WRITING a column like this the morning after the afternoon before is always a tricky one.

There is a temptation to hit keyboard in the aftermath when emotions are high, but to try my editor’s patience, I like to leave it as late as possible in an effort to bring some sort of measure. Whether or not that has been successful this year is a matter of reader opinion.

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The way most of us feel this week has been documented all too many times over the past 10, twenty, thirty years. For a county that desperately wants to win just once, the day we are knocked out every year stings, even in a season with low expectation.

The manner of defeat can exacerbate it; the final sequence of play on Sunday brought us from jubilation to horror in the space about 15 seconds.

For those of us in Roscommon, emotions were so high, noise levels were through the roof, we were bouncing, adrenaline coursing through our veins. We had it! Then suddenly … we didn’t. Two years in a row.

Same time, same place. The sight of the Mayo team collapsing to the ground in complete unison, heads in hands, as Moore’s winner sailed over the bar was a scene like a vignette from a bad movie, and the pale, devastated faces of the extended panel sitting all the way down at the graveyard end of the stand told their own story.

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SIEGE MENTALITY

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Despite some speculative chatter before the game, Donegal were never going to settle for a draw when they had the chance to put us out.

Even if they had nothing to gain by it. And why would they? Ruthless revenge for 2013, 2015, 2018 and 2019, right there.

Admirable. Less admirable was Michael Murphy’s behaviour at the final whistle, but would you have him on your team?

Hell, we’d bite both hands off you for a player like him. Jim McGuinness’ complaints about the venue after the game were ungracious, but Jim is doing what Jim does best and building a siege mentality.

More power to him - we’d have liked a bit of that ourselves back in 2014. Donegal will need to do more and do better to meet the challenges ahead too, and Jim knows that, but venue talk is a good distraction from those concerns.

We’d love to have those worries ourselves, facing into the weekend ahead. Good luck to them.

DIMINISHING SUPPORT

This column is all about the fan’s view, which feels fairly grey. Much has been said this season about the diminishing Mayo support, but looking at our current situation with calm detachment, the picture is clear.

Since 2021 (sorry for bringing it up again), year on year, support has fallen off, in tandem with our prospects. The energy remains low.

As resilient a bunch as we are, 2021 took the wind out of sails that had racked up a fair few miles over three decades and nothing we have seen since has excited the support.

Even the journey to Roscommon on Sunday was subdued. Taking the Ballyhaunis route paid off handsomely with no delays.

We stopped off in Hester’s Golden Eagle in Castlerea, an establishment new to us all, but recommended by the parents on the basis that you get chips AND mash with the dinner. (A fine lunch it was, too, thanks Mam and Dad.)

But as we got back on the road, one of the crew remarked: “God, there’s no spark in us at all, is there?”. And that struck me.

You see, the majority of fans don’t care much about the background stuff, the management decisions, the stats, the logistics, the county board stuff.

They care about how following Mayo makes them feel. Jim McGuinness knows this, and he knows how to use it to his advantage so that Donegal supporters feel they are in it together with players.

Mayo used to be like that too, but whatever connection existed between team and fans has been severed. 

Fans are staying away because following Mayo does not make them feel good. This is rational and acceptable – every county goes through ebbs and flows in performance and support, and every county needs sunshine supporters as much as it needs die-hards.

There is no thanks for being a martyr, and we do not get to police how people choose to spend their spare time and their money in the current climate.

When Mayo improve, down the line, as they are bound to, the crowd will return.

MANAGEMENT

Our style of football has not helped, as has our downward trajectory.

The season will be rightly defined by our loss to Cavan, but it was no outlier – the Leitrim game was one of the worst games featuring a Mayo team I have ever attended in my lifetime (and I was in Longford in 2010), the Sligo game wasn’t much better, nor the league performance against Galway.

There is a trend. Players have to look at themselves, but so too, do management. There have been flashes of promise: the second half against Armagh, the second half against Galway, the Tyrone game, the second half on Sunday.

But fans can only go on what we are seeing in front of our eyes, and unfortunately, there is very little about which to feel optimistic at the moment. 

The style of football we play for the most part fails to excite, and neither is it delivering results. It is so disappointing that we turned our backs this year on some of the opportunities offered by the new rules. Some statistics jump out.

Mayo, in this year’s championship, scored three two- pointers. Armagh goalkeeper Ethan Rafferty alone managed the same tally during one game of football on Saturday.

In yesterday's Irish Examiner, one of the best analysts of the game, Maurice Brosnan, pointed out that only once in this championship have Mayo hit over 30 shots in a game. Tyrone, meanwhile, scored 0-31 against Cavan on Sunday, while Monaghan scored 2-27 against Down.

These are not equivalences, but they are sobering. There are several instances of team selection into which we have no insight, but have been met with universal bafflement, including from people who know a lot more about the game than I.

Similarly, not too many Mayo people have the appetite for the winter of discontent, particularly with a tiresome two-month wait for club championship action (why this cannot be brought forward is beyond me, but that’s for another day).

There will be a discussion about management, but that too is for another day, when the dust settles.

As we sat in interminable gridlock trying to leave Roscommon, Google Maps assured us to much mirth, that “You are on the fastest route”.

There is no fast route to success ahead for Mayo. All we can hope is that the road we choose brings us to where we want to go.

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