Injured Mayo trio move ever closer to return

Cillian O’Connor, Mattie Ruane and Mayo vice-captain Darren McHale are all back in full training ahead, Mayo manager Andy Moran has confirmed.

The trio, who have not featured yet this year as they recuperated from different injuries, took a full part in a 9am Sunday morning training session, as did Tommy Conroy, who is also returning to action after a shorter lay-off.

Moran said Ruane might make the last league game against Roscommon but O’Connor, McHale and Conroy could well be in contention for the Kerry game.

Asked, specifically about O’Connor, the top scorer in the history of the football championship who has returned to the panel this year, Moran was positive.

“Cillian did a full training session this morning, playing really well, going in the right direction and we will introduce him when we feel it is right,” he said after Mayo’s win over Armagh.

That game saw two late changes to the starting team with the withdrawal of full-back Donnacha McHugh and corner-forward Fergal Boland while both team captain Jack Coyne and Conor Loftus had to make early exits, neither making it out for the second half.

The news on all four is relatively positive. Loftus has a ‘small calf’ issue, Coyne came off with ‘a tiny bit of illness’, McHugh ‘got a virus on Friday’ while Boland picked up a ‘small little glute injury’ last Wednesday which requires one week’s rest. Darragh Beirne was released to the under 20s this week.

Moran was not pleased with Mayo’s first-half display. They were only 1-4 to 0-4 in front with the gale at their backs after 25 minutes before three two-pointers from Loftus, Ryan O’Donoghue and Cian McHale helped them to a nine-point half time lead.

“For us we would have been disappointed with our first half even though, what were we, nine points up? We probably thought we should have been that bit further ahead with that sort of wind so we knew it was going to be a battle in the second half but I just thought the character, probably led by Enda (Hession) coming out of the backline and Sam (Callinan) and David McBrien, I thought the character, and then our subs coming on, just made such a huge difference to us. We’re really happy but we’ve an awful lot to work on but in terms of showing the character that you need coming down the stretch of a game,” Moran said.

The weather conditions had a big impact on the game, particularly in terms of kick-outs with wind and rain making short and mid-range kicks inadvisable.

“We came up with a strategy probably on Monday night for our kick-out strategy against Armagh and by the time we seen the weather on Wednesday it was gone.” What’s the message then?

“Brass tacks, 50/50 ball out the field. It adds to a great spectacle, not great when you are on the line looking at it looking to see who is coming up with the ball but enough times we came up with it,” he said.

It was no harm then that they could bring on an 18-year-old to win a kickout with his first touch. While he is so young, it is impossible not to lavish praise on Kobe McDonald.

“He’s just an exceptional footballer. In training he’s just going really well. He trained here Wednesday night, he was probably one of the best fellas at training so you just put him in.” Moran was asked was there any temptation to rest him after his explosive debut in Clones.

“We have him for the period of time we have him and he is absolutely stone mad to play football. He was playing basketball and football in school up until about two weeks ago. He just wants to play, he wants be part of it, he wants to play with his brother (Jordan Flynn) and we just let him play and if he is good enough, he will start the games.” 

A league final is now a distinct possibility but Moran is not outwardly targeting it.

“There’s no chasing here. We will go down to Kerry and try to give a good account of ourselves, we will come here against Roscommon and try to give a good account of ourselves and if that ends up being a league final, it does,” he said.