Mayo's win over Roscommon never in doubt

Familiarity breeds contempt. Unfortunately for football fans, it doesn’t breed much excitement or originality. For the third time in as many months we watched a totally dominant Mayo side comfortably prevail over a Roscommon team who must be sick of the sight of Mayo. None of us want to watch a Mayo Roscommon match again for a good while.

Roscommon looked to keep it tight, defend in numbers and hoped to punish Mayo mistakes on the counter. “Hoped” is the operative word there in that sentence as they never really believed that they were going to take Mayo down. Mayo’s midfield domination ensured another relatively straight-forward day out in The Hyde. Our recent record there is remarkable - six wins on the bounce in a supposed bear pit is a noteworthy feat. In fact, our winning record isn’t too recent at all and stretches all the way back to the 2001 Connacht Final when Ray Connelly, Frankie Dolan and Gerry Lohan made national headlines. On that day, Sam Callinan wasn’t even born yet!

I’ve seen Roscommon at close quarters three times this year and they are not a good team. They have a sprinkling of dangerous players but even their top guns don’t seem to be firing on all cylinders this campaign. Enda Smith will have nightmares about Donnacha McHugh who probably followed him in to the home changing room at half-time such was the discipline he showed in tracking the Boyle man. For the second time this season, McHugh has kept Roscommon’s talisman relatively quiet and outscored him. A 1-2 return in two games while man-marking Smith is a handsome return for McHugh. I was also struck by how much bigger he is looking. He’s maturing nicely and is obviously someone the management rate highly.

Going in level at half-time against a tricky wind was a big success for Mayo even if our profligacy in front of goals was frustrating. Davy Burke has had an annus horribilis in charge of Roscommon and chose to try and shut up shop in the first-half with a big wind at their backs. In all fairness, packing the defence against Mayo is probably sound practice given our travails over the years against mass defences but I was encouraged by Mayo’s attempts to break down that packed rearguard.

A glass half-empty pessimist would probably curse the fact that Mayo converted only half of their 16 first-half scoring chances. A glass half-full optimist, however, would laud the fact that Mayo were doing a lot of things right when trying to punch holes in Roscommon’s deep lying backline. For the second game in a row, our opponents sat very deep and totally ceded territory and possession but Mayo have shown some signs of evolution in their attacking play. The use of a playmaking pivot up top and strike runners from deep were notable features of that opening period. There were some neat and intricate one-twos and Mattie Ruane, Aidan O’Shea and Jordan Flynn were very involved and influential.

The uptick in Mattie Ruane’s form in recent months is a big positive. He looked like a man on a mission in the first half and did a bit of everything- running hard, shooting, tracking, fetching and punching the air to get the crowd going.

Mayo are definitely more thoughtful and deliberate in attack nowadays. Gone are the days when we would run and run and run from deep and try and pummel opponents into submission. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not really enjoying the current attacking style and don’t think it is great to watch but I’m not sure if that is Mayo’s fault. Teams are sitting deeper against us and Kevin McStay and co. are having to cut their cloth accordingly. For years we complained about and were frustrated by our inability to adapt to teams that defended in numbers against us. Enjoy it or not, this formulaic, process-driven attacking strategy we now see is an adaptation. The halcyon days of ‘Horanball’ are well and truly dead. Maybe we have gone too far the other way and have lost a bit of our derring-do and adventure. A hybrid of the McStay Way and Horanball is probably optimal.

If ever a moment summed up the way Mayo’s attacking play, and indeed Gaelic Football, has changed it was Cillian O’Connor’s monster score after half-time. There’s a clip going around social media of O’Connor having the time to pick up a blade of grass and throw it in to the air to decipher the direction and strength of the wind. All of this happened in the middle of a Mayo attack as the play slowly ambled laterally from side to side. Cillian got the ball moments later and launched a scud from outside the 45’ straight between the posts. A brilliant finish but the fact that an attacker had time to do that in the middle of an attack with the ball no more than 10 metres away speaks to the slow and laboured way that moves develop nowadays. I hate to make the comparison but it wouldn’t happen in hurling where it’s a score a minute and you barely get time to breathe.

One man’s misfortune is another man’s opportunity. Last week in this column I called on Eoghan McLaughlin to step up and be the man in Paddy Durcan’s absence and boy did he deliver! He was superb on Saturday. Roscommon couldn’t deal with his rampaging, marauding runs but what was more impressive was his defensive discipline and turnovers. If Mayo are to go deep this year, they need a big summer from him. He looks ready.

It was good to see Sam Callinan named and playing at six and I thought he looked more at home there, producing an excellent defensive display. Playing Ryan O’Donoghue at 11 didn’t work out as well. He looked a little lost there early on and only really came in to the game when moved back inside in the second-half. I understand what management were trying to do moving O’Donoghue out to get Cillian and Aidan inside but we need to keep our best player in his best position to get the best from the team. Playing Tommy Conroy out in that line could be a more viable option.

Mayo and O’Donoghue were the beneficiaries of the awarding of a fortuitous penalty. It was never in a million years a penalty as RO’D took at least 10 steps and any contact was negligible. That big decision came at an important juncture in the game with things pretty tight but you just get the feeling that Mayo would have found a way to win no matter what.

O’Donoghue’s contribution for the second goal was magnificent and encapsulated all that is good about him. He is such a great bobber and weaver that you can see why he was a successful boxer. Smokin’ Joe Frazier would be proud of O’Donoghue’s elusiveness. Indeed, the legendary Mayo forward Joe Corcoran was nicknamed ‘Jinking Joe’ for the way he could evade tackles before kicking scores. Our modern day great will need a similar nickname to honour his evasiveness. Rocking Ryan?

Right now, Mayo are doing what they have to do and getting the job done. Our heart rates and stress levels could have done without the late goal concession but we have been vastly superior than both Cavan and Roscommon in recent weeks. With Dublin, a possible Preliminary Quarter-Final and All-Ireland Quarter-Final to come in June, the challenges will get bigger and more difficult. The next month will certainly tell a tale.

One more thing … Cork scored 3-6 from turnovers against Donegal on Saturday. God help the Donegal players in training this week when Jimmy gets hold of them. God help Clare against Donegal in two weeks’ time.