“If I was to keep everyone informed on Ronan McGarrity’s situation all the time over the last two weeks, I’d have had to been giving hourly briefings.” Preparation for a provincial final is never an easy thing, but for John O’Mahony the last two weeks have seen him be asked about one thing more than most, Will Ronan McGarrity play?
The naming of the Mayo team on Wednesday night, has the Ballina man named in the middle of the park, but that is not a definite yet O’Mahony explained to the Mayo Advertiser this week. “People aren’t listing to what I’ve been saying, Ronan has to go for more scans Friday (today ) and he has to be cleared medically to play yet, because the most important thing in all this is the players welfare. He has a far better chance of playing now than he did a couple of weeks ago, but we still have to get the medical all clear. Liam O’Malley is a similar situation, he has to have a fitness test done before we know if he’s 100 per cent. We had to name and team and people would be saying that if he wasn’t named he was going to be playing and if he was he wouldn’t. The one thing that has to be first is the players welfare in this whole situation.”
Mayo will go into the game against Galway on a high after seeing off Roscommon with ease in the Connacht semi-final, and seeing Galway struggle past Sligo in their last four clash.
It’s a toss of coin as to who should be going into the game as favourites O’Mahony explained. “I could give you two pages here and now as to why Galway should be favourites, but if you asked Liam Sammon the same thing, he could give you two pages on why we should be favourites. I’ve no control on what other people think, but what were concentrating on is getting the performance right on Sunday. The performance is the key thing, because if you get it right you’ve put yourself in the situation you want to be in to win the game, while if you get it wrong your making it very hard for yourself. I’d be confident that we have what it takes in us to go out there on Sunday put in the right performance and then go and win the game.”
While McGarrity and O’Malley will be monitored up to the game, definitely still out are Tom Cunniffe and David Clarke who have failed to recover from their injuries, while Barry Kelly picked up an injury last weekend and will be battling to make it back for Sunday’s game.
