OPINION: A dismal day for Mayo in Letterkenny League tussle

THERE are days when writing this column feels like a treat.

Like a cold drink after a long run on a hot day, the icing on a very delicious cake, fresh sheets on the bed, you can’t wait to tuck in.

And then, there are days like Sunday. 

It stands to reason that when you commit to nearly every league and championship game in a year that not all of those days will be particularly enjoyable or memorable.

Nor will there always be particularly interesting stories to tell. But my job here is to entertain you, so in spite of myself, I’d better make some kind of effort.  

A theme I have noticed in these columns down the years is that in the absence of a good day on the pitch, the highlights of away days tend to revolve around food.

Call it a premonition, call it a sense of foreboding, but as we were driving down the Sligo Road out of Ballina, with coffees and Pastel de Nata in hand from Jimmy’s drive-through, I was concerned that we might have peaked too early.

The delectable little custard-filled Portugese pastries were a taster for the driver, who is away to Lisbon during the week. 

The driver is not long in possession of his new car, which has heated seats; a luxury currently unimaginable to this motorist.

It had really been my turn to drive, but when the phone rang after a bitterly cold walk in the woods and he politely offered to do the honours, “given the weather,” neither the ageing Ford Focus outside the door nor I took any great offence at the proposition.

We were meeting the remainder of the gang in Ballisodare where we transferred over, and my sense of foreboding only grew when, having just left Sligo around 11.30, I got a text from my cousin with a picture of the queue outside the gate of O’Donnell Park. 

LESS THAN HELPFUL

Jim McGuinness surely put in a special request for Mayo to play in Letterkenny, given his outrage over the Dr Hyde Park fixture last year.

I think after Sunday, most of us who made the trip won’t be in a mad hurry back.

Don’t get me wrong, the ground itself is a beauty, nestled among the hills, and St Eunan’s must surely have the most ideally located clubhouse in the country with the most perfect view of the pitch.

We resisted the temptation, but I feel a few of the visiting fans might have succumbed.

The stewards at the gate were less than helpful when it came to parking our wheelchair vehicle despite ample available space inside, but the gardai were much more accommodating, and got us sorted in no time.

At the entrance, Donegal people were gathering signatures for a petition to save the “cancer flights,” a reminder of just how little regard the government holds for peripheral, rural communities. 

By all accounts, the stand was a tight squeeze for supporters and visiting media alike. Over on the un-terraced terrace, it was a day of rainbows and rain showers. 

TORTUROUS ERRORS

In my last column, I predicted this would be Andy’s biggest test yet, and so it proved. Ten minutes into the game, I stopped worrying about the scoreboard and started worrying about the body language.

The first half in particular was grim, with Mayo being leggy, slow to react and oddly hesitant. We managed to win most of our own kickouts, before repeatedly handing possession back to the opposition.

The unforced errors were torturous, and in an unprecedented turn of events, by 15 minutes in, we were imploring them to stop kicking the ball in, and to stop taking on shots.

Donegal cut through at times with a sharpness that was uncomfortable to watch and picked off several inevitable scores around the arc with disarming ease, much to the joy of their supporters, who have never really forgiven us for relegating them in 2018, nor for beating them in the Super 8s in 2019.

Teenager Conor McCahill was sensational, Oisin Gallen and Shane O’Donnell excellent throughout.

For us, Jordan Flynn, Sam Callinan and Darragh Beirne never stopped trying, It was down to the mammy of the crew to distract us from our sodden misery at half-time with chicken and coleslaw rolls, produced from a Mary Poppins-esque shopping bag. 

DAYS LIKE THESE

MAYO didn’t arrive at the game until the second half, with the introduction of Conor Loftus, who announced his return with magnificence.

The roar that greeted his arrival onto the pitch was a reminder that in the grand scheme of things, winning a game of football isn’t everything. 

Sometimes a match tells you what it is, very early on. This game told us unapologetically that Mayo were second-best, mentally and physically. The lack of physicality in our tackle was the greatest cause for concern.

Yes, we were missing some of our key players – David McBrien in particular felt like a massive loss – and yes, it is only February. Nevertheless, it will bring anyone who might have been getting carried away right back down to earth.

The gap never really closed, and Donegal always seemed to have another gear when needed. Shane O’Donnell’s goal felt inevitable when it came, less a sucker punch than the logical conclusion of a game with which Mayo never got to grips.

There will be days like these. Especially on heavy pitches in February with missing players and when you are just discovering who you are and what you’re about under a new manager.

A new manager with bottomless reserves of optimism. “It won't be roses every day,” he said afterwards, expressing his disappointment at the first half performance, while praising the second half effort.

Progress is not linear and days like these can only build character, resolve and smarts that will stand to us on drier ground and warmer days. 

Trying to extract ourselves from Letterkenny was painfully slow. The chip van outside the ground was doing a steady trade long after the final whistle, with people shouting their orders from cars stalled for the guts of half an hour on the roundabout.

Of course we succumbed. On a day like Sunday, you take your comforts wherever you can find them.