Unconvincing Mayo scrap and battle past Lilywhites

TYNAN'S TAKE

Passion. Desire. Willpower. Say what you want about Mayo’s footballing ability but in terms of these three characteristics, there isn’t a team in the land who has those traits quite like Mayo.

Many fans rightly voted with their feet (do the GAA higher-ups ever learn?) as a small number were at Croke Park for the double header of Clare v Roscommon and Mayo v Kildare.

I was at my nephew’s christening so I watched the game at a hotel where the afters were taking place. After watching the late drama by the Banner to dump out the Rossies, which many Mayo supporters I spoke to on Saturday took much delight in, the main event of the evening began and many were us were expecting Mayo to beat the Lilywhites and, as written in this column last week, only a convincing win would remove doubts about whether this Mayo team is ready for bigger challenges later this month.

The answer to that was: putting everyone through the wringer, as always. You can always count on Mayo to do things the hard way but the performance, particularly in the first half, was hard to fathom.

In fairness Mayo manager James Horan made no attempt to cover up the display, calling the energy and intent non-existent. That was accurate as the first half was as poor a performance as anyone can recall. One supporter said to me he was getting vibes from that game against Longford in 2010. That’s the levels a lot of us were thinking at that stage.

Six down at one point in the second half, a lot of us were thinking about what to do with the rest of our summer before Enda Hession got in a crucial block to prevent what appeared to be a near-certain Kildare goal.

Then a switch was flipped. Mayo outscored Kildare 0-5 to 0-1, monsters scores from Diarmuid O’Connor and Conor Loftus, while substitute Fergal Boland got a customary point. Better late than ever for the Aghamore man to be making his first championship appearance this year and he must be in contention for a starting berth in two weeks.

Kildare kept the gap at three but as they saw the finishing line, the scores began to desert them.

Then it all changed. Aidan O’Shea was taken off, Jordan Flynn came on in the 60th minute and inside two minutes Mayo were level after Oisin Mullin started and finished off a brilliant move.

Now moving with pace, Kildare looked out of it then. Their belief was gone. Cillian O’Connor and Darren McHale kept Mayo noses in front before Jordan Flynn, intentionally or not, caught the Kildare goalkeeper out from distance to make the scoreline a lot more flattering than it should have been.

It must be said that if Mayo are to put it up to the Kerrys and Dublins of this world, it might be better for O’Shea to be brought off the bench as an impact sub from this point on. He was caught a few times in the middle against Kildare and he may not have the legs for 70 minutes in Croke Park anymore.

One man who still does is Lee Keegan. Yet again, he put in a magnificent display at full-back alongside Mullin and Hession, who also were fantastic in the second half.

But further up the field is where Horan has some problems. Loftus was fortunate not to be taken off at half-time, Jason Doherty didn’t make it that far while Cillian O’Connor had a quiet evening by his own high standards.

Horan will be sweating over the fitness of Ryan O’Donoghue but should Boland and McHale have similar impacts, they will have every chance of starting against the Kingdom.

Once again, Mayo have stumbled through the qualifiers and now are in another All-Ireland quarterfinal. If their performance doesn’t go up a few notches Saturday week, that will be as far as it goes.