Deane expects ‘a big battle’

MONDAYS.
Bob Geldof doesn’t like them, but Sean Deane and the Mayo Minors absolutely love them.
But in what contrived reality does one use Mondays as motivation?
Before even being asked about their pre-game preparations, the Mayo Under-17 manager went out of his way to explain the idea.
“We spoke a lot about Monday, the aim of today is to be back for Monday,” he told The Mayo News after last Friday ‘s semi-final win over Roscommon.
“The boys bought into that, and ‘being back for Monday’ is being back training on Monday and keeping the family together.”
Now we get it.
“They’re just a fabulous bunch of young men that I’m very proud of, in terms of how they conduct themselves and how they play the game,” he added.
As Deane noted, the ‘safety net’ was removed for the semi-finals and now it was time to kill or be killed.
Indeed, what Mayo did to win this game could only have come from a team that wanted to stay together and keep playing together.
The closing stages conjured every sort of human emotion, from despair to joy to frustration to elation.
Which of these were going through Sean Deane’s head during those frantic moments?
“I definitely aged ten years I’d say, that’s the first thing!” laughed the Erris native.
“Yeah, great to watch. When you’re standing on the sideline every emotion goes through your head, but you’re so invested in the game. It was probably the fastest hour of my life.”
In the context of this fixture, overcoming Roscommon by twelve points in the opening round meant very little to Deane, who anticipated ‘a huge, huge battle’ and got exactly that.
“The first half, we weren’t at the pitch of the game to the extent that we should,” he recalled.
“We didn’t press high enough up the field, we didn’t press vigorously enough high enough up the field. Our attacking play was a little bit laborious, lateral, nobody really breaking the line. “We needed to rectify that at half-time.
“We needed to get a little bit more aggressive. We had a lot of aggression on the team and needed to make sure that we were using that.
“Any of the guys that were taken off left everything on the pitch, and the guys that went on made a huge difference, there’s no doubt about it. They gave us a level of energy that got us across the line.”
Their Connacht final opponents this evening (Friday) in Tuam are Galway, who handed Mayo their only defeat of the season when they saw them off by a point in round three.
Seán Deane admitted their performance was ‘poor’ that day but was no less enthused about doing it all again this week.
“I’d say of the 65 minutes of the game we probably played for 40 minutes. What we’re looking to do is have more consistency in our performance over a longer period of time. “Bringing that work rate, desire, commitment, intensity, all those good things,” he replied, when asked about what they needed to improve for the Connacht decider.
“The bottom line is, we’ve drilled it into the guys we don’t take a step back from anybody and we’re looking forward to going to Tuam - a lovely stadium - and take on our nearest rivals, who are a fantastic team. I’ve no doubt there’ll be a big battle on Friday night.”

The game throws-in at 7pm.