Down to NFL business for Mayo

ALLIANZ NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE DIVISION 1

PREVIEW
Mike Finnerty

THE Allianz National League campaign will not be about winning or losing games for Mayo but about ‘developing as a team’ and ‘improving’, according to James Horan.
A challenge match against the county U-21 squad tonight (Tuesday) will be used by the new Mayo boss as the final trial before he selects his first team to go into National League battle against Down in Castlebar next Saturday night.
The All-Ireland finalists are expected to ‘tog strong’ for their first game in Division 1 for sixteen years after winning promotion last season as runners-up in the second tier behind Armagh.
However, James Horan said his plan-of-action for the NFL campaign (which sees Mayo play four of their seven matches at McHale Park) revolves around the tried-and-trusted ‘one game at a time’ philosophy.
“We haven’t had all our team together yet and we have to develop as a team,” he told The Mayo News. “That’s the target for the league. It’s not, for us at the moment, about winning or losing games. It’s about where we are in terms of developing.
“We have to see where we can improve, see where the gaps are in the dressing-room, and try and build on every single game. We’ll review that after a couple of games and see where we are, and see what we need to do.”
Mayo will be without Conor Mortimer, Donal Vaughan, Seamus O’Shea, Peadar Gardiner and Tom Parsons due to injury next weekend, while David Clarke and Barry Moran are both hoping to have recovered from knocks.
Speaking after last Sunday’s comprehensive win over Leitrim which propelled Mayo into the Connacht League final on Friday week next, James Horan said that his team’s first-half performance was an indication of what he is hoping to achieve.
“The way we played in the first half, we would have been very, very competitive no matter who we came up against,” he explained.
“There’s definitely a pattern taking shape. You can see from that first half that we have very good movement, very good mobility right throughout the field, and a good skills-set.
“So we’re trying to get the ball into the danger-area as quickly as possible and retain it until the right shot is on. It’s a pretty simple game-plan but you saw in the first half there that it’s pretty effective. If the movement is good inside it gives options to the kickers so that’s really what we’re looking for, that’s where we are at the moment.”
He also revealed that Mayo’s second half performance, where they added just 1-3 to their final tally, underlined that there is still plenty of room for improvement.
“We dropped the work-rate a bit. Our decision-making slipped in the second half,” he said.
“We started to kick from a little far out, the pass inside took a little bit longer [than it should], and our movement inside dropped. When you combine those three things together you end up with a messy game so they’re three areas we need to take a look at.”
James McCartan’s Down outfit — which is likely to include current All Stars like Brendan McVeigh, Dan Hughes, Marty Clarke and Benny Coulter — will be a big step up in class though, and Mayo’s manager is under no illusions about the task at hand.
“Down have huge pace all over the field. They retain the ball very well and wait until the right shot, the right option, is on. They’re very comfortable on the ball. . with some of the guys they have breaking through from midfield. . you have to be ready to meet that. But we’re happy with how we’re progressing.”