and class up front to suggest that they have the potential to cause problems for any defence in 2024, but allowing Roscommon to reel in a seven-point deficit, in a Connacht championship where both Galway and Sligo look like they will be extremely competitive, only served to heighten the tension in advance of this week’s crucial clash with Galway in Castlebar (Wednesday at 7pm).

For the Westport duo of Finbar McLaughlin and Conal Dawson, the added concern of picking up knocks at the start of a championship where the games will come thick and fast certainly tempered the optimism even further.

Gardiner himself was upbeat however, expressing his view that this was a tough game against good opposition, and how it’s a great time to be involved in the U20 football championship.

“I’m very proud of my players first and foremost. Hyde Park is a difficult place to come and Roscommon are a very strong team, very well-coached and they were always going to give us a serious battle and that’s exactly what it was,” said the Crossmolina man.

“They fought hard and got a good lead, Roscommon came back and we had to hang on at the end, but it was a good battling performance overall.”

This is a grade of football where Mayo have gone five years without winning a Connacht title, despite some very strong performances by schools from the county in that time, but in some instances, such as last year’s defeat to a strong Sligo side and the 2020 defeat on penalties to eventual All-Ireland winners Galway, it was merely a case of running into a very good team in the first round.

With that in mind, and considering the stated aims of U20 football, Gardiner is delighted to see the switch over to a round-robin system, with four championship games guaranteed.

“In round one, you’re going into the unknown a bit. You can do all the training and all the challenge matches that you like, but until you go into the heat of championship you don’t know where you are,” he said.

“It’s brilliant to have the round-robin. The U20 grade is about developing players and to have the players play tonight, with the buildup and excitement that comes with championship, and now next week we have Galway coming to MacHale Park and what an occasion that’s going to be.

“It’s great for players, the more games they get the more they’ll understand the pressures of championship and performing on the big occasion. So it’s great to have it, and great to have next Wednesday to look forward to.”