Green shoots at last as attacking verve returns

A point lost or a point gained? That was the question on the lips of most Mayo supporters at the end of the fourth-round National League tie against Armagh last Saturday evening.

The draw was arguably the fairest outcome after a game in which the pendulum swung wildly between both teams but Mayo were out in front in the home straight and somehow allowed Armagh to sneak up the inside rail and grab a point at the death. Had Armagh lost the game there would have been a serious post-mortem by Kieran McGeeney and his management team because the Orchard County had the tie at their mercy at half-time when they led by eight points.

Mayo brought the worst of their two recent displays in MacHale Park to the Athletic Grounds for that opening half and the gulf in class between the two sides was reflected on the scoreboard. Having begun the game in lively fashion with points from Matthew Ruane and Jordan Flynn, the visitors faded badly from the fifth minute onwards, scoring just one point – a free from Ryan O’Donohoe – up to the 30th minute.

In the same 25-minute period, Armagh struck for 1-8 to leave a yawning gap on the scoreboard as half-time approached. This was the best spell for the All-Ireland champions and some of their scores were hugely impressive, especially when contrasted with Mayo’s lateral keep-ball tactics, which tended to yield little apart from running down the clock; not a great strategy for a team chasing the game.

Both teams made liberal use of the hand-pass but Armagh tended to punch holes in the Mayo defence whereas the visitors struggled to get into scoring positions and spent a lot of time hugging the sidelines as the Armagh defence marshalled them from one side of the pitch to the other. Matthew Ruane was one of the few Mayo players to create some room for himself on the right-hand side of the Armagh defence but he had a couple of wides after his excellent opening score.

For all Armagh’s dominance, the first-half scoreline would have been very different had Mayo midfielder Conor Reid managed to find the net in the 24th minute; instead, his goal-bound effort struck the post and was cleared. Reid, who has done well in his four league outings to date, was replaced by Jack Carney a short time later while Armagh suffered a bad blow with the loss of influential midfielder Ben Crealey to injury.

The double change in personnel had a big bearing on the dramatic turnaround in Mayo’s fortunes. Armagh led by nine points when Crealey left the field but the visitors began to chip away at the deficit as Carney stormed into the game at midfield where Mayo had struggled in the opening 30 minutes. Mayo won three successive kickouts between the 30th and 33rd minutes, yielding points for Flynn and O’Donohoe, as well as wides for Flynn (a two-point effort) and David McBrien. However, some of that good work was undone when there was yet another three-on-three infringement in the final moments of the half to give Armagh a tap-over score. Such was the confidence among the All-Ireland champions that Grimley went for a two-pointer and missed but Mayo were turned over again and Conor Turbitt scored a fantastic sideline ball to leave the margin at eight points at the interval.

Although there had been a few green shoots towards the end of the half, it was a fairly dismal 35 minutes of football for Mayo who scored just a point more than a week earlier in that awful game against Tyrone. We wrote last week about the failure of this Mayo team to capitalise on the new rules, especially when it comes to scoring from outside the arc, and many of the problems that manifested themselves in the first three games were in evidence again in Armagh.

We’ll never know what might have happened had Niall Grimley not been shown a black card for a cynical foul on the excellent Davitt Neary. However, it is fair to say that Mayo were vastly improved in the opening 12 minutes of the second-half and had managed to narrow the gap to six points even before the Grimley incident. Paul Towey was getting on a lot more ball while O’Donoghue was looking more dangerous than at any stage in the league campaign to date. The arrival of Aidan O’Shea in the 42nd minute also provided a huge fillip to Mayo at a time when the Armagh defence was already beginning to take in water.

Neary’s goal, which came just seconds after Grimley’s departure, was unquestionably the key moment in the game, and when Ryan O’Donoghue struck a two-pointer a minute later to narrow the gap to a single point, it looked as if the momentum had swung decisively towards Mayo. However, the All-Ireland champions dug in and managed to regain a two-point lead as they played down the 10-minute clock until Grimley’s return.

It wasn’t until the 58th minute that Mayo finally managed to level the scores following points from Ruane and Neary. In fact, Mayo didn’t score against the 14 men for seven minutes after that initial flurry in the 47th and 48th minutes, although there were a couple of wides from Carney and O’Donoghue as they tried for two-pointers.

When Aidan O’Shea pointed in the 60th minute to put his side in front for the first time since the fifth minute, it looked as if Mayo might be leaving Armagh with two valuable league points. O’Donoghue stretched the margin to two in the 64th minute but the home side finished the stronger as Stefan Campbell and Turbitt both struck vital scores to leave the sides level at the end of a pulsating second half.

There are plenty of positives to bring into next weekend’s big game against Kerry in MacHale Park. The impact of Jack Carney and Aidan O’Shea was there for all to see and both players will have key roles to play for Mayo again this year. A second-half tally of 1-12 – the most we have scored in a half in our four league games – is also very encouraging, and it certainly improves on the dismal scoring average to date. However, it is worth noting that Dublin, Kerry and Galway all scored more than 1-17 in their league victories over the weekend, so while 1-17 might have been a big score a year ago it is not enough to win many games in 2025, as we discovered on Saturday.

Next weekend’s fixture will be fascinating because Kerry are coming to Castlebar on a high after a dramatic victory over Tyrone in which David Clifford showed why he is currently the best forward in the country and one of the greatest to ever don a Kerry jersey. The big positive from a Mayo perspective is that the much-improved second-half display against Armagh ensures there will be a decent crowd in MacHale Park. The sharp fall-off in attendance from the Galway to Tyrone games showed that the Mayo football fans have tired of the team’s negative style of play during this league campaign. All of the worst traits of the Mayo style were in evidence in the opening half last Saturday but the attacking verve that we all know this team are capable of finally returned after half-time and, hopefully, we will see more of it against Kerry.

Three points after four games is probably as good as we might have expected, especially after that drubbing at the hands of Galway, but we are still far from safe in a league where every game is almost like a knockout fixture. That is especially true from here on as teams scramble for the vital points that will take them away from the relegation zone. A home victory over Kerry would be a hugely decisive step on the road to maintaining our Division 1 status for another year but it would also serve as a confidence-booster for players and fans alike, especially if it could be achieved in the manner of our second-half display against Armagh.