Mayo survive stiff test from plucky Sligo

For the second year running, Sligo came up agonisingly short of causing a major upset at the first hurdle of the Connacht championship, when pushing Mayo right to the final whistle in sun-kissed Castlebar on Sunday.

Unlike last season, however, when Sligo led for practically the entirety of their contest with Galway, only to be felled by a stoppage time goal, they had to do all the chasing here.

To score 2-17 away to the side that topped the Division 1 table was no mean achievement by they who finished fifth in Division 3 – but it still resulted in a three points defeat (2-20 to 2-17) for Tony McEntee’s side.

Mayo, playing just seven days after a league final defeat to Kerry, handed out six championship debuts, three of them to starters Davitt Neary, Fenton Kelly and Dylan Thornton. Yet to play a single minute of league football, midfielder Thornton was an interesting conclusion – but it was old-timer Aidan O’Shea who was Mayo’s star of the show, scoring a goal and two points from full-forward and having a telling hand in umpteen more Mayo scores.

And when Niall Murphy was awarded two points by referee Noel Mooney for a kick that was clearly inside the arc, which reduced Sligo’s deficit to three points with one minute left to play, it was O’Shea who rose above all on the halfway line to spectacularly fetch Colm Reape’s kickout and deny Sligo one final possession.

“We’ve a lorry load of work to get done now,” said McStay, whose team can plan for a Connacht semi-final against Leitrim.

“We just couldn’t get any flow to the game. We were a bit patchy.” The manager suggested that four high-pressure games on consecutive weekends, including trips to Derry and Dublin, had taken a toll.

“We’re happy to get out of it. Today we were just a little bit flat but the result was everything,” he insisted.

Yet the Green and Red had looked to be showing no ill effects from their Division 1 final defeat to the Kingdom when racing into a 1-4 to 0-2 lead, the goal coming in the sixth minute when Reape’s kickout sent Davitt Neary and Darren McHale on a right-wing attack before Ryan O’Donoghue planted the ball past Daniel Lyons into the bottom left corner.

Sligo, however, gradually grew into the game and with Pat Spillane scoring two points and posing problems for his marker Sam Callinan, and Niall Murphy ending the half with four to his name, Mayo’s lead was just three points at the interval, 1-8 to 0-8.

The hosts made the best possible start to the second-half when David McBrien’s route one delivery to Jack Carney ended with Aidan O’Shea dancing past defence and goalkeeper to boot home their second goal. But Spillane fisted across the Mayo goalmouth for Luke Towey to raise green for Sligo just two minutes later, and when Cian Lally saw another Sligo goal chance whistle just over the crossbar, the visitors were back to within four points, 2-10 to 1-9.

The fare was now hugely entertaining, and the tit-for-tat nature continued, with Neary and O’Donoghue drawing saves from Lyons at one end, and Spillane having a palmed goal effort cleared off the line by Donnacha McHugh at the other.

Darren McHale’s fourth point from play, a pair of frees by Ryan O’Donoghue and singles by Enda Hession and sub Fergal Boland helped ease Mayo into a nine points lead by the 56th minute, but Sligo refused to go away. Cian Lally again showed a devastating sidestep and turn of pace to drill home his side’s second goal before two pointers down the stretch by Alan McLoughlin and Niall Murphy brought the Black and White to within a kick of parity inside the final minute.

“What you saw there was a super display by a Sligo team that fought ‘til the end and against a number of different adversities throughout the match,” said beaten manager Tony McEntee. “The goal early on, the second goal by Aidan, the mistakes we made, the chances we missed, the opportunities we lost. But we kept fighting until the end.

“While it is a defeat, it’s a defeat we can learn and grow from. We will get over that [disappointment] quickly and we’ll see it for what it was, which was a super performance,” added McEntee whose team had lost to Mayo by 20 points when last they played in 2021.

Sligo must wait until May 10/11 before commencing their Tailteann Cup campaign.

“We’re going to give it our best effort. This is important for us, we really want to win something here and we really want to win the Tailteann Cup,” assured McEntee.

See full coverage in Tuesday's Western People.