HISTORY will be made at Celtic Park next Saturday afternoon as Mayo travel to play Derry for the first time in the All-Ireland senior football championship.
And despite the bookmakers installing Mayo as warm favourites to win the match, John O’Mahony believes that the odds will be stacked against his team next weekend after Derry sent Armagh crashing out of the championship last Sunday.
“We’ll be roaring underdogs anyway,” O’Mahony told The Mayo News. “Derry beat one of the favourites for the All-Ireland on Sunday and that was a huge win for them.
“The fact they did it without Enda Muldoon makes it even more impressive. It’s also a home game for them and that’s also a huge factor.
“They’re a typical Ulster team,” he added. “Some people will have seen them as underachievers but the reality is that they responded to their defeat to Monaghan very positively. To do that, and beat Armagh without Enda Muldoon, is the sign of a very good team.
“They have a lot of players who have had success at underage and colleges level and they’re a big, strong, mobile team. They’ll fancy their chances.”
Mayo welcome back Pat Harte from suspension for next weekend’s game but Ciaran McDonald is unlikely to recover from his hamstring problem. The Crossmolina man wasn’t even togged out last Saturday.
“We don’t know yet about Ciaran,” said O’Mahony. “We’ll just have to give him time and see. I don’t think we picked up any fresh, new injuries but sometimes it takes a couple of days for these things to flare up. I know Pierce Hanley got a knock but it’s nothing too serious.”
Mayo’s six point win over Cavan gave O’Mahony, Tommy Lyons, Kieran Gallagher and Martin Carney plenty to ponder ahead of their trip to the north west.
“Our game against Cavan went to plan in the sense that we won but that performance wouldn’t be good enough to beat Derry,” admitted the manager.
“We need to improve on certain things but we have nothing to lose now. Derry will be favourites after last weekend and all the pressure is on them.
“Some people felt we got an easy draw against Cavan and some will feel that Derry are going to beat us. But people need to keep a sense of perspective. We did some things well last weekend and some not so well but we have a good committed bunch of players who will listen and work hard. We’ll give it a good go and see where it takes us.”
Derry will welcome back Enda Muldoon for the game after he missed the victory over Armagh because of flu. Centre-half forward Conleth Gilligan picked up a leg injury but is expected to recover in time so Paddy Crozier’s team will be at full strength.
