Shadow boxing is over as Mayo’s year turns serious

When Roscommon arrived to MacHale Park in 2019 and dumped Mayo out of the Connacht championship, it was the first time in 33 years that the Shannonsiders had won in Castlebar – in league or championship. Next Sunday, they’ll attempt to win there for a third time in eight years. Not only that, they’ll heavily fancy their chances.

In contention to reach this season’s Division 1 final entering the last round of National Football League games, the 21 points defeat inflicted upon them by Mayo a month ago seems a wholly inaccurate barometer of anything that could happen next Sunday because of what will be the changed nature of both teams, but of Roscommon in particular.

Whereas eleven of the Mayo players who started on March 22 were also on the pitch for the throw-in against London in the Connacht quarter-final last Saturday week, that was the number of changes in the Roscommon team named for their own Connacht quarter-final away to New York on the same weekend.

And when you consider that one of their four players to have started both games against Mayo and New York, full-forward Daire Cregg, is very likely to miss Sunday’s encounter because of suspension, that would render the team even further unrecognisable from that which was so outplayed by the Green and Red just over four weeks ago.

A lot of what will have Roscommon optimistic of victory is due to the bounce that has been received from Mark Dowd’s arrival as manager. While Mayo’s two league defeats this season were by a combined 22 points at the hands of Kerry and Donegal, Dowd’s team only lost to Kerry by a controversial point in the very last second down in Killarney while they are the only side to have beaten the eventual Division 1 champions Donegal this year, doing so in the penultimate round of matches.

Scoring four goals inside the opening 19 minutes in New York – and winning by 24 points despite playing more than half the match with one player less following Cregg’s straight red card dismissal – was a further sign of Roscommon’s intent to play this season on the front foot. And there’s good reason, more than just traditional rivalry and pursuit of the Nestor Cup, why both they and Mayo will be especially keen to win next Sunday, with it all coming down to this year’s new All-Ireland Championship format.

The first round draw for the Sam Maguire Cup will comprise of the eight provincial finalists, the next seven highest-ranked teams from this season’s National Football League, and Kildare, last year’s Tailteann Cup winners. However, by reaching a provincial final, you are not only guaranteeing home advantage in the first round of the All-Ireland Series against one of the teams who didn’t, but potentially increasing your chances of a shorter route to the All-Ireland quarter-finals. That’s because the first round winners will be drawn against each other in Round 2A, where the winners of those four games progress to the last eight. The other four quarter-finalists however, will come via an alternative route that involves the eight first round losers being paired off in Round 2B. The winners of those four matches would then face a Round 2A loser and those four winners would then complete the quarter-final line-up.

If that’s all too complicated to follow, you can also imagine Andy Moran imploring his Mayo team to just keep it simple and focus on doing what the county has not done since 2021, which is winning the Connacht championship. And while their next hurdle is a tricky one, it’s anything but unsurmountable.

Mayo are bidding to win a third championship game against Roscommon in succession having won at Hyde Park twice in 2024 (Connacht semi-final and All-Ireland series) and as good as Roscommon fared already this year against the Division 1 finalists Donegal and Kerry, after seven rounds of matches they had still scored 25 points less than Mayo and conceded 17 points more, albeit most of that difference was a direct result of what had happened in that final round game between the pair.

But the fact that Roscommon scored three goals more and conceded three goals less than Mayo in Division 1 this season pales in comparison to the success that Mayo enjoyed in the other means of scoring.

The 52 points that Mayo garnered from two-pointers was 18 more than the Rossies and the 30 points they conceded from two-pointers was a dozen less, with the Green and Red also more prolific in the scoring of one pointers to an average of more than two per game. That should all heighten the focus on Mayo’s full-back line, of which there has been plenty already this year; find the formula that quenches the goal threat of Roscommon and nearly every other measure points to a Mayo win.

Of course, there’s also the potential for Mayo to increase their own goal threat through the addition of Kobe McDonald and Darragh Beirne next Sunday.

Three goals in his last two games for the Mayo U20s by McDonald to add to that scored on his National League debut against Monaghan, and Darragh Beirne’s three goals this season, including two against Galway and Dublin in his first two National League appearances and one since for the U20s, brings temptation surely for Andy Moran to include one or both from the start.

If you’re looking for an indication as to his plan, it’s probably worth digesting the Mayo manager’s words at the launch of the Connacht SFC, just a week or so out from Mayo’s trip to London. Asked if he felt he had a settled team yet, Moran responded in the negative on account of said duo’s involvement with the Mayo U20s that week and last, which he said was “disappointing” but had always been the plan.

One interpretation could certainly be that the manager sees McDonald and Beirne as part of his preferred ‘settled’ team.

“I think everyone has seen the scoring side of Kobe but people didn’t see the work-rate, the way he can assist scores and really get stuck in,” said Moran pre-London, who also talked up Beirne having used him even more extensively during the National League.

So with the Mayo U20s not in action again until four days after this senior showdown with Roscommon, it seems unquestionable that both will be asked to perform significant roles in Castlebar on Sunday.

To what extent remains to be seen but even their U20 boss Keith Higgins admitted following victory over Galway last Wednesday, to which McDonald and Beirne contributed 2-3-3 between them, that the senior team “can’t not have the two boys in contention for a Connacht semi-final”.

But there’ll be considerable firepower on the opposite side of the fence too, whether or not Daire Cregg is available to the visitors. Roscommon captain Diarmuid Murtagh was Division 1’s top scorer after six rounds and was only leapfrogged by David Clifford when Dowd chose to rest Murtagh for the final round. Cregg ended as the division’s fourth highest scorer with Mayo’s top scorer, Ryan O’Donoghue, placed two places further back.

Considering Enda Smith was also ahead of Mayo’s second highest league scorer, who perhaps a tad surprisingly was Jordan Flynn, and there’s no disguising the ability of Roscommon to ask some serious questions of Mayo’s defence, particularly if the likes of midfielders Keith Doyle and Conor Ryan along with Ronan Daly, Senan Lambe and Dylan Ruane, the vice-captain, are able to generate enough possession around the middle third.

It’s possible, particularly with Conor Loftus and Enda Hession only on their way back from injuries, that Mayo will retain the same six defenders as started in London given Fenton Kelly for Diarmuid Duffy was the only change to the six that had also started the game before against Roscommon while Bob Tuohy and David McBrien is definitely Mayo’s preferred midfield partnership based on usage so far this season.

The aforementioned Flynn will be expected to return to the half-forward line having not started in London, not least because he was one of only four Mayo players, Ryan O’Donoghue, Sam Callinan (arguably Mayo’s player of the season so far) and Jack Carney being the others, to start all seven of the team’s league matches. Cian McHale, a championship debutant last time out, has done all that has been asked of him at corner-forward, so that might leave Paul Towey and Aidan O’Shea most at risk if youngsters McDonald and Beirne were to be considered as starters.

“The standard (in Connacht) is rising all the time,” remarked Andy Moran earlier this month. “It’s amazing to think, Roscommon, Galway and Mayo are all competing in Division 1 and competing well in it.” 

Just competing won’t cut it on Sunday though. Roscommon’s approach to last month’s league meeting was a reminder that they see victory next Sunday as the be all and end all. Just as it is for Moran and Mayo.