Mayo marching in the right direction
Mayo’s Jack Carney collects the ball in mid-air above his Armagh counterpart Callum O'Neill. Picture: David Farrell Photography
Where Mayo’s 2026 season will take them is still hard to ascertain because this is, after all, only the league with all the asterisks that involves.
The bookies have them as third favourites for the All-Ireland at 7/1 (Galway, fourth favourites, are 14/1). A sports truism is the bookies are rarely wrong but such odds are premature yet. However, the direction of travel for Mayo under Andy Moran is certainly positive.
How Mayo are performing on the front foot has been very encouraging. They are the top scorers in Division 1 and they head the charts for two-pointers across the four divisions.
The attacking philosophy in the camp is very apparent when you sit in on press interviews with Andy Moran. He is always forthcoming, answers the questions he is asked and you get a real sense for how the team are preparing, their outlook and approach.
It is best distilled by his observations about Mayo’s second goal and Ryan O’Donoghue chasing down the goal by driving at Armagh instead of taking a simple point.
“Ryan had two turnovers just before that and in fairness, the crowd didn’t get on his back, he didn’t get on his own back, then he goes and plays him (Cian McHale in), that’s the most pleasing thing for me. We don’t want a team where we’re worried about turning the ball over, we’re a team who try to be progressive and we try to score a goal and Ryan O’Donoghue in that moment made the perfect decision to give it to Ciano and Ciano had a great finish,” he said.
His observations in this regard are instructive. He is very quick to say that players will miss shots but ‘you just have to encourage boys to keep going for them’. They are clearly empowering the players to back themselves and trust in their ability.
Mayo’s attacking mindset stands in contrast to Kieran McGeeney and Armagh. Despite scoring more times than Mayo on Sunday and having more shots, they ended up on the losing side because they failed to score a goal. Rob Hennelly made one top class save but the decision making let them down again.
They were criticised earlier in the season for fisting the ball over too often when goal chances were on.
McGeeney’s rebuke to that was as follows:
“We tell them to go with whatever they want … whether you go for a goal or go for a point, you should make sure of it,” he said.
Such an outlook actively encourages taking the easy option and it is perhaps a significant factor in why Armagh have only scored one goal in five games compared to Mayo’s eight.
And Ross McQuillan’s point when through on goal with his team five points down was a case in point – taking the easy score when a goal was both readily on and needed.
Contrast that to Andy Moran acknowledging that mistakes will happen and encouraging the players to keep going for it if it is on, and the difference is significant.
The funny thing is Sunday – and the league results so far – do not mean Mayo are more All-Ireland contenders than Armagh, despite the bookies odds. A bit like the French Revolution, it is too soon to say what the providence of the early league games is.
Mayo were poor at stages in the first-half and struggled on kick-outs in poor weather conditions but Moran was encouraged by how they saw it out.
“We’re more so happy with the way the team is trying to play. Do we think we are where we need to be yet? No, absolutely not. The courage the boys showed in terms of their attacking play in the second-half and their courage to get on the ball at the end is the most pleasing.”
There is clearly a bounce in the squad at the moment. Certainly, winning four games from five and the momentum and freshness a new management will generally bring are significant contributory factors but the impact of teenage sensation Kobe McDonald in this regard is certainly part of it too.
His contributions on the field in his first two games have the nation talking and Andy Moran felt he was better against Armagh than in his dream debut in Clones but from talking to Moran and Cian McHale, the impact stretches beyond that. He has elevated the mood among the camp and in the county and Moran agreed this is something Mayo can capitalise on.
“I often said back in my own career, my career was going nowhere in terms of playing, I was 26, 27 and then you’ve Lee Keegan, Aidan O’Shea and Cillian O’Connor come along in nearly all one burst and we take off into our decade of competing. Sometimes these players come in a generation and sometimes you’ve to wait for them. Can we capitalise on it? Of course we can,” he said.
Of course, McDonald is due to head down under later this year to seek to make it at Aussie Rules. Having witnessed his clubmates, the Hanley brothers, Pearse and Cian, both head in the same direction and Pearse wait and Cian return home, Moran is pragmatic about Mayo’s approach.
“You just don’t know but you just have to put the things in place that would make it attractive to them if they want to come home. That’s all we will do with Kobe. We will absolutely shake that man’s hand when he is going out the door and wish him all the best.”
