Heaney sees the positives as Mayo reach crunch stage
Dara Flanagan
Mayo are guaranteed two games against Galway to determine whether they will be contesting this season’s final of the Connacht Minor Football Championship against Roscommon. That’s because this coming Friday’s meeting with the Tribesmen cannot end with anything other than Mayo and Galway occupying second and third places in the group table, meaning they will then play a semi-final one week later to decide which of them advances to the provincial decider.
What this Friday’s contest will decide, however, is who out of Mayo and Galway will enjoy home advantage for that last four clash, the honour befalling the winners of the match is fixed for Tuam Stadium at 6.30pm.
The only defeats experienced by either team so far this campaign have both been served by Roscommon, who as it happens have a bye this week and so will have had a one month wait between their last game – a win over Leitrim last weekend – and the Connacht final on May 9.
For Mayo to beat Sligo by all of fifteen points in MacHale Park was highly satisfactory, particularly as it came immediately on the back of their defeat away to the Rossies. The reaction of his players was especially pleasing to Mayo joint-manager David Heaney.
“We are happy with the result today. We were very disappointed last week with how we lost to Roscommon. We fell away in the second-half against Roscommon, however, we had a good week at training and we thought we would get a reaction from the guys, which we did, and we are happy with that.
“I think we were ten or twelve points up at half-time and we tried to maintain that level during the second-half. Sligo were always going to have a purple patch, which they did, however, I think we might have won the second-half by a point or two.
“We said [to the players] at half-time could we win the second-half and they did that to be fair to them.” Galway, while eventually emerging with the win, had it much tighter when taking on Sligo at the beginning of the month in Tubbercurry. David Heaney won’t be reading anything whatsoever into that result but nonetheless will take positives from his side’s performance against the Yeats County last Friday, as the team prepares for their upcoming clash with the Maroon and White.
“What we are doing in training is starting to pay off. They are playing heads up football. We scored 3-19 and we could have scored 5-25. We had a good few wides over the course of the game as well and some of our shots were blocked down.
“The players are playing well, learning, and are getting better week by week. We just needed that confidence boost today and hopefully we can progress over the coming weeks,” added the Swinford native.
