Seven games, two wins, three draws and two defeats and after seeing his side wrap up fourth place in the table and ensure their division one status for another year, John O’Mahony was in positive form after last Sunday’s draw with Tyrone. The Ballaghaderreen club man admitted that his side could have killed off the All Ireland champions when they went two points clear, but was happy with the way his side performed over the 70minutes. “It was a tough game, for the first twenty minutes we took the game to them. We were playing against a stiff breeze, but probably should have got a few more scores. We lost that high intensity and that's where the scores came from. The second half, we eventually started playing more direct and it started to pay off. But I have to give credit to Tyrone for the way they came back after we went two points ahead. We would have loved to have killed them off and probably should have killed them off. Like true champions they came back at us, we have a lot to learn, but thankfully at any stage we didn't drop the head and the lads were ready to battle.”
Putting in a good showing and maintaining division one status was a must for Mayo in the league this year after a disappointing 2008 and on the whole O’Mahony was pleased the way the league panned out for his side. “From my point of view, the last four games I'd like to look at it as a package, there were lots of good points and some mistakes. But what was there was a huge effort in training and in the games. That was pleasing. We have a developed more of a target like approach, but in the first half we had to adjust our game a bit because of the conditions and carry the ball a bit more. It doesn't really suit that game playing it against Tyrone to do that, that happened a few times, the players had shots blocked down or turn over of the ball because of it. We adjusted that in the second half. It was a great league in many respects for blooding a lot of players and a good preparation for championship. We had only seven of the players that started against Tyrone in the championship in the last qualifier round. That is an indication that we have blooded a few new people and maybe filled some of the central positions.”
One man who was blooded in the league and will take a lot of the plaudits is Aidan O’Shea, the Breaffy teenager had taken to senior inter-county football,like a man many years his senior despite his tender years. “Aidan has done very well. In Aidan's case he was playing secondary schools football so he didn't actually train with us, he came on against Derry the first day, but he only trained with us on the Thursday night before. He was training with the school rather than us, we had to use him minimally and the U21s as well. He has shown great maturity beyond his years and he's a good lad and I'm glad he has a red and green jersey on his back.”
With championship looming next month the whittling down of players to the 30 for the panel will be happening very soon and tough decisions will have to be made by John and his back-room team. “ I know that in hostelries around the county and in certain media outlets the panel has been picked. I told the guys in there the panel will be picked by the management during the week. And we’re meeting next weekend, the U21s will be out of the picture until the All Ireland final hopefully. People saw we played Offaly here last week and we had a couple of lads back. We'll have to see the situation, we’re not going picking any more than 30 that’s the rules and I don't believe in having a bigger squad anyway. So there will be hard calls and hard decisions to make. Tommy and Kieran and myself will meet in the next day or two, we'll clear the page and start filling it in.”
One bone of contention from last year carried over into 2009, and a newspaper report on Sunday morning, stoked the embers of that fire. When the issue of Ciaran McDonald was raised O’Mahony said: “Look it, I don't want to talk about the panel, until we pick it, simple as that. All I'll say in the last week there has been lots of inaccuracies in both local and national pressabout who's in and who's out. And the only way we’ll correct that is by handing out the panel to you.”
