Too good to be feeling sorry for ourselves

Four-in-a-row doesn’t quite have the same ring as five-in-a-row but it is consequential nonetheless, especially in Connacht where just seven teams had accomplished it up to last Sunday. Galway only managed it twice – their great three-in-a-row All-Ireland-winning side in the mid-1960s and a decade earlier when the legendary Seán Purcell inspired the Tribesmen to a five-in-a-row.

Before James Horan’s Mayo claimed a fourth successive provincial title in 2014, the men in Green and Red hadn’t managed a four-in-a-row since 1951 and you have to go back to 1932 and 1909 for Mayo’s other periods of dominance in Connacht. The only other team to complete a four-in-a-row was the great Roscommon side – inspired by the incomparable Dermot Earley – from 1977 to 1980. Even the brilliant Mayo team of the mid-1930s, which won six National Leagues on the bounce, wasn’t able to string four provincial titles together.

It's important to reflect on the significance of Galway’s achievement last Sunday because it puts into context the performance of our own Mayo team who came mightily close to halting the Tribesmen’s great run in Connacht. Galway are at a point in their history where they have a really exceptional side – certainly the best that many of us have seen since Pádraic Joyce’s playing days in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Their middle eight (half-backs, midfield and half-forwards) are the strongest in the country – and that is without Shane Walsh who didn’t even feature among the substitutes on Sunday. Their full-forward line, shorn of Damien Comer, is not as lethal as some of the other top teams in the championship and their full-back line has its vulnerabilities, but that middle eight is so dominant that Galway will enjoy the lion’s share of possession against most opposition.

One of the great sayings here in the West is that there is never more than a kick of a ball between Mayo and Galway in the championship. That maxim certainly doesn’t apply to four-in-a-row teams who have tended to underline their superiority by posting huge scores against their oldest rivals. Mayo did it in 2013 when they went to Salthill and defeated Galway by 17 points, Galway came to Castlebar in 1956 and also won by 17 points while Mayo beat the Tribesmen by 16 points in Tuam in 1951. Even the Galway three-in-a-row team, who were defined by their close rivalry with Mayo, had 10 points to spare in the Connacht Final in 1964.

The truth is that over the past two weeks most Mayo supporters were clinging desperately to the age-old cliché that there is only ever a kick of a ball between Mayo and Galway without truly believing it. All of the known form pointed to a comfortable Galway victory and there was a genuine fear that the losing margin could be every bit as bad as some of the ones cited above. We saw it in the National League when Galway cut loose on a miserable February afternoon earlier this year. What would they do with the sun on their backs and a historic four-in-a-row in their sights.

Mayo had been wholly uninspiring in their two championship games against Sligo (Division 3) and Leitrim (Division 4 next year) whereas Galway had delivered a five-star display against Roscommon, a team that will be playing Division 1 football in 2026. Mayo hadn’t kicked a two-pointer in two games, Galway had struck three against Roscommon alone.

The vast contingent of Galway supporters in MacHale Park on Sunday reflected the optimism that now surrounds Pádraic Joyce’s men. They might not want to admit it but at least some of those Galway fans came to Castlebar for a coronation rather than a contest. For the first time in a quarter of a century, Galway have a football team that looks more likely to win an All-Ireland than their hurlers, and their supporters are buying into the dream in big numbers, which is certainly a new phenomenon for this generation of Galway footballers.

It is to Mayo’s credit, therefore, that there was just a kick of a ball in it when the hooter sounded at the end of a chaotic 70-plus minutes of bone-crunching championship fare that was certainly worthy of its place in the annals of this age-old rivalry. Matthew Ruane’s courageous effort for a two-pointer in the final play would have brought the game to extra-time had it swung a little more left; instead, it drifted right and wide, and with it went Mayo’s opportunity to halt Galway’s march to four-in-a-row.

There will be much angst over the circumstances of Mayo’s defeat – and rightly so. Kevin McStay’s team put themselves into a winning position and then faltered by kicking successive wides when the scores were level. Mayo had several excellent goal chances that should have been converted and there were some questionable decisions – both on and off the field – at critical junctures. Yet Mayo were a kick of a ball away from a team that was a kick of the ball away from winning last year’s All-Ireland championship. The gulf in class that many feared existed between these two teams – the kind of gulf in class that has characterised other four-in-a-row sides in Connacht over the past century – does not exist, or at least it wasn’t evident on Sunday. Mayo went toe-to-toe with Galway and were still throwing punches at the final bell. That has to augur well for the All-Ireland series to come.

Of course there will be regrets at letting slip a precious victory over the old enemy but if Mayo can learn the lessons from what happened last Sunday then there is cause for optimism in the weeks ahead. People were quick to point out that Galway’s decline after half-time coincided with the departure of John Maher but Mayo suffered their own setback in the first-half when David McBrien was forced to go off with a head injury. McBrien is every bit as important to Mayo as Maher is to Galway. Nor was Diarmuid O’Connor able to return for the second-half.

The negativity around Mayo football is overwhelming at times, especially these days when social media offers a platform to the most vituperative and uninformed critics. Every action of a Mayo player falls short of the impossibly high standards that many so-called supporters set and it seems at times as if there is a cohort of Mayo people who are just waiting for the team to fail. There was even criticism after the game of Stephen Coen’s decision to play against the wind in the first-half. To me, Coen made a perfectly logical choice that was rooted, I suspect, in an acknowledgement of Galway’s strength in depth. The Tribesmen have one of the strongest panels in the country – they nearly have two quality players for every position on the field – and the last thing Mayo needed in the second-half was a wind-assisted Galway unleashing its stellar supporting cast. Mayo would have needed to build up a considerable half-time lead to hold off a Galway comeback and there was no guarantee that scores would come easily in the first-half for a team that hadn’t kicked a two-pointer in the championship to date.

As it was, Coen’s decision was vindicated as Mayo played their way back into the game in the third quarter and were perfectly poised for victory until Colm Reape’s kickout went astray and Rory Brickenden was black-carded. Even then, the home side still had opportunities to win the game and if there is one criticism it is that we didn’t have our best players on the field in the final minutes of the game. Paul Towey had a poor game and should have been substituted. Pádraic Joyce did it to Cathal Sweeney who had come on at half-time for Maher but was struggling to get into the game. McStay would have been better had he brought on Paddy Durcan in Towey’s place. It is inconceivable that Durcan was not fit enough to play so why was he not brought on? Similarly, the decision to substitute Darren McHale seemed odd because he was having his best championship game for Mayo. In those final moments, when Mayo needed a two-pointer to bring the game to extra-time, McHale would have been the perfect man to strike the ball because he certainly had his eye in last Sunday.

McStay looked understandably deflated after the game but he needs to lift his side because Mayo have plenty of good championship football in them based on this display. The performances of McHale and young Davitt Neary was particularly encouraging as it suggests the team finally has two forwards who can share the scoring load with Ryan O’Donoghue.

The big question before last Sunday was whether a Galway side that has dominated Connacht since 2022 and contested two All-Ireland Finals in three years could emphasise the strides they have made by showing there is now a lot more than a kick of a ball between the province’s fiercest rivals. In winning four-in-a-row, Pádraic Joyce’s men have taken their place among a rare cohort of teams in the history of the Connacht Senior Football Championship but Mayo are still right on their tails – something that hasn’t always been the case with four-in-a-row teams in the West.