Hindsight is wonderful. A week and a half ago if Mayo had been offered three league points from the Tyrone and Armagh matches we’d have taken them. We’s also definitely have settled for a draw on Saturday evening at half time when we were wight points down.

That said, we we were two points up with only a few minutes to go and we didn’t see it out. That's the place to start.

PICTURES: Action from Mayo's gripping weekend clash with Armagh

Mayo will be terribly disappointed that they just didn't manage that one period of play very well, over-carrying when you probably have options to get the ball away isn’t great and in the modern rules any form of dissent turns things on its head completely. 

NO BLAME FOR REAPE

Looking at the finish to the game. They'll know themselves they should have handled it better. They moved the ball well and found Colm Reape in space. He was looking to pass it off. He didn't find it and realised he had to take the shot himself. He took it and unfortunately he didn't hit it on the money.

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The new rules dictate that sometimes the ball is going to be in the hands of your goalkeeper with the game on the line. To me, that seems nuts.

I want the ball in the hands of Ryan O'Donoghue or Aidan O'Shea and not a goalkeeper - no disrespect to goalkeepers. So I don't blame Reape at all. I'm sure he's disappointed as well.

TURNING POINT

The turning point for me was Davitt Neary, who had about a two-minute period where he won a great ball back in his own half. That resulted in him making a play and then Niall Grimley gets black-carded for impeding him.

A minute later he shows great bravery to get to a ball first when he could have got absolutely clattered and then great composure to bury it in the back of the net. 

That was an example of Mayo’s play after half time. The physicality increased and Mayo players were diving on breaks, being more physical when the ball was in the air. Of course, Niall Grimley going off for 10 minutes with a black card meant that Armagh had one of their better fielders not on the field. So, Mayo took advantage of that.

That's what you have to do and Mayo were much more aggressive on breaks as well. David McBrien, Jack Carney, Matthew Ruane, Stephen Coen, they were all much more physical in that area in the second half. 

KICK-OUT CONCERNS

Looking at the first half, Mayo’s kick-out strategy is a bit of a concern. They seem to be determined to get this kind of clipped kick-out to just beyond the 45 on one wing.

That might work every once in a while, but now, as teams get more conditioned, there will be many more longer kick-outs and Mayo have to be better on the breaks and physically in the air than they were in the first half.

There was a couple of clean catches from Armagh as well and that's not ideal. Colm Reape is going to have to kick the ball longer as the season progresses.

In the second half in Armagh there were a number of times when he could have gone longer with some of the kick-outs. He did get a couple of really nice ones out in the second half as well, particularly a lovely one to McBrien in the centre-half back position, dinked over a forward’s head.

In general, Mayo need to be better on the ball in the air for those long kick-outs, both on their own kick-out and on the oppositions. In the first half, there was a couple of times the ball went over the midfield altogether.

KICK THE BALL

There are more opportunities for Mayo to kick the ball in this new game. I'm not talking about 60-yard raking passes. I'm talking about 25, 30-yard dinks, vertical up the field, playing in straight lines, playing in diagonals.

There was a lot of side-to-side, back and forth Mayo play in the first half of Saturday’s game, and not really any combination play. The only really good bit of play in the first half was a ball was played into Ryan O'Donoghue from which he won a free and kicked it over himself. 

Not everything has to be side-to-side. It's not really a strength of a lot of our defenders to kick the ball as they're moving forward. They want to run with it. That's the way we've played for a good number of years, but that has to change.

They have to bring it into their game because it'll create scoring opportunities up the other end.

LOOKING AHEAD

I think, Mayo left some scores on the field on Saturday night because they were going for too many two-pointers when they could have brought the ball in and made more sure of other scores.

They seemed to be very determined to get two-pointers. Whereas, I felt they could move the ball in a bit more and create much easier opportunities. There has to be a mix to keep defenders thinking.

Being a bit more adventurous makes a huge difference and they definitely were that in the second half. Be more direct in play, be more vertical moving the ball up the field and take chances. This is a recipe for improvement. 

We did relatively well at the back. The full-back line was solid and with Paddy Durcan and Sam Callinan to come back into the mix, there’s a decent depth growing there.

Next weekend will be interesting. Kerry will test any perceived weaknesses and are always a great challenge. It will be a revealing afternoon in Castlebar.  

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