Mayo grind out first win of 2025

Mayo picked up their first points of this season’s Allianz Football League season, with a 0-12 to 0-10 win over Tyrone in a dour Division 1 encounter at Castlebar.

Kevin McStay’s team came from two points behind inside the final 20 minutes, with four points by substitutes Ryan O’Donoghue and Fergal Boland, two apiece, and three from play by full-forward Frank Irwin, crucial to their success.

But there was little to inspire either set of supporters, in what was one of the smallest league attendances at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park for several years. That goalkeeper Niall Morgan was the top scorer for Tyrone, including from play, told its own tale.

Irwin and Morgan had traded a point apiece in what were the only scores of the opening 20 minutes and while Mayo created the only goal chance of the opening half, with Morgan superbly saving from Eoghan McLaughlin, it was the visitors who led 0-5 to 0-4 at the end of a first-half which saw Mayo reduced to fourteen players due to Conor Reid’s black carding.

Davitt Neary, Cian McHale, a free, and Mattie Ruane contributed Mayo’s other first-half points and when Jordan Flynn nailed a two pointer inside a minute of the restart, Mayo had gone from behind to in front with one kick of the ball – and were now reduced to their full complement. But two points apiece by Darren McCurry and Niall Morgan during the third quarter helped the visitors into a 0-9 to 0-7 lead after 52-minutes.

A string of wides by Ryan O’Donoghue, Frank Irwin and Fergal Boland, two, and a botched goal chance by Darren McHale seemed to suggest Mayo might be heading for a third straight defeat but afterwards, Kevin McStay would hail Boland and McHale in particular for sticking at it and helping turn the tide.

The Green and Red scored five of the game’s last six points, including two apiece by O’Donoghue and Boland, as Aidan O’Shea and Jack Coyne were also introduced for their first appearances of the campaign.

Mayo will travel to play Armagh next Saturday.

See Tuesday’s Western People for full coverage.