Regrets? Kevin McStay will have more than one. The fact that Mayo have been ahead in the 74th minute against Derry and in the 72nd against Dublin and Galway and have not won either of those games will give McStay nightmares. Holding out in any of those games would have given Mayo’s season a totally different look. As things stand, blowing leads in the final minutes will be the story of Mayo’s 2024 Championship campaign.
This is the earliest date that Mayo have exited the championship since losing to Sligo in the first round of the Connacht Championship on June 11, 2000. However, apart from a brutal first half on Saturday night, it cannot really be said that Mayo have played poorly in this championship campaign. They have lost only once in regular time (narrowly against Galway), comfortably beaten Roscommon twice and drawn with two serious All-Ireland contenders. The cruelty and inequality of this championship structure is highlighted by the fact that both Roscommon and Derry, having lost three matches to date, will be competing in the All-Ireland quarter-finals next weekend, while Mayo are on the scrap heap.
It’s easy to be cautious after the event, but I felt Derry was the worst possible scenario for Mayo. They have more quality players than us, even if they were in very bad shape. They have many players in their ranks who have won Underage All-Ireland Medals, Ulster Championships and Club All-Irelands. They’re also likely to take a big kick given all the negativity and attacks they’ve received since winning the league. It must also be remembered that it was only three months since the same teams met at the same venue in the National Football League and Derry gave Mayo a nice cut that day. And, most tellingly, the Derry and Mickey Harte teams generally play a defensive system that Mayo does not like to deal with.
You have to give Harte credit for the way he organized his troops. With his players low on confidence and faith, he instructed them to stay back, sit back and leave everything on the field; something similar to what his Louth team did at MacHale Park last year, with the difference that Derry had better players to cause damage to Mayo on the counter-attack. Ryan O’Donoghue was the one chosen to receive special attention, and why shouldn’t he receive it, given his form and ability? The speedy Conor McCluskey was the direct marker for him, but Conor Glass also did not venture too far from ROD at any point in the first half when he carried out his sweeping duties.
In that bleak first half, there was probably a bit of a hangover and comedown from the good times of the game against Dublin the previous weekend, but once again we showed little inspiration or ingenuity in trying to break through the barrier. Derry soaked up all of Mayo’s slow, laboured attacks and Mayo could only muster six shots on goal in the opening period, an incredibly low figure for any team in modern Gaelic football. One of those “shots” was also a toe-tap from Stephen Coen that went wide after a rebound. However, Derry had no such problem with their sharpshooter, Lachlan Murray, who was on fire and burning up the Mayo defence at the other end.
Kevin McStay must have been giving a real rant at half-time when Mayo came out like a different team and overturned the deficit within 10 minutes. Those 10 minutes were everything we love about Mayo. Pressing high, attacking like crazy, chasing everything, running hard and riding the wave of momentum as the crowd found their voices and came alive. It was typical Mayo – comfortable in the midst of chaos! However, that approach requires an enormous amount of energy and is not sustainable for a whole game. Derry weathered that storm, got themselves back in control, calmed things down and controlled the game from then on. If we could be as comfortable in calm as we are in chaos, then we would be onto a winner.
As the game approached injury time, it became a tale of two handballs. Sam Callinan had a good move to put Mayo out of reach but failed at the key moment. Annoyingly, Chrissy McKaigue’s equalizing goal was a carbon copy of Cormac Costello’s, which also denied Mayo a victory a week earlier. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Both goals, right at the end, from a combined distance of about 10 yards, have been fatal blows to Mayo’s season.
Derry managed extra time better. Their substitutes, such as Eunan Mulholland and Niall Toner, had more impact than Mayo’s and the Derry players who lasted the whole game looked a little fresher. Mayo’s mammoth effort against Dublin a week earlier began to tell in extra time.
Let’s call a spade a spade, Aidan O’Shea’s withdrawal was a management error. He had another great game and for all the criticism he gets for not scoring enough, is there a player in Ireland who tackles more or turns over more? Not having his presence, size and leadership in extra time was a problem. Could he or Mattie Ruane have been reintroduced after a massage and a twenty-minute break?
In extra time, Derry found a golden shooting zone on the right flank that Mayo simply couldn’t close down and Brendan Rogers and Ethan Doherty got results. But still, Mayo returned and fought to the death. Jordan Flynn’s leveler was a heroic act. What a leader he has become.
There is no point in really analyzing what happened in the penalty shootout. They are pure lottery and the worst way to decide a Gaelic football match. Surely someone can come up with a more imaginative and Gaelic football-relevant method of deciding tied matches. My preference would be a gold score where the next score wins. Even a penalty shootout would be more in line with the skills of our game than penalties. Given our unfortunate and tragicomic history, it was inevitable that sooner or later we would fall into a firefight.
It is said that in life people must suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. For Mayo, some lapses in focus and concentration mean regret will be the predominant emotion this winter. Effort, commitment and work rate were never in doubt this season, only the failure to hold on when everything was at stake.
We are used to long winters of introspection and soul-searching. Unfortunately, as we are still in June, we will also have summer and autumn.
Congratulations to the county players who lined up for their clubs in league matches just 15 hours after a crushing defeat on Saturday night. No moaning or wallowing in self-pity, just getting back on the horse. They are a credit to their clubs and their county.
