Mayo finally TAP into their better version

They call Armagh the Cathedral city. It was as good a place as anywhere I suppose then to have an epiphany. Whatever revelation Mayo had at half-time in the BOX-IT Athletic Grounds has resulted in a different team to what had tested even their most diehard supporters in back-to-back home games against Galway and Tyrone.

Scoring 1-12 during their second-half comeback against Armagh, it was more than Mayo had scored in the entirety of their previous game against Tyrone and only one point shy of their full-time tally against Galway too. So when they continued that trend last Saturday and hit Kerry for fourteen points before half-time, Mayo County Board’s warning cum threat to patrons, that if you leave MacHale Park at half-time then expect to pay to get back in, was rendered null and void; Mayo supporters were going nowhere.

A few, however, may later have been tempted to make an early break for the exit gates when three points from two David Clifford kicks nudged the Kingdom in front for the first time in over 55 minutes, with just 10 left to play. But what followed is what’s certain to have impressed and gladdened the Green and Red faithful most of all about Saturday – an overdue demonstration that the Mayo players have the wherewithal to close out a tight game against top opposition.

Having surrendered a late two points lead in Armagh, not to mention the championship near misses against Galway, Dublin and Derry last summer, it would have surprised no one had Mayo not managed to arrest a slide that saw Kerry outscore them by 0-12 to 0-3 between half-time and the 60th minute. In fact, most Mayo supporters at that stage would probably have snapped off the hand that offered them a draw. But when the fat was in the fire, when Kerry’s gander was up, when Mayo were against the breeze, it was Kevin McStay’s charges who shouted no surrender. The unanswered points scored by David McBrien, Fergal Boland, Ryan O’Donoghue and Mattie Ruane in the final nine minutes were more than Mayo had scored in the previous 26 minutes of the second-half. The reward is that they leapfrog Kerry in the Division 1 standings and not only are within touching distance of safety but an outside contender to reach the National Football League final. What a difference back-to-back Saturdays can make.

So what reason for all this good change in fortune? It’s about TAP, if you ask me. Tactics. Attitude. Personnel.

You’ve got to speculate to accumulate so Mayo’s very modest scoring (in comparison to their Division 1 rivals) in the opening rounds indicated an overly conservative attacking approach. If evidence was required, consider how Ryan O’Donoghue, the country’s top scoring championship footballer in 2024, after three games against Dublin, Galway and Tyrone, had scored one point from play. Any suggestion it was all due to poor form on O’Donoghue’s part has been shattered by his fifteen points against Armagh and Kerry, seven of which have been from play.

Mayo haven’t abandoned their lateral, sometimes laborious style altogether, but at least against Kerry it was a tactic employed for the most part when they were in control of the scoreboard, unlike when they frustratingly stuck to Plan A even during times of arrears in earlier rounds.

Players of O’Donoghue’s ilk prosper on early ball. The same applies to David Clifford, which is why Mayo’s attitude was also so central to their victory over Kerry.

Clifford is only the most dangerous footballer in the country if he’s in possession – you can’t make omelettes without eggs after all – so the biggest contributor to curbing his influence will always be not who marks him but how regular is his supply. And that was something Mayo managed to limit last Saturday through a ferocious competitive spirit around the middle section and also the intensity of their press on the Kerry defenders – a press that remained white-hot right until the final seconds. It was Mayo substitute Paul Towey who set aside the disappointment of not starting the game to overturn Kerry wing-back and goal-scorer Brian Ó Beaglaoich and set in train a passage of play that rather than end with Kerry manufacturing an equaliser, or winner, which might have been the predictable conclusion, instead ended with Mattie Ruane, in the very last play, scoring Mayo’s insurance point.

But there is no doubt that the tactics and attitude were spot on because of the personnel that Mayo manager Kevin McStay was also able to deploy. In their first starts of the season, Aidan O’Shea and Jack Carney were totemic between the 45s, with some of O’Shea’s fielding in the second-half of cinematic quality. It was Mayo’s near total dominance of Kerry’s kick-out and their willingness to scrap harder for the breaks that was central to them outscoring Jack O’Connor’s team by 0-11 to 0-1 between the fifth and 31st minutes, with Carney’s silky imprint all over several of the Mayo scores.

Leading 0-14 to 1-4, Mayo had scored more in the first-half than they had in the entirety of their previous home game against Tyrone, and nine points more than they had in the first-half against Armagh. What’s more, they were dominating a Kerry side that in wins away to Derry and Tyrone, had scored (5-15 and 3-13) an astounding eight goals more than Mayo had in two home games against Galway and Tyrone (0-16 and 0-12). This was turning into a very good day at the office.

Two league games remain, the first presenting an opportunity to exact some revenge for last summer’s championship exit on penalties by relegating Derry when the teams meet in Celtic Park on Sunday, March 16. Then it’s Donegal. And if Jim McGuinness is to be taken at his word, it’s likely his team will be doing all it can not to reach the National Football League final, coming as it does one week out from their opening game of the Ulster SFC against Derry.

Word is that Paddy Durcan and Tommy Conroy are going to see grass soon too.

That’s the thing about spring. Nothing ever seems impossible.