Roscommon next up for Mayo footballers

Mayo substitute Ruaidhrí O’Connor holds off GMIT’s Martin Coady during the FBD Connacht League game at McHale Park, Castlebar last Saturday night.

Now for the Rossies


Preview
Mike Finnerty

ONE match into his three-year term as Mayo manager, James Horan won’t be getting carried away after last weekend’s run-out against the students of GMIT.
Especially not with Fergal O’Donnell’s rugged Roscommon charges arriving in Ballyhaunis next Sunday, fresh from a win over Leitrim and still basking in the glow of last summer’s Connacht championship success.
Speaking after watching an experimental selection get off to a winning start at McHale Park, Horan reflected on ‘a couple of positives’ that he would take from his first night’s work and ‘a lot of things we need to work on’.
He singled out ‘improving the scoring return’ (converting ten scores from 40 chances created), ‘work-rate’ and ‘movement’ as three of the more pressing issues while he admitted he was pleased with the contribution of the likes of Cathal Hallinan, Cillian O’Connor and Ronan McGarrity in the second half.
The Mayo management are planning to take a closer look at another raft of fresh faces against Roscommon with the likes of Kenneth O’Malley, Jason Gibbons, James McAndrew and Ian Rowland (unused substitutes last weekend), as well as James Kilcullen and Brian Benson all likely to feature.
One player who will not get a chance to impress is Kevin Dolan. The Tourmakeady forward broke his jaw in two places after a freak collision with a GMIT defender and is due to undergo surgery today (Tuesday) to repair the damage.
“The more games we play the more we can find out where the gaps are and what we need to work on,” explained James Horan.
“We were just keen to get up and running. We were slow starting off and we were quite lethargic, particularly in the first half.
“But we played for about 15 minutes in the second half and Ronan McGarrity came into the game and dictated matters.
“We dominated the game, but we didn’t do much with the ball. We had 40 scoring chances and we took 10 — we had 17 wides, eight into the goalie’s hands and five off the post, so we created the chances but we didn’t take them.
“That is obviously something we have to work on. There was a lot of rustiness; we had a heavy training session the night before the match and that coupled with everything else made the legs a little bit heavy and it took us a while to get going.”
Reflecting on the contribution of Ballintubber teenager, Cillian O’Connor, his former club manager admitted that he was pleased with his first senior audition.
“He’s just finding his feet at this level but there’s no doubt that he’s got potential. He’s got the right attitude to do quite well at this grade so we’re just looking forward to easing him into the set-up. But for his first day out he’d have to be happy with it.”

MEANWHILE, John Maughan’s NUI, Galway qualified for the FBD League Final by virtue of a 2-8 to 1-8 victory over Galway at Tuam Stadium.
Mayo’s Peadar Gardiner, Kieran Conroy, Neil Douglas (1-1) and Jason Doherty (0-3) all started for the students while Shane Nally and Donal Newcombe both came off the bench.