New rules make O'Connor's loss even greater

If you were to go back through my columns, you’d soon be reminded that I felt Cillian O’Connor probably should have played more football for Mayo over the last couple of years - particularly last year.

It’s a big effort for him to play for Mayo considering he’s currently living in Dublin. I’m only speculating, he probably didn’t feel he was going to play as many minutes as he would want for the effort he would have to put in, or anyone would have to put in to play intercounty.

He has come out at the age of 32 and said that he’s stepping away rather than retiring. When you join the dots, that basically says that he’s not exactly seeing eye to eye with the management in terms of how much they’ve been using him. I don’t think you can come to any other conclusion in that regard.

If it’s the case that he is taking a break, it seems to me that his intention is play for Mayo again. What circumstances that would require, I don’t know.

You wouldn’t Aidan O’Shea and Cillian O’Connor in the full-forward line because they are too similar and would want to occupy the same part of the field. But that doesn’t mean one of them has to leave the panel.

At the end of the day, they are both in their 30s. I always felt that you could really get the benefit out of both whether you had one, or the other, or both, starting or coming off the bench.

I think that would be a bit foolish to rule out playing one player because he is not compatible with the other, particularly when you consider the impact players can have off the bench in the modern game.

Armagh won an All-Ireland because they had significant impact coming off the bench. We’ve also seen Dublin do that in the past.

NEW BALL GAME

In all likelihood, football is going to be very different in 2025. If these new rules are passed, if you are an inside forward, particularly one that can shoot with both feet and from long distance, you’ll get two points for scoring from outside the ‘45-yard arc. You’ll also enjoy a lot more room to manoeuvre up front with three forwards having to wait up and three defenders having to wait back at all times.

If you are a coach trying to take full advantage of these new rules then Cillian O’Connor is just the player that you’d want, in my opinion.

I think that’s one of the reasons why Michael Murphy is enthusiastic about coming back to play for Donegal. With Cillian out for 2025, we will not know, in some respects, what we’ll have missed.

GREATEST DAYS

We don’t know yet either what impact his loss will have outside of match days.

We don’t the impact he has on the standards in training. We don’t know how much guidance he has given to younger, developing players. I’d imagine his loss to the group will be significant because he has been our captain and a leader for Mayo for so many years.

Indeed, Mayo would not have gone as close to winning All-Irelands without him. If there was a penalty he’d nail it. If he got three chances from play he’d nail four of them. He always showed leadership in taking those frees and backing himself like he did with that famous equaliser against Dublin. Sometimes you just miss one. I think his contribution in terms of the points he scores far outweighed any misses he made for Mayo.

All those great days we had with Mayo would not have been achieved without Cillian O’Connor, that’s for sure. I hope he does play for Mayo again.

Carr and Company’s departure leaves a void

We can’t discount the withdrawal of Padraig O’Hora, Michael Plunkett, James Carr and Rory Byrne from the Mayo panel.

O’Hora was reliable, aggressive, totally committed and was best matched against big, physical forwards.

Rory Byrne has been reasonably reliable any time he’s played in goals for Mayo. Michael Plunkett has shown that he’s been a very good solid footballer, who’s good in possession and uses the ball well. I still think that he could be of value coming off the bench.

In some respects, James Carr’s departure is the most frustrating because you saw the raw talent he has. You were just hoping that he’d get a run where he’s stay injury-free and you’d see some consistency develop in his game.

His highs were extremely high. He scored great goals for Mayo, and then had other days where things didn’t work out for him. I would have been excited to see him play with the new because of the extra space he’d enjoy as a forward.