3 players who caught our eye in Tralee

TRACKING BACK Mayo’s Fergal Boland puts pressure on Kerry’s Gavin Crowley during Saturday’s National League clash at Austin Stack Park in Tralee. Pic: Sportsfile


Feature
Mike Finnerty

1 Mattie Ruane
Breaffy

SOMETIMES it’s hard to believe that Ruane only made his championship debut three years ago in New York. He’s become such an influential figure in this current Mayo team that you’d be forgiven for thinking he’s been playing in midfield for much longer.
Last Saturday evening the Breaffy man put in another big shift and showed that his rate of improvement continues to move in the right direction.
He set the tone from the opening stages, lofting over a magnificent point off his left foot to open the scoring after only three minutes.
And an hour later he was the man who popped up on the left wing, setting himself in trademark fashion, before clipping over an equaliser with ice-cool precision.
In between, he fetched and gathered and carried and ran relentlessly.
Ruane is now Mayo’s lead midfielder and is playing with the sort of confidence and consistency that shows he is more than capable of filling that role.
He’s now also scored five points from play in three games.  

2 Fergal Boland
Aghamore

HE started the National League Final in 2019 and was also a regular in the Mayo XV during the 2020 National League before Covid struck.
But since then the fleet-footed forward from Aghamore has found it hard to get back in the Mayo team. One start (against Meath last spring) and one appearance off the bench in 2021 tells its own story.
That’s why it was so important that Boland made the most of his opportunity against Kerry.
Three points from play were no more than he deserved after a typically purposeful and industrious display at wing-forward as he got around the field, linked play, and found pockets of space from where he could hit the target.
It seems that there is at least one spot up for grabs in the half-forward line for the Galway game at the moment, and Boland has now surely put himself in the frame.
Although as Colm Boyle noted on RTÉ last Saturday night, Boland was ‘very unlucky to be taken off in the second half after kicking three points from play’.

3 Ryan O’Donoghue
Belmullet

AFTER Cillian O’Connor got injured last year we really saw what O’Donoghue was made of.
Although he was only in his second championship season at senior level, the Belmullet man stepped into the breach and led the line superbly.
With Cillian still sidelined, and Tommy Conroy now out of action as well, there is even more pressure on the 23 year-old to deliver the goods in Mayo’s inside line.
Every day he goes out he’s expected to win possession, create openings for team-mates and score himself.
As well as kick the frees.
Last Saturday night, yet again, he did all of this and much more besides.
Like Mattie Ruane, he continues to improve and the consistently high level of performance he has delivered in Mayo’s first five games of the season augurs well for the summer.
His ability to win his own ball is one of his best assets, but so is the way he can guard it, use it, engineer space, and kick points.
He was a popular choice for man of the match.
He’s now scored 1-24 (including 19 frees and two marks) in Mayo’s last five league matches.