Speed and swagger has opened the way for Mayo 

Well, that weekend couldn’t have gone much better for Mayo. A superb quarter-final win, a favourable semi-final draw and a crushing loss for our nearest and dearest rivals. I don’t feel too much schadenfreude, though, at Galway’s loss. A Galway v Mayo All-Ireland semi-final or final would have been epic and a match for the ages. As it is, we will have to make do with Louth.

It is, however, a fantastic draw for both counties. It has a freshness and novelty to it that gets the juices flowing. Both counties have also been given an enormous opportunity to reach an All-Ireland final against all odds and will each fancy their chances. The newness of this semi-final pairing reminds me of Mayo’s 2004 semi-final against Fermanagh. It took a replay for the ever-improving Mayo to dispose of the doughty Ernesiders back then. Louth have good mettle and footballers too, as their superhuman efforts against Monaghan proved. One thing’s for certain: next Saturday’s encounter will be a higher-scoring affair than the 9-all drawn semi-final in ’04.

Mayo should be very happy with their performance level against Cork. Truth be told, they were the most comprehensive winners of all the semi-finalists last weekend. An understandably leggy first-half was followed by an energetic, near-perfect defensive and attacking display in the second period. Cork had no answers to Mayo’s swashbuckling second-half performance.

Speed is the essence of war and Mayo just had way more of it all over the park. Cork had a lot of possession and big men who ran a lot but lacked Mayo’s pace and imagination. Cork were one-dimensional, just wanting to get the ball into their talisman Steven Sherlock’s hands as much as possible. Sherlock is a lovely kicker but doesn’t have top-level pace and the limpet-like Donnacha McHugh hounded him all afternoon. McHugh got so tight to him that Sherlock found it nearly impossible to get a yard to swing for twos. McHugh’s disciplined performance went a long way towards deciding the result in Mayo’s favour.

The one Cork forward who had some zip, Chris Óg Jones, was a threat but Enda Hession also stuck manfully to his man-marking task and made Jones fight for every inch. Jones got on a lot of ball but such was Hession’s pressure and doggedness that the Cork attacker found it difficult to get his shots off. Individual man-marking jobs aside, Mayo’s defence as a unit also looked very solid. It reminded me of the Tyrone match as Mayo sat a little deeper to plug the channels and space in front of the goal and limited Cork’s goal chances. They also pressed hard on Cork’s point shooters when they got in range. Each defensive turnover in the second-half gave Mayo players and supporters massive oxygen and demoralised a Cork side who were running out of ideas.

At the other end of the field is where the real magic happened though. Kobe McDonald, Ryan O’Donoghue and Tommy Conroy just had too much gas for the Cork defence and made great headway every time they got the ball. Darragh Beirne is not as quick as that trio but he could find the yard to shoot that Sherlock could not. Being able to kick off both sides is a wonderful gift and he is some finisher. That two-pointer he kicked in front of the Hogan Stand in the second-half will be etched into folklore. It wasn’t all fancy-dan stuff either though – he won some dirty ball that gave him licence to thrill.

I would probably have given Man of the Match to ROD for overall impact but the Belmullet man has won enough of those gongs in his time and I totally understand how Beirne’s brilliance was recognised. There have been many Erris men who have been labelled the ‘Bullet from Belmullet’ over the years but I’m not sure any are as deserving of the moniker as Ryan O’Donoghue. He was absolutely exceptional in that second-half. Mayo struggled on breaking ball in the first half but moving Ryan to 11 at half-time was a masterstroke by the Mayo management. He may have been one of the smaller men on the park but his low centre of gravity and fight helped Mayo get some parity in the midfield exchanges after half-time. His penetration and incisiveness with ball in hand when running at Cork also set the tone. He is Mayo’s spiritual leader and most important player.

It was a pleasure to finally see Kobe do what he does in Croke Park. He was in his natural habitat and dipped into his usual bag of tricks. His game intelligence for an 18-year-old is off the charts. When flicking the ball over Sherlock’s head under the Cusack Stand and sprinting after it, he computed rapidly that his direct opponent was not the quickest and where the space was. For his awe-inspiring two-pointer, watch back the way he uses a one-two with Stephen Coen to lose his marker and give himself space to launch the trademark outside-of-the-boot exocet. We may only be able to enjoy him for a year but he has already amassed an insane highlight reel that we can look back on longingly in the cold winter months.

I always feel sorry for the original Tommy ‘Goals’ Conroy from Kiltane when ill-informed commentators around the country refer to The Neale’s Tommy Conroy as ‘Tommy Goals’. His teammates refer to him as ‘Brown Thomas’, which is very apt given his perennial bronze look but an even better alias would be ‘Super Sub’, as that role suits the South Mayo man down to the ground. As a tiring and weary defender, could you imagine trying to chase the jet-heeled Conroy around the green expanses of Croke Park? Unfortunately for Conroy, no matter how well he plays henceforth, he is destined to be used mainly as a sub, such is the competitive advantage it offers Mayo when he is sprung in the second-half.

In this most incredible and unpredictable of seasons, Mayo now need to live by the old, boring clichés. They need to take it day by day, game by game and not look too far ahead. Favourable draws or not, Mayo can only beat what’s in front of them. Keep her lit, lads.

One more thing… 

The ‘Wee County’ Louth may be the smallest county in Ireland, but it has a bigger population than Mayo – 139,000 to 138,000. Who are the minnows here?