All is far from lost by Mayo

NOTWITHSTANDING their notable league achievement, slings and arrows have been directed at Mayo for losing to Roscommon.
To be sure it was disappointing. But only those too eager to define a few early wins as an omen of All-Ireland success are hostile about the loss.
Mayo were not ambushed by the Rossies. They were well aware of the challenge they faced. They were convenient targets having won the national league the week before and all of the focus and emotion that entailed.
Roscommon had all the time in the world to plan Mayo’s downfall. They were weeks without a game. They had come back from a training camp in Donegal, and like young lambs pranced around a comparatively sterile and sluggish Mayo squad.
On the day Mayo were not good enough. They played like they were in serious need of a break. Too many cracks. In the words of the song: “That’s how the light gets in.”
We see the loss as a release from a semi-final meeting with Galway. It is no secret that the Tribesmen were rubbing their hands at the prospect of a rematch in Pearse Stadium.
They had been ruing the chances they missed in the league final, and were mustering all of their forces to demonstrate to their followers in Pearse Stadium next Sunday that their defeat was nothing more than a rare lapse.
They’ll be disappointed to miss out on that home challenge which they fully expected to win. No doubt, like many others they thought that Roscommon, although finishing third in the division, were a pushover.
The Connacht champs have now to rethink their game plan. They have to travel to Hyde Park. And they are not immune from the impact of Roscommon’s counter punching.
They have, however, sufficient talent to reach the final again. And they have gone to Portugal to prepare. But the Rossies are the Rossies. They have denied Galway at crucial moments in the past.
They’ll fancy their chances.
Meanwhile, Mayo have to wait five weeks for another game.
In his book on ‘Faith: In Search of Greater Glory’, Gerard Gallagher wrote that while many people were fulfilling their dream in sport there were many others who had an honest go at trying to be the best they could be.
And he posed the question: “Isn’t that the greater glory?”
Mayo’s unceasing losses might challenge that theory. In any case, when the new Mayo set out last January to contest the league few wondered if they could retain Division One status.
No one was talking of All-Irelands. No one was talking about winning the league.
Certainly not Kevin McStay in his first year as manager. “One game at a time,” he reiterated.
When Ryan O’Donoghue stole the draw with his brilliant point against Galway in the opening round in MacHale Park it was more than the vast majority of Mayo followers expected.
The team selected seemed anaemic, a pale shadow of those that had come so close to winning in years gone by. It was not a Mayo you could have faith in . . . even allowing for the fire that Galway normally kindles in them.
Having lost Lee Keegan (retired) and Oisin Mullin (Australia), two iconic defenders, McStay and his selectors had chosen a defence patently lacking the muscle needed to combat the talent of Galway’s Damien Comer, Matthew Tierney and Johnny Heaney.
Who would have thought of placing Conor Loftus at centre back? Or Jack Coyne at right corner, or Enda Hession in the other corner?
As a forward, Conor Loftus had been in and out of Mayo selections, never lacking in effort, but never quite reaching his potential. He was being brushed out of consideration until McStay rescued him as an unlikely back.
He held no defensive credentials. He was a forward who loved to solo around the fringes of the opposing defence, not sufficiently physical to take on the defence, but searching for someone who might heave him through and make the space for him to score.
No one thought of him as a centre-back. Certainly not in the conventional sense. Not in the Henry Dixon sense, the Claremorris man who robustly managed the berth in times gone by.
Nor a John Morley, the staunch and resolute detective garda of the sixties. Or a Johnny Farragher, the graceful Claremorris footballer of similar vintage, who held that position on several occasions.
You couldn’t compare him to the iron-souled Colm Boyle of recent years.
And yet Loftus confounded the critics. In that first league match against Galway he fitted the role of centre-back like a glove.
Not in any spectacular way. Rather in his ability to read the game, to scoop up breaking ball, to cover diligently, to sweep forward, to link and press and break.
In other words, well suited to a game in which forwards and backs are nowadays indistinguishable.
His was an amazing transformation, and a compliment to the adventurous spirit of the new management.

Under-20s fall flat
LESS than a week after Mayo’s loss to Roscommon the county’s interest in the Under-20 championship was brought to an early end by magnificent Sligo at the Centre of Excellence.
Five years have passed since the u20s won the Connacht championship, and questions arise about the state of this grade, the health of which is essential to a thriving senior side.
After a win thieved by Sligo in the dying minutes of last year’s fixture, hopes were high last Wednesday for redress when the two met in wet and windy conditions at the Centre of Excellence.
And for a while in the first half Mayo, with two county senior players aboard, looked on track to reverse last year’s outcome.
A goal in the 13th minute by Fenton Kelly seemed to have paved the way. It was engineered by Bob Tuohy and Tom O’Flaherty.
And when Tuohy followed up with a fine point, Mayo entered the second quarter three points ahead and looking  set to avenge the game stolen in the last seconds last season by the Yeats County men.
That, however, was as good as it got for the challengers. Tom O’Flaherty had their fourth point in the 20th minute but Sligo, the reigning Connacht champions, took command and by half-time led by 0-9 to 1-4.
Mayo did have Seán Morahan sent to the line for a black card offence. But his return some minutes into the second half could not check the brilliance of Sligo.
Winning in every way they could, the visitors created panic in the Mayo defence with the speed of their counter attacks. At one stage they led by nine points.
Mayo rallied somewhat in the closing stages, but victory was well beyond their reach, and in the end they lost by five points.
The failure of Mayo to field a team sufficiently tenacious to reach a Connacht final, let alone an All-Ireland, is a concern.
It is the feeder for senior football. Without that resource there will be no credible senior team.