THE season is over. It was a terrible performance and a horrific result on Sunday, but it was coming. We all noted the concerns and deficiencies. This game was proof of that.

The nature of defeat showed that the team doesn't believe what they're doing. The loss against Cavan tells us so much about where we are, it tells us so much about our future. But it also tells us that our season is effectively over.

This game, again, laid bare the two epic problems that Mayo have: We're under severe pressure on our own kick-out. We don't have the sort of traditional players there that are used to midfield and are going to fight tooth and nail for the ball if it’s whacked out 60 yards towards them.

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Everything seems to be too perfect on the kick-out strategy and it doesn't work and you're just not getting the percentages that you need on your own kick-out. And that's leaving us at a loss. 

Two kicks is the quickest way up the field. Long kick-out, catch it, kick it into the forward line, or kick it into the half-forward line to a player attacking the goals, they're the best attacks in football. We don't have that.

And secondly: There is a lack of scores if you go through the team. The first 20-25 minutes there was so few scores that you nearly thought it was a really defensive, dour game from the old rules. And Mayo are not scoring anywhere near enough to win these games.

Ryan O'Donoghue was under pressure to be the main man all the time. You don't have players in the forward line that you would consider to be natural forwards. 

NO SPIRIT AND BELIEF

IF the first half was worrying, the second was downright alarming. Not only did Mayo’s technical and tactical limitations become more apparent, but the team’s spirit seemed to evaporate.

There was no kick, no belief, no intensity. Cavan grew in confidence as Mayo wilted, looking every bit a team on the up, while Mayo looked like a side in decline.

The late scores flattered Mayo, but the truth was clear: The team didn’t believe in what they were doing. Repeating the same slow, measured build-up that wasn’t working, refusing to play direct ball in to Aidan O’Shea, and showing no willingness to adapt - these are the hallmarks of a group that has lost its way.

Cavan took over the game all over the field. They started to play with confidence. They probably felt that they were on a team that's on a trajectory and will improve.

Whereas this Mayo team feels, and it has felt like this for the last number of years, like a team that's on a downward trajectory. That's the way it finished up.

HARSH REALITIES

MAYO are playing old football in the new rules, and it means they're being left behind. You need goalkeepers who can smash the ball a long way out the field. You need midfielders who can contest and be physical in that area of the field. And you need forwards that can win one-on-one situations.

You need forwards that if they're in a one-on-one situation they don't need to beat their man, but they need to generate space then get a shot away. And forwards should be all able to do that. They need to take their man on, beat him and get in behind him.

I don't know what exactly the Mayo players have been told to do. They must be coached not to kick the ball in, because if you were a coach and you'd be asking your team to play direct and they weren't doing it, you'd be losing your mind watching it.

Maybe the coaching decision is down to the fact that we just don't have players throughout the field that are good enough kickers of the ball to put it in that area.

BIGGER PICTURE

IT looks like all is lost for the season. These next two games will be really hard for the Mayo supporters to watch and incredibly hard for the management team.

It's clear Mayo are not going to be a factor in the Championship this year. Something has to change or Mayo will become irrelevant. 

We've had periods in our history, where we have been irrelevant before, where we haven't been a contender. As a county we have to look at ourselves.

And I can understand that that frustration will probably turn on the management team. It'll turn on certain players. And that's the nature of the beast. 

But I look beyond, at the bigger picture. This is the moment where we all realise that something has to change. When you look at the way football's been played now, we don't have the tools to do that.

MISSING TOOLS

THE future for Mayo football doesn't look good. It will need a tremendous amount of work to turn it around. In the past we've played a game that's been a running game and we've had these players who were great athletes, aggressive tacklers, really good coming off the shoulder, really huge stamina levels: That was great in the old football. 

But the new rules demand certain types of players: We need big ball winners, we need fellas that can kick the ball all over the field, we need players that can kick two-pointers and we need forwards with killer instincts that know they can go one-on-one.

Of all the Division One teams, Mayo are the most deficient in those sort of attributes. We have to look at this as a county and not just as a senior inter-county team.

We need to start embracing and developing those other attributes if we want to get back to being at contender level again and we need to have coaches that are willing to put in the extra work to develop these types of players. 

PLAYER RATINGS: How the Mayo players fared against Cavan