McHale in bullish mood as Mayo take the road north
Liam McHale is hoping his Mayo side can overturn this year's Division 1 champions Armagh and reach the All-Ireland SFC semi-finals for a fourth year in succession. Picture: Seb Daly/Sportsfile
Almost three weeks after their thumping win over Kildare, Mayo have a chance to make it four All-Ireland semi-final appearances in-a-row when they face high-flying Armagh next Sunday evening.
It was a tough start to the championship for Liam McHale’s side. A disappointing display saw them lose to Galway in the Connacht final before they were beaten by eight points by defending All-Ireland champions Dublin in their opening group game.
Victory over Kildare, however, would guarantee their spot in the quarter-finals and they did so convincingly and now the Mayo boss is confident of taking down the Division 1 league champions on their home turf.
“The Kildare game, to put that score up and score a few goals, I know we got sloppy in the second-half but it would have boosted our confidence a little bit,” Liam McHale told the . “From where I’m standing, we’re heading to Armagh feeling that we have a good chance of winning, understanding that we have to play really well to beat them. We're heading in the right direction now and we seem to be playing a lot better and getting a lot more scores, a better spread of scores across the board, which is very important as well.”
While the defeat to Dublin was not the start Mayo wanted, a six-day turnaround meant a more prudent approach was needed. Dublin boss Mick Bohan felt the scoreline flattered Mayo but McHale feels his side could have been a lot closer had the Green and Red taken their chances.
“We said beforehand we weren't going to go toe-to-toe with them, having to play Kildare six days later. We tried to be smart and we played ultra defensive, which wouldn't be my style, in the first-half and that worked quite well.
“0-5 to 0-2 down, probably in a good place. Then in the second-half, the idea was that we push up and put pressure on the kickouts and see could we make it really, really hard on them and we did make it hard on them.
“When you look back at the video, we had two good goal chances and we kicked five or six wides and one or two into the goalie's hands.
“I was very, very happy with the way it worked out but I was very disappointed that we didn't make it a lot closer. I don't think we ever looked like winning the game but I thought we could have scored maybe 1-8, 1-9 and made it a very close game and asked some real questions of them.
“Thankfully we regrouped then and got the result that we were looking for against Kildare which got us to this Armagh game now.”
Mayo have a couple of knocks coming into the game. Tara Needham, who is making her way back from an Achilles tendon injury, looks likely to miss out but her twin sister Ciara (quad strain) missed the win over Kildare but is expected to tog with the squad.
Veteran Fiona McHale, who has dealt with niggling issues this year, is also expected to be fit while young duo Fionnuala McLaughlin and Annie Gough have shin splints, which has made things tricky in terms of training. All three, however, are expected to be in the squad.
“The two girls with the shin splints, it's a disaster trying to manage load and trying to get some work into them without aggravating the shin splints so it’s been a struggle now for the last four or five weeks. But we're hoping most of them now will be fit to play.”
Armagh, managed by Derry native Greg McGonigle, were coming into the championship off the back of winning the Division 1 title in style, defeating last year’s league champions Kerry in the final. They followed it up with a narrow Ulster final win over Donegal but they suffered a serious blow to their All-Ireland aspirations when Aimee Mackin, one of the country’s best players, suffered a season-ending cruciate injury.
They narrowly defeated Meath in their opening group game but were then held to a draw by Tipperary.
Despite the loss of the talismanic Mackin, Armagh still possess plenty of quality including Aimee’s sister Blainhin, who is back from Australia after playing with AFLW side Melbourne, as well as Kelly Mallon, Eve Lavery, Aoife McCoy and Lauren McConville, who is part of Armagh footballing royalty. Her father, Jimmy, captained Crossmaglen to the first of their All-Ireland title triumphs at club level back in 1997 while uncle Oisin, the current manager of Wicklow, was a double All-Star forward who fired the Orchard County to their sole All-Ireland title in 2002. Also, her first cousins James Morgan and the O’Neill brothers, Oisin and Rian, are stars of Armagh’s current setup, while her younger brother Cian has also made the senior set up.
“They're well-organised, they're tough defensively, and they like to break. Us playing up there in Armagh is going to be a big ask and you find that good teams, winning the league, beating the likes of Dublin and Kerry and beating the top teams that won in the league, the confidence that gives them is immeasurable.
“A good team like that, everybody has to just step up, raise their game by maybe five percent, maybe get a better spread of scoring and they seem to have done that. They've come out of a tough group, and they seem to have got over that initial disappointment and setback with Aimee getting that serious injury. I'm sure their manager is quite pleased with the way they're going at the moment, they'd be very confident of course playing us at home in Armagh.”
The throw-in time of 5.45pm for Sunday has been a source of considerable frustration for Mayo supporters. A potential six to eight-hour round trip will likely see many opt out and watch live on TG4 instead. McHale understands the frustrations from the supporters but it could give players that extra edge, being in the comfort of their own homes as opposed to a hotel room the night before the game.
“People were disappointed. Everyone was saying ‘what the hell? Why are we playing that late?’, but you have to look at the positives. It gives us a chance to sleep in our own beds now, travel for two hours up to Monaghan, eat, do a bit of a walkthrough, have a meeting, let them go for a walk, and then 45 minutes into Armagh so it does give us that sort of an opportunity.
“But also, these big games, you could do with as much support as you could get. I would imagine a lot of supporters won't make that journey because it's so late in the evening. We said to the girls once it came out that we have no choice now but to concentrate on the main thing, and the main thing is trying to perform as best we can and hopefully get a win.”
McHale added: “We've had a lot of very young players and our conditioning coach Clive Reilly would say that, especially the younger players in a hot hotel room, they're up all night twisting and turning, they don't sleep well, and then you're kind of dehydrated and tiring going into the game.
“We've done it before with the Cork one, we didn't stay overnight. We did the Dublin one for the championship. So I think the girls are pretty used to this, but this gives us a little bit more time to be ready for the game. If we can go up there and win, I don't think anybody would be bothered about the journey home, that's for sure.”
