PREVIEW
Daniel Carey
TREVOR Mortimer will miss the remainder of the National Football League campaign because of a hamstring injury. The Shrule/Glencorrib man, who suffered hamstring trouble playing for his club last Sunday week, was forced out of Mayo’s game in Kildare after just 20 minutes with similar problems.
Austin O’Malley picked up a slight hip injury in Newbridge, but manager John O’Mahony confirmed it was ‘too early’ to say whether the Dublin-based teacher would miss next Sunday’s game against Galway. Elsewhere, Billy Joe Padden may be facing an operation after an MRI scan revealed that his ankle injury was ‘more complicated’ than it first appeared, according to the manager. They join a growing number of casualties including Peadar Gardiner, whose jaw was broken in a recent club match.
“The injury list is lengthening a fair bit,” O’Mahony told The Mayo News. “We also thought Chris Barrett would be okay for the bench on Sunday, but he wasn’t, and obviously he’s needed for the [Connacht] U-21 final as well.
“[But] we were delighted to get the points. That was the main aim. Obviously it was a different type of game in the sense that we made a very poor start. But full credit to the lads for turning it around, and [we] played some good football when we did get going … It was a game of four quarters rather than two halves. Within the first half, we started poorly, then played well. In the second half, we played well at the beginning and tapered off at the end.”
O’Mahony was as perplexed as anyone in St Conleth’s Park about why the Lilywhites collapsed after going into a 1-3 to 0-0 lead.
“I don’t know,” he said. “When they looked good, looked very good, [but] they looked terrible when we took them on. But next Sunday’s test is going to be way bigger than Kildare. Galway will be another league altogether. We wouldn’t get away with some aspects of the performance we had last Sunday against Galway; we’ll have to up it a lot. But this team has been putting a huge effort in, and I’ve no doubt that we’ll do that again on Sunday.”
Although Patrick Harte came in when Trevor Mortimer was injured, Mayo did not introduce a second substitute until the closing stages of Sunday’s game. O’Mahony said that this was due to a number of factors, including the forced withdrawals of named substitutes Chris Barrett and Aidan Campbell, and the upcoming provincial U-21 decider, particularly given the starting berths given to Tom Parsons and Tom Cunniffe.
“And I suppose for most of the match, things were going reasonably well,” he added. “So you have to balance things. Sometimes if you put in four or five subs all of a shot the whole shape of [a team] can go. I think if you look back on the record, we have used a fair few players in the league altogether.”
Last week, the Ballaghaderreen clubman suggested that seven points would be needed if Mayo were to avoid relegation. They need to beat either Galway or Tyrone in one of their two remaining matches to reach that target.
But O’Mahony refused to be drawn on whether the importance of beating Galway exceeded the promise of two league points, saying simply: “People can take whatever implication [they like]. We made a guarantee that we’d be trying for every game, which we have been. Some have worked, some haven’t. And we’ll let others speculate on the implication of what it means or otherwise.”
