Mayo put the wind up Tribesmen to launch title defence in style
Mayo debutante Conor Reid turns away from Eoghan Kelly and Kieran Molloy of Galway during Sunday's Allianz Football League Division 1 clash at Pearse Stadium, Salthill. Pictures: INPHO/Morgan Treacy
Allianz Football League Division 1 – Round 1
Mayo 2-12
Galway 0-10
Anthony Hennigan at Pearse Stadium
The propensity of Mayo football is to chew you up, spit you out and suck you right back in again. The Green and Red’s last game of competitive football had seen them humbled by a dozen points to timidly take their leave of the All-Ireland championship. Their next has seen them visit their greatest rivals and deliver an eight points thumping to launch their 2024 season as impressively as could have been imagined.
Galway, of course, are no Dublin, and league isn’t championship, but Salthill is Salthill and if the last meeting of Galway and Mayo in the 2023 All-Ireland SFC preliminary quarter-final had taught us anything, it’s that weather conditions can be a factor at Pearse Stadium in June, never mind January. Mayo played the first-half against the wind that day and just about managed to hang in the game, trailing by five points before going on to win by one. They played the first-half of this game against equally severe elements, but this time led by four points at half-time. It was the foundation of a victory few might have seen coming when Kevin McStay’s side exited the FBD Connacht Senior League to London earlier in the month.
But this was a very different Mayo team, with only three players starting both games. Far greater similarities existed between the teams picked by McStay on Sunday and for last summer’s championship clash with the Dubs. Indeed, for anyone still harbouring doubt as to how important teams treat the National Football League nowadays, McStay named twelve of the fifteen who started last season’s All-Ireland SFC quarter-final in Croke Park. By throw-in, that number had reduced by one, with Conor Reid of Moy Davitts fancied for a debut in place of Stephen Coen, but nonetheless the full-forward line alone of Ryan O’Donoghue, Aidan O’Shea and Tommy Conroy, and the fact that six of the back seven were all survivors of that chastening loss to Dublin, signified the intent with which the Green and Red travelled to Salthill on this windswept January Sunday.
Galway were not quite so loaded, picking only seven of the team that started the championship exit to Mayo at the same venue last year, but it wasn’t long until they went scrambling for the likes of Matthew Tierney (19 minutes), Paul Conroy (half-time) and Rob Finnerty (52 minutes) to try and arrest their slide. But nothing worked for their manager Padraic Joyce whose decision to field a developmental team in this month’s FBD League looked to have backfired because on the evidence of this display, many of his players were all the worse for their lack of game time. Mayo, in contrast, had a definite pep in their step, beginning right back in the full-back line where all of Jack Coyne, David McBrien and Rory Brickenden looked particularly sharp, while Sam Callinan delivered a performance of immense promise at centre-back, marking Galway’s talisman Shane Walsh whom he restricted to one point from play.
Then there was a captain’s display by Paddy Durcan, TG4 Man of the Match, an award that could just as easily have been presented to Fergal Boland, a recent recall to the panel. Indeed such was Boland’s influence as an orchestrator of the Mayo attack, in the first-half especially, it’s hard to understand how he was deemed surplus to the squad’s requirements in 2023. The Aghamore man scored the first and last points of the opening half and between had a direct involvement in every other Mayo score, including a brilliant final pass to set up the opening goal for Eoghan McLaughlin in the twelfth minute. And not satisfied with just that, Boland would also score a sensational third point for the opening score of the second-half, which set the tone for another solid 35-minutes by the defending National Football League champions, who would also hand a debut to Diarmuid Duffy – one of four Ballinrobe players on the bench, in what surely was a first for the South Mayo club.
Playing into the teeth of an Atlantic westerly, Mayo could have had two goals inside the opening nine minutes, with both chances falling to Aidan O’Shea. Ryan O’Donoghue provided the final pass on each occasion but O’Shea was bottled up in the first instance while his next attempt was deflected past the post by a Galway defender.
Fergal Boland’s opening point had been negated by Dylan McHugh, and Ryan O’Donoghue had converted a free in response to a point by Liam Ó Conghaile, when Mayo eventually struck the first goal, as Boland’s handpass over the last defender released wing-back Eoghan McLaughlin who buried into the far right corner. Sam Callinan then traded passes with Boland to set up Jordan Flynn for his first point, which left Mayo 1-3 to 0-2 ahead after eighteen minutes.
A black card for O’Donoghue gave wind-assisted Galway the advantage of an extra player for ten minutes but despite some hard running by their midfielder John Maher, points by Ó Conghaile and Walsh was all they could muster before the Belmullet man’s return on 31-minutes, as Mayo managed the game and the conditions excellently. Boland, O’Shea, Coyne and Jack Carney combined for Flynn to curl over his second point and while Cathal Sweeney hit an instant reply, the visitors closed out the half with points by Bob Tuohy, the supplier again Boland, who then doubled his own tally off O’Donoghue’s quick free inside, sending Mayo to the dressing-room with a 1-6 to 0-5 lead.
The result was put to bed when Mayo hit three of the first four points in the second-half, through Boland, Paddy Durcan and Ryan O’Donoghue, from a 46-metre self-won free. Shane Walsh kicked Galway’s first four points of the half but all were from placed balls, and when Mayo introduced Paul Towey to kick points off left and right boots in the 61st and 66th minutes, they now led 1-11 to 0-9. Indeed substitutes had a big say over the closing moments, with Cillian Ó Curraoin sprung to score Galway’s final point of the match before Diarmuid Duffy, Mayo’s 2022 minor captain, was slipped in by fellow sub Cillian O’Connor for a 72nd-minute goal attempt that was saved by Connor Gleeson. Duffy, however, had been fouled which presented O’Connor the chance to fire home from the penalty spot which together with a late Jack Carney point, secured an eight points win. It’s Mayo’s third consecutive victory over their neighbours, factoring in last year’s All-Ireland SFC preliminary quarter-final and NFL Division 1 final.
The intrigue of next Saturday’s visit to Castlebar of Dublin has only been heightened by the respective results of both teams last weekend. After the surprising defeat of Dessie Farrell’s side at home to Monaghan, Mayo’s is now the opportunity to put four points between themselves and the All-Ireland champions. Throw-in at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park is at 7.30pm.
