Welcome to my first column as a writer. For the rest of the summer at least, I intend to discuss, analyse and give my opinion on all matters GAA at club and inter-county level. Feel free to e-mail me any comments or opinions you may have. For the week that’s in it my mind in focused on one thing only and there’s no prizes for guessing what that is. Mayo welcome Roscommon to Castlebar on Sunday for the Connacht semi-final and a right to play either London or Leitrim in the Connacht final. It sounds a bit surreal, but yes, London could be in a Connacht final. With the current upheaval in Leitrim and four players designated to the scrapheap for disciplinary reasons I may just fancy a flutter on London to make the final. Leitrim have a small enough panel to pick from without losing players, most notably Wayne McKeon, arguably one of their best players, but that’s for another day.
Hands up if you could see Mayo disposing of Galway with such ease (my hands haven’t left the keyboard ). Some very wise men expected something of an ambush in Salthill, I expected a very keenly contested game that would go to the wire and was a worried Mayo man as injuries mounted and Galway received a huge morale boost after their u21s bagged another All-Ireland title. For anyone that wasn’t at it, Mayo should have beaten Galway in Tuam in the u21 Connacht semi-final. The sheer difference in physicality between the teams in the senior game in Salthill was there for all to see; boys against men springs to mind. The battle hardened Mayo players looked determined, focused and physically in great shape and wanted to prove they were not scarred from the All-Ireland final loss to Donegal, while the Galway players looked like they had all celebrated the u21 victory a few weeks previous. History suggests it was one of the most comprehensive Mayo victories over Galway on record. There are too many positives to take from this game given the poor quality of the opposition but here are three. (1 ) Mayo forwards tackled with extreme intensity, (2 ) Mayo were able to cope without a lot of key players. (3 ) Alan Dillon and Andy Moran got valuable game time.
Where does this leave Mayo in the grand scheme of things? We are all none the wiser after hammering Galway and indeed we may not know a whole lot more after the Roscommon game on Sunday. Mayo are overwhelming favourites to retain the Connacht championship and indeed who can we see stopping them. Mayo are 1/5 to see off the Rossies on Sunday, the same price as they are to win the Connacht championship, make what you want out of that. I’m hearing rants all year about the demise of Connacht football but most certainly Mayo cannot be included in that opinion. James Horan and his team can only beat what’s put on front of them. I don’t know how many times I was asked “how bad were Galway” rather than “how good were Mayo”. In my opinion it was a lot of both. Roscommon will prove a much tougher opposition now that they have seen Mayo in full tilt and will try to negate Mayo’s power play that resulted in Galway making so many unforced errors and conceding a bucket load in the first half alone. They will no doubt park the team bus in their backline from the start to try and frustrate Mayo. John Evans will be hammering this home to his team. I presume no Roscommon defender will get caught dilly-dallying on his own full back line and they will be warned not to take the ball into the tackle where the physically superior Mayo team will turn the ball over.
The last championship outing between the sides was the 2011 Connaught final which Mayo won by only two points. What do we know about Roscommon? They came fourth in division three, their highlight would have been wins against Monaghan and Cavan, Senan Kilbride who was meant to go travelling has decided to stay (a huge boost ) and they will be inspired by St Brigid’s marvellous victory in the All-Ireland club championship. Mayo, on the other hand, have to re-tweak their line up with Cillian O’Connor’s unfortunate injury, Alan Dillon will probably go to centre forward or will he stay put and allow the hard working Richie Feeney to start at 11? Will James Horan start Andy Moran? If he does, Feeney may have to settle for a place on the bench. The back line looks pretty much certain, although Chris Barrett will have something to say about that when he returns later in the year. I also like what I see in Shane McHale - a typical no nonsense Knockmore defender, and I’ve run into plenty of those in my time to know what they’re made of. Barry Moran and Jason Doherty are close to returning but Sunday will probably arrive too quickly. Michael Conroy is also lurking in the long grass but will probably not get game time in Connacht as he’s still recovering.
Injury aside, it would be hard to change the team that started against Galway. One certain thing, the team named will probably not be the team that takes the field or will I be wrong again. Verdict: Mayo by five or six.
