“Nobody will remember getting to a quarter final, you only remember the winners.” Martin Brennan has had a pep in his step this week following on from seeing his side overcome Westmeath in last weekend’s Christy Ring Cup losers play-off in Westport. This weekend Mayo have a short trip to Athleague in Roscommon to face Kildare in the second tier competition in what Brennan says is “as close a home game as you can get, we’ve played there a number of times down the year and a lot of the Ballyhaunis and Tooreen lads have played plenty of hurling down there through the years”.
Big performance last weekend
Last week Brennan had said that he was disappointed with the performance of the side after they lost out to Kerry by a point in their first round clash and was looking for at least a 15 per cent improvement from his side. Last weekend he got that extra and more, he said. “ It was a good performance, I knew there was a good one in them. Westmeath had no answer in them for our intensity, we upped our game by 20 per cent if not more from the previous week. Them losing to Kildare in their first game was a bit of a surprise, seeing as they drew with Antrim and only lost to Wexford by a handful of points in division two of the league, we knew it was going to be a hard game, but we put in the work and got our reward. But that game’s over and it’s now about putting our shoulder to the wheel once again for Saturday and bringing on our performance once again.”
Nothing between the sides
The Lillywhites stand in the way of Mayo’s second successive Christy Ring Cup semi-final and a chance to right last year’s heartbreaking defeat at the hands of Carlow in McHale Park in the dying minutes of the game. And Brennan is expecting a close encounter, as has been the norm down through the years against Kildare. “We always seem to be able to turn them over at home in the last few years, but when we go to Newbridge to play them they always seem to get by with a late goal or a point; it’ll be no different again this weekend, a tough hard match between two sides that like to play hurling. They did see us off by six or so points in the league this year, but we were missing the likes of Aidan Connelly and Keith Higgins and a few other lads that day, we’re a different team now. The lads stood up really well last weekend, even when the pressure came on you had the likes of Keith and Pierce Higgins falling back to offer cover to the defence and the forwards found their accuracy in front of the posts. We’re going to need the same kind of performance again on Saturday to beat them.”
With a spot in the last four up for grabs, both sides will be going at each other from the start and getting a good start will be vital for Mayo if they are to come out on the right score at the end of 70 minutes of championship action. “It’s all on the field now on Saturday, there have been lads putting their hands up in training showing how much they want it and we have to carry that on to the pitch. As I said before, no one remembers the team that gets to the quarter final or semi-final, it’s the side who get to the final and wins everyone remembers.
Mayo team (probable ): M Walsh; D Walsh, A Connolly, P Hunt; B Higgins, P Barrett, C Ryan; P Higgins, Keith Higgins; E Madigan, D McDonnell, Derek McConn; A Freeman, D Dowling, M Devaney.
