Mayo disappointing and disjointed

NOWHERE TO RUN Mayo’s Mattie Ruane surrounded by Roscommon’s Conor Daly, Donie Smith and Conor Hussey during the Connacht SFC quarter-final on Sunday. Pic: Sportsfile


Talking Tactics
Billy Joe Padden

MAYO’S performance on Sunday was really poor.
I was very disappointed with the way they started the game. Rather like the last 50 minutes against Galway, things looked totally disjointed. There was no real pattern of play; their middle third wasn’t really working effectively. And that’s a killer in a championship game.
In the opening stages, when playing with the wind, Mayo did create opportunities. But they butchered a few moves that could have turned into goal chances and got nothing out of them. They were forcing shots from outside angles, trying to use the wind, and were racking up wides and bad shots.
Any management team is always tested more by defeat than victory.
Up until last Sunday, it had been plain sailing for Kevin McStay and company, and everything had been really positive. I think they’ll be really disappointed with what happened on Sunday.
Mistakes were made.
I can understand why Mayo left Aidan O’Shea in the full-forward line when we had the wind. But I can only recall two balls being played in there. O’Shea did really well with one delivery, knocking it down to Stephen Coen for his goal chance.
On another occasion, O’Shea didn’t collect the ball and had a free awarded against him. But Mayo were being bullied around the middle of the field. In that situation, Mayo’s biggest, strongest man should have been out there sooner than he was. That’s something that Mayo will have to look at should they find themselves in that situation again in the future.
I don’t think the referee had a great game. But that’s not the reason Mayo lost.
In the second half when they had a lot of possession, I think we saw the limitations of the forward line. If the man in possession was someone other than Ryan O’Donoghue or Cillian O’Connor (the only player to make an impact off the bench), it didn’t really feel like anyone else was willing to back themselves.
Tommy Conroy did back himself once in the second half, did really well, and scored a lovely point. Cillian also backed himself on another occasion and got a fine score. Ryan O’Donoghue was well marshalled and wasn’t really in the game.
You’ve got to have players that are willing to have a go.
There was a real lack of composure on Sunday. We had six minutes of second-half injury time, and at four points down, we needed to score twice.
So Mayo should have been trying to turn the screw, get a point, and then put pressure on the next Roscommon kick-out. But no one had the courage to do that. Diarmuid O’Connor ran through and tried to create a goal out of nothing – real desperation stuff. It was similar to the lack of composure that Mayo showed in the last ten minutes against Armagh.
Roscommon were really physical, and they had the better of things in the middle of the field. They took their opportunities much better – the goal chances in the first half (Conor Loftus should never have made the tackle for the penalty), breakaway attacks in the second.
They had a plan to frustrate Mayo, and they did a really good job in doing so. They sat back, and they showed great nerve in the first half, when playing against the wind. And you have to give them credit for that. They definitely deserved their win.

League victory now leaves a sour taste
TO me, Mayo had the look of a team that probably had played too much football recently.
Mental fatigue looked to be a factor too, because they had a lack of precision in their play all over the field.
I was reflecting at half-time that Mayo hadn’t been able to get ‘up’ for it, and that can be very hard to change in the middle of a game. Because in that kind of situation, teams often come out for the second half, try even harder, and make even more mistakes.
The Mayo management will not use the fixture list as an excuse. But there’s no doubt in my mind that it had an impact on the performance level last Sunday.
 You cannot play games of that intensity week on week, in the middle of a period where you’re just coming out of having your heaviest training load, and expect to be fresh.
It was definitely a factor.
The injuries to James Carr, Enda Hession and David McBrien were all significant. But of those three, I think Carr’s loss was probably the most important. When Mayo have played well in an attacking sense this year, Carr has played well, and has knitted things together well. He was badly missed on Sunday.
So the injuries and the fixture list were both factors, but there’s nothing Mayo can do about either of those. Should Mayo have managed the league a bit better? Maybe.
Could you have rested Mattie Ruane, Jordan Flynn and Aidan O’Shea for the Monaghan game and left them fresher for last Sunday? Perhaps.
But we find ourselves in a situation now where I’ve a bit of a sour taste in my mouth over the league victory. Because we’ve now lost a championship game, and to me, championship is always first and foremost. The players will feel that way too.
But the positive thing is that they have time now to regroup. And it’s not a case of a major reset, but there will be some tweaking needed. They’ll self-scout what they’ve done poorly, particularly in the last three weeks. They haven’t really played well in any of their last three games, apart from the opening 20 minutes against Galway.
And they’ll be able to look at that and reset and tweak.
Hopefully we can get injured players fit, and recently recovered players back to match speed. And they’ll be able to look at midfield and how that situation is working. When Mayo were at their best in the league, they showed patience in possession. That was totally absent in the first half last Sunday. I’m sure that’s something they’ll re-focus on too.
If Mayo use these six weeks wisely, and learn from the mistakes they’ve made over the last few weeks and are able to make changes, losing last Sunday may not be the worst thing in the world. But that doesn’t mean that this is what Mayo had planned for.
Of course not; they were looking to win this game. That doesn’t mean we feel any better about losing to Roscommon; of course not. But fast forward a few months, and perhaps the Mayo management will be able to say, later in the season: ‘What we did in those six weeks was absolutely critical’. So in the long run, this loss may not be that impactful.
But I can’t tell you that now. Right now, we’re feeling the pain of this defeat.