Mayo hype quenched by Kerry reality check

Over the past few weeks Mayo has become somewhat of a Rorschach test.

The hype brigade studied the inkblot and declared the painting finished – a team reborn, young legs flying, the county rediscovering its swagger and charging once more towards the business end of the GAA calendar. The victories were taken as proof, and the noise around the place began to swell with that familiar springtime optimism that Mayo supporters wear so naturally.

More analytical minds looked at the very same blot and saw something rather different. They saw a team enjoying its football again certainly, but still sketching the outline of what it might become. The enthusiasm was real. The tempo was lively. But the lines were still faint in places. The picture had not yet fully formed, and there remained small imperfections that a ruthless opponent might yet prise open.

Mayo may have become the league’s most intriguing inkblot in recent weeks, but Kerry arrived in Tralee on Saturday evening with the air of a seasoned diagnostician. And the Kingdom has never had much patience for abstract art. They prefer clarity. And they delivered it in abundance when the Westerners arrived in town.

For a while, Mayo seemed determined to confirm the more flattering interpretation.

They began with fizz and freedom. Kickouts were impressively claimed, runners burst forward in waves and the scoreboard began to tick over with encouraging regularity. A Jack Carney two-pointer drifted over like a statement of intent, Kobe McDonald chipped in while Ryan O’Donoghue and Jordan Flynn also added scores from distance. Eighteen minutes in, Mayo were five points to the good. The more optimistic reading of that inkblot was beginning to harden.

Kerry, however, has never been a team prone to theatrical alarm. Jack O’Connor can watch a game the way a card player studies the table – patient, expressionless and quietly confident that the hand will eventually turn. And when it did, it turned quickly.

The Kingdom reeled off eight unanswered points against the breeze. David Clifford began to find his range. Sean O’Shea began to impose his influence on the game. The rhythm of the evening shifted almost imperceptibly at first, and then all at once.

For a brief spell that early Mayo momentum had the frantic energy of a kitten tussling with a plastic bag. But sooner or later the bag tears. And when it did, Kerry began to pull the game apart thread by thread.

The warning signs were already there before half-time. Mayo had arrived with energy and ambition, but Kerry possess a particular talent for draining both from a game with the calm efficiency of men tidying up after a party. By the time the second-half settled into itself, Mayo seemed drained. Like men who had enjoyed themselves a little too much at the same party.

Dylan Geaney’s first goal – a looping, slightly fortunate effort that floated above Rob Hennelly – felt like the moment Kerry moved from simply controlling the exchanges to commanding the game. From there the evening accelerated away from Mayo. Points began to fall with metronomic regularity. Clifford began to clip over scores from every angle available to him. O’Shea, meanwhile, delivered a soccer-style two-pointer struck off the turf with the nonchalance of a man flicking a pebble into the sea. And just when the game threatened to drift into quiet inevitability, Geaney struck another maximum.

The second goal was less a decisive blow than a formal confirmation of something everyone had already accepted. Kerry had moved through the gears without ever appearing hurried, their three principal attackers accounting for all but seven of their scores.

Yet for all Kerry’s elegance and efficiency, the real story of the evening was not just how they scored. It was how often Mayo helped them.

For long stretches of the second-half Mayo attacks seemed to unravel almost as soon as they began. A promising move would gather momentum through the middle third, only for the final pass to drift astray. The next attack ended with a shot hurried wide. The next possession was surrendered under only a little pressure. Time and again the ball travelled forward with purpose before disappearing into the sort of small, avoidable mistakes that sap belief from a team.

The wides only told part of the story. The more damaging moments were the attacks that simply dissolved.

Kerry, of course, are not the sort of opponents who ignore such generosity. Each turnover became an invitation and each stray pass became an opportunity. And with Clifford, O’Shea and Geaney prowling ahead of the ball, the invitation was always accepted with ruthless enthusiasm.

When Mayo built that early five-point lead, the moment called for a little composure. A pause. A slowing of the pulse. Experienced teams understand that a game can be guided by tempo. They needed to hold possession, take the sting out of the contest and force the opposition to grow impatient. Instead Mayo continued to play at full tilt.

And when the Kingdom’s surge arrived in the third quarter, Mayo again struggled to change the rhythm. What the situation required was a small moment of control – a spell of patient possession, a score to steady the nerves, anything to slow the tide. But the game kept racing.

Attacks were launched quickly and ended quickly. Possession was lost, Kerry countered and the gap stretched further still. By the time Mayo managed to draw breath again, the contest had already slipped into that familiar Kerry territory where they toy with the opposition and begin competing with one another for starting spots.

And so the inkblot became clearer.

For a few weeks Mayo had been whatever people wished to see. To some they were a revival story gathering pace. To others they were a young side still sketching its outline, playing with freedom but carrying flaws yet to be tested.

On Saturday evening in Tralee, Kerry conducted a harrowing examination.

And they did it the way in that typical Kerry way – calmly, methodically and without much fuss. A weakness here, a mistake there, and the picture slowly came into focus.

The progress Mayo have made is real. The cause for enthusiasm is obvious.

But against Kerry, enthusiasm alone rarely survives long.