The rotten Monday morning feeling after a championship defeat was fully administered this week after a seismic loss to Dublin on a score line of 2-17 to 0-11.
It's a bitter pill to swallow for the Mayo faithful from a season that promised so much earlier in the year. Many felt that this was going to be the year that Sam would reside here and that the stars were aligned to deliver Mayo their first All-Ireland title in 72 years.
Unfortunately, we will have to wait at least another year and maybe more. The game against Dublin represented a grand scale second half collapse and as much as I convinced myself that the Dublin jersey would provoke a reaction from Mayo, it was the green and red jersey that inspired Dublin to their best performance in over four years, It ended up being an annihilation.
It was Mayo's worst championship defeat since the All-Ireland final in 2006 when Kerry hit us for 4-15 that day. The strange part is that Mayo were so good and ultra-competitive for the majority of the first half.
Mayo went ahead by 0-8 points to 1-03 after 23 minutes. Ryan O’Donoghue and Tommy Conroy were causing all sorts of problems for the Dublin defence helping themselves to seven points between them, Aiden O'Shea too won two crucial aerial battles to set up scores for his full forward team-mates.
But at the other end Padraic O’Hora was struggling badly against Colm Basquel as Jack Coyne was against Cormac Costello. Mayo’s best patch of the game arrived after Basquel raised a green flag for Dublin, Mayo hit them for four on the spin to lead by that score line of 1-03 to 0-8 points. Little did we know that that was as good as it was going to get.
For the remainder of the game Dublin outscored Mayo by 1-14 to 0-3 which represents a total collapse of a grand scale magnitude. Dublin were in a ruthless and ravenous mood for the second half with Brian Fenton and the remarkable James McCarty ruling the middle third of Croke Park.
Mayo needed to contain Dublin from the restart, they did anything but and Dessie Farrell's team hit Mayo for a rapid 1-04 to all but kill the game. Mayo were out on their feet for the second half, chasing shadows. There were far too many good Dublin forwards left with one on one situations with their direct markers, there were no cover tacklers. I can only presume the three games in 14 days was the cause of this.
Sam Callinan learned the hard way that it’s not safe to usher a ball over the end line when you have Paul Mannion and Cormac Costello in the vicinity as they ruthlessly made Mayo pay, setting Basquel up for a palmed finish to the net. It was an agonising watch from here on in as Dublin dictated all over the pitch.
With Mayo seven in arrears, the ball fell lovely to Eoghan McLaughlin inside the small square with the Dublin goal gaping in front of him. I still can't figure out how he ended up hitting the post with the soccer style shot, I'm guessing Stephen Cluxton can't figure it either.
To compound matters Dessie Farrell had the luxury of unloading Ciaran Kilkenny, Jack McCaffrey, Paddy Small and Dean Rock who all made telling contributions. It's a luxury the rest of the country isn't familiar with, to have such an array of talent as back up.
Former Dublin footballer Paul Flynn assured me those four players would be raging to be on the bench, that they don't do impact substitutes well. That was clearly obvious when they were introduced as they set about leaving an imprint on the game wanting to be in the starting team for their semi-final against Monaghan.
I can't help but think Mayo's season was unhinged with the loss to Cork in Limerick and the loss of a six point lead that day, not being able to close out a game from a commanding position.
Had Mayo won that day they would have had a two-week rest rather than a bruising battle against Galway in Salthill and Mayo then would have faced Tyrone in the quarter final last weekend rather than Dublin. Those are the small things that at the time you think nothing of but really do make a difference.
Mayo played six games in this year’s championship and lost three. That alone tells its own story and is simply not good enough to claim the big prizes.
Worryingly Mayo only scored three championship goals in those six matches and none of which were delivered by a starting forward. Eoghan McLaughlin got one against Kerry, Tommy Conroy got one off the bench against Cork and of course who could forget David McBrien's rasper against Galway.
I did think Jordan Flynn had rectified that last Sunday, but replays suggest he illegally picked the ball up with his knees. Winning the league now seems scant consolation for what for me was an otherwise disappointing season.
You want to be involved for the final two weekends of the season, at least get to a semi-final. Mayo needs new personnel, new blood to drive it on, there is no question about that. I expect a few retirements from men who gave great service to the green and red. It's going to be a long six months waiting for another game.
