Spoils shared on the final day
Mayo 1-11
Tyrone 0-14
It was tough, it was hard and in the end the wides and the result didn't matter as Derry's defeat of Donegal secured both sides status in division one of the national football league for another year. The All Ireland champions were the first visitors to the newish McHale Park, and while the stand side of the field still resembles a building site, both sides put in a seventy minutes worth of effort that would have been fitting for what the old ground aims to become when the the development is complete. A home for good football and great football teams. Tyrone with their three All Irelands this decade are the top of the tree at the minute, which branch Mayo are on is still to be decided, but John O'Mahony's work looks to be coming together this season as fresh faces along with some older ones look to have Mayo moving in the right direction up the branches.
There was good and there was bad on display for both sides, both teams put the ball the wrong side of the posts as often if not more than they put it between them, and while the football was frantic at times, there was no quarter given by either side out on the sod as neither team wanted to leave their destiny in the hands of someone else.
Trailing by five points at the turn around and with Derry and Donegal still up in the air and word coming through of Dublin's demolition of Westmeath, there were a few nervous faces in the healthy attendance, but come the hour come the man. This time the man was in the shape of leaving cert student Aidan O'Shea. Ten minutes into the first half, O'Shea held off Conor Gormley, claimed a dropping ball from Andy Moran turned his man and crashed a shot off the bar, the ball rebounded to Austin O'Malley his shot was half blocked down by Dermot Carlin and spun into the air where O'Shea grasped a paw at the ball only to see it come back off the post. Six minutes into the second half he wasn't to be denied a second time, Ronan McGarrity dropped in the kind of ball O'Shea thrives on, he beat Gormley to the size five, threw off his desperate challenge and drove the ball past Jonathan Curran in the Tyrone goal to ignite the flame of Mayo's fight back.
O'Shea's rise to prominence from last years minors, has been one of a number of bright spots in Mayo's league campaign, the only sides who managed to take all the points from John O'Mahony's side were Derry and Kerry who are contesting the league final. With less than a month to go to the championship opener in New York, Mayo are in rude health (despite the injury picked up by Conor Mortimer, which may rule him out of the game ) as a season of Sunday's passes the half way marker.
That being said, there are some points that will have to be addressed, such as the 25 minutes from the 12th minute of the first half when O'Shea scored a point, until the second minute of the second half when Trevor Mortimer landed Mayo's third score of the day. In that period, the All Ireland champions managed to score six points and hit half a dozen wides as Mayo struggled to get their game plan working correctly. While O'Shea will take the headlines, Martin Penrose was the tormentor in chief for Tyrone, the corner forward gave Liam O'Malley a torrid afternoon scoring six points and running him ragged for most of the afternoon.
Mayo did have a number of scoring chances in the first half, with O'Shea's near miss combined with Andy Moran hitting the post, and Billy Joe Padden and Conor Mortimer both dropping the ball into the goalkeepers hands when they really should have scored inside the first 15 minutes. Penrose showed them the way in the opening 35 minutes, he kicked three points which was added to by a brace of scores from Sean Cavanagh (on whom Ger Cafferkey had a good afternoon ) and points from Ryan Mellon and Enda McGinley. Mayo's other score of the first half came from a 45 converted by Andy Moran, before he was shown the line after picking up a yellow card for a lazy foul on Penrose.
Trevor Mortimer land a huge rallying score of Mayo two minutes after the restart, before O'Shea's goal. But Tyrone weren't going to be shaken off that easily with Penrose pushing the gap back out to two points 42 minutes in. He kicked another point sandwiched between to Austin O'Malley points as the game hung delicately in the balance as the three quarter mark approached. O'Malley and Conor Gormley who broke up field then traded points, before Mayo came close to grabbing their second goal of the day. Tom Parsons had been introduced for Mark Ronaldson at this stage, Pat Harte fed the ball to Trevor Mortimer who saw Parsons breaking on his outside, when the ball made it to the Charlestown man he took a few steps to steady himself before letting fly. Curran in the Tyrone goal did well to save it and then to react smartly to get an block on Conor Mortimer's follow up to put it behind for a 45'. From then on for the next ten minutes, Mayo piled on the pressure Ronan McGarrity played the captains part landing three fine points along with scores from Harte and Conor Mortimer to put Mayo 1-11 to 0-12 in the lead. But Tyrone fought back with Davy Harte and Niall Gormley landing points to see the game run out as a draw, a result that kept everybody satisfied.
Scorers:
Mayo: Aidan O'Shea (1-1 ), Ronan McGarrity (0-3 ), Austin O'Malley (0-3,1f ), Trevor Mortimer (0-1 ). Conor Mortimer (0-1, 1f ), Pat Harte (0-1 ), Andy Moran (0-1, 1 45' ).
Tyrone: Martin Penrose (0-6, 1f ), Sean Cavanagh (0-2 ) Ryan Mellon (0-1 ), Enda McGinley (0-1 ), Conor Gormley (0-1 ), Sean O'Neill (0-1 ), Davy Harte (0-1 ), Niall Gormley (0-1 )
Mayo: David Clarke; Liam O'Malley, Ger Cafferkey, Kevin McLoughlin; Peadar Gardiner, Tom Cunniffe, Andy Moran; Pat Harte, Ronan McGarrity; Mark Ronaldson, Trevor Mortimer, Billy Joe Padden; Austin O'Malley, Aidan O'Shea, Conor Mortimer. Subs: Chris Barrett for Andy Moran (27 mins, yellow card ), Tom Parsons for Mark Ronaldson (52 mins ), Barry Moran for Billy Joe Padden (66 mins ), Alan Dillon for Austin O'Malley (70 mins )
Tyrone: Jonathan Curran; PJ Quinn, Conor Gormley, Dermot Carlin; Davy Harte, Ryan McMenamin, Philip Jordan; Kevin Hughes, Ryan Mellon; Joe McMahon, Brian McGuigan, Enda McGinley; Niall Gormley, Sean Cavanagh, Martin Penrose. Subs: Colm McCullagh for Brian McGuigan (52 mins ) Sean O'Neill for PJ Quinn (54 mins ) ,Colm Cavanagh for Enda McGinley (60 mins )
Ref: Pat McEnany (Monaghan )
