We're good but not good enough to lift Sam

With nothing on the line, we travelled to Clones hoping to see a decent performance and some fringe players get a run. To be frank, I’m not sure we got either.

Although it was a very entertaining second-half, Mayo won’t be thrilled with their showing. Monaghan had the better of the majority of the exchanges despite having a numerical deficit for most of the game. In fact, Vinny Corey will probably take more from that match than his Mayo counterpart Kevin McStay. With safety secured, perhaps Mayo are in a period of heavy training but there was a flatness and pedestrian pace to their display.

Monaghan were the better team with a man less and were they not reduced to thirteen men straight after Kevin Loughran’s 64th-minute goal, then they probably would have won the game. Mayo finished very strongly and with extra men everywhere Monaghan could no longer hold back the tide. However, it still took a brilliant last-minute save from Rory Byrne to secure the points.

Monaghan’s showing was even more impressive considering the personnel they were missing. They were without their three best forwards – Stephen O’Hanlon, Jack McCarron and Conor McManus – yet still kicked some brilliant points through Micheál Bannigan and Sean Jones. They kicked a lot of long ball into their forwards and Mayo’s defence struggled to get to grips with this tactic. At the other end, Mayo’s forward play never really clicked until the introductions of Cillian O’Connor, James Carr and Fergal Boland opened things up. All three looked fresh and added great impetus to Mayo’s play.

It was a little disappointing that a few more untried panellists did not get any game time on Sunday. The likes of Kevin Quinn, Frank Irwin and Paul Towey have barely played 70 minutes in total between them this campaign. It’s hard to tell if they’re up to that level or not without seeing them getting a proper run. You’d also have to question the wisdom of starting nine backs. Surely, in a game with nothing on the line, we could have started the regulation six defenders and given the aforementioned three forwards starting berths.

The lack of newbies was disappointing but the five starting changes to the team named earlier in the week on social media was downright maddening. It beggars belief that Mayo and Monaghan announced dummy teams for what was a glorified challenge match. Not only was Mayo’s team a dummy one, but the subs (listed on the morning of the match) also contained a few more red herrings. Mayo were not alone in this though as Monaghan also had four changes to their original match day 26 which was announced four hours before throw-in. What is the point of this? The match programme cost €4 but was not worth the paper it was written on given the scale of subterfuge used by both managements. The players’ families, supporters and media all suffer at the hands of this childish chicanery.

I understand that players can fall ill on the morning of a match or get injured during the warm-up so every team should be allowed to make one change right up to throw-in. Anything more than that should warrant a fine; the proceeds of which could be redistributed to those naïve souls who buy a programme! It’s high time that the GAA got serious on this issue as county boards and team managers are making a mockery of the prestige that was once associated with being named as a starter on your county team. Managers are trying to be too clever by half and I would love some of them to come out and explain the reasoning behind the consistent publication of mock teams.

Mayo’s final league position of fourth is probably a pretty accurate reflection of where the team is at nationally at present. In terms of consistency, we are a good bit off Kerry, Dublin and Derry currently but if we got our ducks in-a-row could probably give any of them a good rattle on any given day. The fact that we would probably have to beat at least two of them to win Sam makes our All-Ireland aspirations fanciful.

If this year’s league was a golf round, you’d say we went around in even par. No magic highs but no crushing lows either. And maybe an average league campaign is sufficient this time too if it means we hit peak form when it matters most. I’d prefer to have a flat spring and a sparkling summer this year rather than the reverse which we experienced in 2023.

What were the positives from this year’s league? Beating Galway and Roscommon so comprehensively in rounds 1 and 5 respectively should give the team confidence ahead of a massive Connacht campaign. While Mayo did not really pull up too many trees so far this year, our garden still seems a whole lot rosier than our neighbours.

Fergal Boland’s impressive reintroduction to the fold has given Mayo another bona fide scoring forward threat. Although Conor McCarthy was by far the best player on the pitch at the weekend, Tommy Conroy and Mattie Ruane were the best of Mayo’s starters. There has been a positive uptick in their form in recent weeks that bodes well for the championship as they are important players for Mayo if we are to have a good season.

Besides Ruane, there have been some good midfield performances by Mayo players in the league campaign even if our own kick-out systems haven’t always been perfect. I was glad to see him rested in Clones but Jordan Flynn’s recent form also suggests that he is another man who seems to be back to his best. Jack Carney has also continued to show promise and despite shipping water in a number of areas against Derry the Sunday before, midfield was one area that Mayo got some sort of parity, even against the formidable pairing of Glass and Rogers.

Another huge plus from the last round of the league was the returning casualties who have missed quite a bit of the campaign. Paddy Durcan, David McBrien and Darren McHale got some valuable minutes under their belts while the return of Padraig O’Hora and Michael Plunkett will add nice depth to the squad. McStay and co. will have a pretty clear idea in their heads of their preferred starting XV for Roscommon in a month should the trip to New York go to plan. One just hopes that the knocks suffered by Sam Callinan (our chief man-marker) and Ryan O’Donoghue (our chief everything else) are minor.

The 2024 league is done. Box it off. Draw a line under it. Let’s not mention it again. From this day forth, championship is all that matters.