EDITORIAL: Mayo must avoid complacency in Leitrim

AFTER Mayo's lacklustre championship opener against Sligo, it seems most of the pundits in the country have written off Kevin McStay's team as serious contenders for this year's All-Ireland title.

It's been a very long time since Mayo were as big as 22/1 to win Sam Maguire and six other teams sit ahead of them in the betting to win this year's title.

They are overwhelming favourites to beat Leitrim in Carrick-on-Shannon next Saturday afternoon but in doing so, they need to put in a performance and give themselves a big confidence boost ahead of the Connacht final against either Galway and Roscommon.

Mayo did only beat Sligo by three points but in fairness, Sligo did play very well in MacHale Park and perhaps they didn't get the credit they deserved for pushing Mayo to the pin of the collars.

Performance needed

Anything other than an emphatic victory on Saturday will see further doubts being raised about the calibre of the current Mayo team but as McStay stated after the Sligo game, Mayo are going to take the championship one game at a time and they will be timing their run in the hope of peaking on the first Sunday in May in order to claim their first Connacht title since 2021.

Galway are expected to be the opposition for that final but Roscommon will have other ideas about that and their clash with Galway on Sunday is sure to have a proper championship intensity about it which has been lacking so far in this year's competition.

There is a school of thought that Mayo should be resting some of their key players for the clash with Leitrim but McStay is perhaps more likely to get game time into some of his players that have been on the periphery of the team for the league campaign.

Mayo had eight very tough games in a short period of time in the National Football League so they probably have used the two weeks since the Sligo game to re-energise themselves and freshen up the set-up before embarking on what will hopefully be another very busy schedule after the Connacht final as they head into the round-robin phase of the championship.

Eyes on the prize

McStay has clearly stated over the last few months that his team have their eyes firmly set on regaining the Nestor Cup this year and success in Connacht will then set them up perfectly to have a proper cut at going deep in the race for Sam Maguire.

There is no standout team in this year's championship race and behind the scenes, I am sure Kevin McStay and his management team believe on their day they are a match for any team in the country.

The form of players like Aidan O'Shea and Ryan O'Donoghue has added real impetus to Mayo's attacking play but they will be looking to put in a better defensive play on Saturday as they get ready for what they hope will be a long and fruitful summer.