Interview
Mike Finnerty
“WE’RE bored now. We’re ready to play. We’ve watched other teams playing championship and we feel we’re ready.”
These were the words of James Horan last week as he counted down the days to the start of Mayo’s championship campaign next weekend.
By the time next Sunday rolls around it will have been eight whole weeks since the National League Final defeat to Cork, and the Mayo manager and his players are tired of the training ground shadow-boxing and talking about tactics, attitude and approach. They want action.
“It’s been a long time since the Cork game,” Horan told The Mayo News. “I suppose we’ve had an opportunity to review the league in detail, particularly the final, and look at areas that we could improve on.
“We didn’t win enough primary possession around the middle. We were beaten on the breaking ball count quite significantly. If you’re getting beaten there you’re going to struggle in terms of possession.
“We didn’t have enough possession to win the game. We need to be more competitive there and get all the other basics right too.”
If the bookmakers are to be believed then next Sunday will be a turkey-shoot; Mayo have been installed as 1/50 favourites to beat Leitrim in some quarters and a challenge game defeat for the outsiders to Roscommon last week has done little to curb the pundits’ enthusiasm.
However, James Horan is taking a much more pragmatic approach and is expecting the underdogs to come out with all guns blazing.
“Some of the favourites in the championship haven’t been doing so well so far,” he offered. “If you’re not right, or if you’re a fraction off, anyone can beat anyone.
“Leitrim had a great battling win over London, they’ll be confident about where they are, they’ll have improved from that game, and they’ll be looking forward to coming down to Castlebar and giving it everything they have.
“We’re just getting ourselves ready and it doesn’t matter who we’re playing, we’d be preparing the same way.
“We were happy with our consistency during the National League and we need that kind of consistency and we need to make sure we’re constantly improving.
“Hopefully over the last eight weeks that’s happened. We just need to put everything we’ve done into a performance on Sunday.”
Mayo have had more good days than bad so far under James Horan’s watch, and the 40 year-old admitted that he is happy with the progress of a project that began in late 2010.
“I would be, yeah. Last year we had a steady curve that went upwards. This year we had won the FBD League and had a strong National League. We had a few minor blips, in my opinion, but overall we’re a much, steadier and more balanced team this season so far. That has to be progress as well.
“We’ve definitely improved but the championship is yet to start and we’re looking forward to the challenge.”
And for anybody who’s ever wondered what it must be like to be the Mayo manager on the eve of another championship campaign, James Horan had this to say: “It doesn’t get any easier.
“There’s always more you could do, more you could look at, ways you can prepare. Every single training session we have we’re looking to make it better and improve things. It’s a constant strive to be better at what we do.
“That puts pressure on us as a management team and on the players. That’s the way it has to be. That level of competition and desire has to be there.”
