Mayo deserve huge credit for their rapid improvement

Mayo must surely be the only team in history to win an All-Ireland semi-final by 17 points and yet still go into the final as rank outsiders. But then it has been a strange old championship. No team managed to reach the knockout stages unbeaten, three of the four provincial champions were gone before the All-Ireland quarter-final stage, and the four semi-finalists did not include a single team from Ulster.

In the eyes of many neutrals – and a few of their own supporters – Mayo still have questions to answer, and that will remain the case until about 5pm on Sunday, July 26th, when we will know for sure whether this team has the credentials to go toe-to-toe with the best team in the land. Kerry, as reigning All-Ireland champions, will provide Andy Moran’s young team with the ultimate test, but on the evidence of the victory over Louth, Mayo have improved steadily as the summer has gone on and there is no reason to believe that we won’t see another step up in a fortnight.

The victory over Louth – like so many of Mayo’s games this summer – comes with some significant caveats. The Leinster men were a pale shadow of their best selves, and it was obvious they played the occasion and lost. We know that feeling only too well because we have seen it in All-Ireland Finals in the past, most notably in 2004 and 2006. The number of turnovers from Louth, especially in the first-half when they had the wind at their backs, was shocking and it was the rock on which they eventually perished. By the 25th minute, Mayo had scored 1-8, with 1-4 coming from Louth turnovers.

Some of the turnovers were down to good Mayo defending but others were self-inflicted wounds, such as the cross-field pass in the sixth minute that led to Mayo’s opening goal. The turnover may have been the catalyst for the goal, but Mayo still had a lot to do. Firstly, there was Paul Towey’s interception and pin-point kick pass from distance into Kobe McDonald, whose brilliant piece of improvisation – a deft flick of the hand – released Ryan O’Donoghue. Even then, the Belmullet man had to execute a delicate chip to get the ball into his hands before bearing down on the Louth goal and finishing expertly, meaning Louth had paid the ultimate penalty for their mistake.

And therein lies a key difference between this Mayo team and others in the past. We now have a full-forward line that can punish the opposition when a ball is turned over. In successive games, our full-forward line has scored 0-19 and 2-17, which is phenomenal scoring by any standard and utterly unprecedented for Mayo. Of course, it must be acknowledged that the scores were posted against teams that were both playing Division 2 football in 2026, but it is also worth noting that Cork beat Donegal and Louth defeated Dublin and Armagh, so Mayo deserve credit for safely navigating their way into an All-Ireland Final in a summer when some of the so-called top teams were getting ambushed by unfancied opposition.

If the full-forward line has found a rich vein of form, the defence has been rejuvenated in recent weeks and looks unrecognisable from earlier in the season. The defensive meltdown that was so evident in the second-half against Monaghan and the first-half of the Meath game has not been repeated – even for a few minutes – in the All-Ireland quarter-final and semi-final. There was a lot of focus on the man-to-man approach that Mayo utilised against Louth – and much speculation about whether it will succeed against Kerry – but the most encouraging aspect of the past two games it that all our key defenders are showing much better form. Having conceded two goals and about another four clear-cut chances in the opening 25 minutes against Meath, Mayo have now gone back-to-back games in Croke Park without conceding a single goal. That would have seemed utterly unthinkable at half-time in MacHale Park on June 20th when Mayo trailed Meath by seven points.

The goalkeeping position has also been transformed in this championship after the disastrous outing against Roscommon when our kickout strategy fell apart. Jack Livingstone may still be a rookie, but he has brought a sense of calmness to the role, and he certainly coped well with the intense, full-house atmosphere in Croke Park on Saturday evening, especially in the first-half when Louth were still competing strongly. Indeed, it is worth remembering that the sides were still level just seven minutes before half-time and Louth could have gone back in front in the 30th minute but squandered an easy point-scoring opportunity.

The Mayo kickout is far from perfect – and that is going to be a huge issue against a Kerry team that are so strong on their own kickouts – but Livingstone is improving all the time and it is obvious that a lot of work has gone into the Mayo kickout over the past few weeks.

The options on the Mayo bench are another notable feature of the past two games with Andy Moran enjoying the luxury of being able to bring on like-for-like substitutes. Tommy Conroy and Cian McHale were very impressive when they came on against Louth and brought an additional scoring threat with Conroy having a shot deflected onto the woodwork before setting up Conor Loftus for his goal, while McHale kicked a couple of lovely points. Experienced players like Loftus, Mattie Ruane, Paddy Durcan and Diarmuid O’Connor mean that Mayo now has much stronger bench than the last time we contested an All-Ireland Final in 2021.

On that occasion, Mayo were marginal favourites against Tyrone, but there is no such optimism this time around. Despite the impressive display against Louth, Mayo are the ones with all the questions to answer against a Kerry team that has not gone into a final carrying such a strong favourite’s tag in many years.

There does seem to be a sense that Mayo have not got enough credit for their past two victories or, indeed, for the way they have improved incrementally since the first-half against Meath.

It’s no wonder then that Andy Moran bristled at the suggestion that the county’s supporters might go a little crazy in the lead up to the final on July 26th. If a team’s supporters cannot exhibit a little bit of exuberance ahead of their biggest match in years, then what is the point of sport?

Ciaran Whelan was correct in his analysis on The Sunday Game when he remarked that ‘hype is hindsight’ and that it is a cheap jibe to throw at a team after they have lost a big game. There are plenty of examples of counties that engaged in all manner of hype in the build-up to All-Ireland Finals and still emerged victorious. Indeed, we only need look at the contrasting preparations of the Donegal and Mayo teams in 2012 to see that hype doesn’t win or lose All-Ireland Finals, and all this nonsense in the national media about Mayo fans ‘going crazy’ is just lazy journalism that doesn’t stand up to any proper scrutiny.

The build-up to the All-Ireland Final should be a magical time in a county and just because we have been here on eight previous occasions since the turn of the millennium doesn’t mean we shouldn’t enjoy it this time around. Indeed, the finals in 2020 and 2021 were held against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic when people could not properly enjoy the build-up, so you have to go all the way back to 2017 for the last time we had an All-Ireland Final where fans could properly embrace the joy of reaching the biggest occasion in the GAA calendar. To put that in context, most fans under the age of 15 will have few meaningful memories of 2017, so let’s allow them to enjoy these next few weeks and well done to Andy Moran for having the courage to speak out and let the supporters – young and old – have their few of weeks of fun.