John O’Mahony refused to lose the run of himself
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Daniel Carey
“WE came here looking for a battle, but we didn’t get it.” That was John O’Mahony’s assessment of proceedings in the immediate aftermath of last Sunday’s game at McHale Park, and indeed, the Connacht semi-final was more massacre than battle, more Wounded Knee than Boyne.
“All of the evidence we were getting from Sligo is that they would really put it up to us,” O’Mahony continued. “In fairness, they are way better footballers than that, and I know Tom Jordan will pick up the pieces. The tragedy for them is that they’re going into the Tommy Murphy Cup now instead of into qualifiers … But from our own point of view, I came here today expecting or hoping to win by a point or two. We didn’t get that battle, and that’s a bit of a disadvantage to us now, but there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re delighted to be in the Connacht final whatever way it takes. It’s going to be a huge game for us.”
O’Mahony was also ‘heartened’ by the ‘beginning of the blend’ of youth and experience on show. The building of the team was, he repeated, ‘in the early stages’, but young and old have bedded down, ‘knitted in and put a huge effort into getting the thing right’.
Tom Parsons ended up as man of the match, and Keith Higgins was also outstanding. Asked if he was happy with the performance of his debutants, O’Mahony commented: “On a day like today, you’re happy with everyone”. But he paid tribute to the effort and work ethic shown by the squad since the National League campaign ended.
An eight-week break in the interim had, O’Mahony conceded, been ‘a bit of a worry’ beforehand. The manager said he felt ‘it was better to let [players] all play with their clubs’ rather than inter-county challenge matches, and suggested that ‘you could see, I think, the benefit … of the football that was played’ in recent weeks. The next round of the club championship isn’t down for decision until after the Connacht final, but then as O’Mahony said of July 13 with a smile: “There’s a battle ahead, isn’t there?”
As one Mayo man was planning for a provincial decider, another was attempting to piece together what had gone wrong. Tommy Jordan didn’t have easy answers, admitting: “Nothing seemed to work today”.
Sligo had difficulties all over the field. Asked about Mayo’s midfield, Jordan conceded their strength in that area, but added: “It wasn’t necessarily the midfield pairing on its own. They were strong in the half-forward line [and] half-back line, so in all that area, we struggled. And once you struggle there, in the modern game you’re going to have difficulty.”
Trevor Mortimer’s goal early in the second half effectively killed off the game, though Sligo ‘didn’t come back with the fire’ Jordan would have liked. “Again, you have to give credit to Mayo,” he added. “Mayo were hungry for that game. They showed all over the pitch that there’s a bit of hunger there.”
The best sauce, they call it, and a similar craving was notable by its absence in Sligo’s display. Jordan admitted that ‘at the moment, we haven’t any master-plan for … dealing with the way things went today’, and there’s likely to be some tough talking in the Yeats County in the next few days.
“We were expecting we’d at least be competitive and take our chances and be there at the end,” he said. “That didn’t happen today. It’s difficult to put a finger on exactly why, but it didn’t.”
