Mayo will be heading back to Croke Park next Saturday when they face Westmeath in the final round of the qualifiers with a place the last eight up for grabs. Keith Higgins was out to meet the press this week ahead of the game and he's looking forward to getting back to GAA HQ next weekend. "That's where everyone wants to play, we're delighted to get back there and hopefully and we'll have another day out there."
The magical mystery tour of potential opponents in the qualifiers is a new route for this Mayo team for the most part, and when asked if it actually has suited them having a regular run of games against different sides, it's a case of so far so good, the Ballyhaunis man says. "You'd hope so, it's easy to say that when you're winning games, it's not the way we planned things but it's the only choice we have now. It probably wasn't any harm to have a couple games over a couple of weekends, just to get a bit of momentum going and playing a bit of football, so hopefully it will stand to us the next day."
There were a few nerves going on to the field against Fermanagh the first day out in the qualifiers all the same despite all the experience in the Mayo dressing room, he acknowledged. "Yeah, I think so. I suppose after the way we performed against Galway there was a bit of pressure on us as well. We probably weren't 100 per cent sure as to what to expect ourselves, it's the first time we are in the qualifiers for a long time, but we got through it and I don't think we played awful bad in the first half, we just made a few costly mistakes, and luckily in the second half we came out and got the scores on the board and pushed on a bit."
Showing their true selves
As for last weekend's game against Kildare being a more true reflection of their worth, it was a step up in performance, but there is more to come, the dual football and hurling star says. "I think the performance was up a bit on the Fermanagh game, there were periods where we played very well, started off well, and then again before half time in the second half I thought we were fairly comfortable, even though we didn't play anywhere as near as we could."
Mayo and Westmeath haven't crossed paths that often in Higgins' long career with Mayo, and while their league form in recent years has been poor, they have shown up in the championship, he believes. "I think the last time [the sides met] would have been 2014 up there, that match there wasn't that much in it at the end. Their league results over the last few years probably hasn't been a reflection on how good they have been, they've been relegated a few times but come the championship, they've always been able to put in performances.
"I've only seen bits and pieces of them they have quality players sprinkled over the place in fairness, you saw in the first half against Dublin they really put it up to them. I don't think we can afford to start taking teams for granted, the fourth round the qualifiers there's not to many teams left in it, so you can't afford to go down that route."
Asking the hard questions
Losing to Galway in the semifinal of the Connacht championship wasn't the script that they had hoped to follow but it has given them time to ask themselves some serious questions in the team according to the man who was part of this year's Nicky Rackard Cup winning hurling side. "There was a lot of hurt, I don't know if you would call it soul searching, but we asked a lot of questions of ourselves, we had to do that, the performance wasn't there against Galway but we had to get back to working on the basics and getting back to doing it on the training pitch and start doing it from there. There was the bit of nerves going into the Fermanagh game, but you just have to keep working at it and hope it comes right the next day."
