Finally Mayo are managing expectations
James was out touring with a few musicians who were keeping music to those who perform on the show Atlantic Steps.
Is fánach an áit a gheobhfá breac, said James with his customary mischief and wit as he left me to my work of watching and recording GAA stories unfold and he to his music.
It is indeed in the strangest of places one tends to meet people.
Like those Gaels from Gallarus, Galway and Glenamaddy I met at the games in Canton, I was impressed by the standard of football on Week Three of the 2013 Boston & Northeast GAA Championships.
After Kerry got hockeyed by the Connemara Gaels and Shannon Blues beat Galway in the senior games, talk turned to upcoming matches this weekend, to players who had arrived from home, to those coming out and to those who might yet come out to spend the summer in Boston and play a bit.
I spoke with people from many counties but strangely enough, I could get nobody to talk of this weekend’s game at home in that most fanatical of football counties, Mayo.
Mayo weren’t playing last weekend and I’m told the Mayo football club in Boston are struggling to get a team together to compete in this year’s championship.
The contrast with home couldn’t be greater as Mayo prepare for their latest challenge against Roscommon in Castlebar this weekend.
Rarely have Mayo supporters held such quiet hope for their team. In a county who could, even at the worst of times, be described as pathologically optimistic — that is saying something. The demolition job in Galway a month ago was so compelling that it had the sense of a group of players sailing around a corner in their collective careers.
Manager James Horan and many of his players have since expressed surprise at the facile nature of the win, almost in an effort to downplay their own strength but they are convincing nobody.
Not even the rolling out of strange historical facts like the period of 19 years of not beating Roscommon at home (between 1964 and 1983, if you really need to know) can alter the fact that Mayo, along with Donegal and Dublin, are the three front runners for ultimate glory.
Provided they show up with the right attitude, there are no storm clouds on the horizon for this group of Mayo players until an increasingly likely semi-final showdown with Donegal. Strange things can happen in the weird and wonderful world of championship football but when you’re as methodical and as stoical as Mayo are these days, a speed bump is unlikely until then.
Mayo have had a similar campaign to Kerry at this stage. Both met little resistance since their runs began; both have shown no mercy to inferior opposition and both have yet to discover if they can negotiate the type of massed defence Donegal have patented.
Mayo struggled with Sligo’s version of Donegal-lite this time last year and with Tyrone’s two sweepers during the league when they only scored two points from play in a 66-minute period. Galway didn’t even attempt to stymie Mayo’s attacks last time but if Roscommon wish to make a shape at clogging up the lanes, it will be interesting and instructional to see how Mayo vary their game to deal with it.
In the meantime all James Horan can do is work on what he perceives to be some points of pressure in his team. He will know Mayo can ill afford to concede two early goals like they’ve done on two of their last three visits to Croke Park. In those two games — against Dublin in this year’s league semi- final and against Donegal last September — the game had gone away from Mayo before their exceptional conditioning and resolve saw them claw their way back. The mountain climbed had taken the best out of them and those two goals were the difference at the end. Mayo cannot afford lapses in the first 15 minutes of big matches to define their seasons anymore.
The other critical consideration for Mayo is the necessity of getting their match-ups spot on. Too often in recent times we’ve seen Mayo place the wrong players on the obvious danger men only to have it backfire horribly. It’s all well and good when the opposition like tomorrow’s have few genuine big game players (the St Brigid’s pair of Mannion and Kilbride) but what if they have multiple threats? The thinking on who negates these dangers needs to very clear.
With two good challenge game wins behind them in the last fortnight and so many players returning or about to return from injuries, Mayo are in a good place.
Out of caution and respect the green and red will be seen in good numbers in McHale Park for the clash with the Rossies but don’t expect Mayo to go all soft and feel sorry for their Division 3 brothers. It’s hardly ideal preparation for tougher days ahead but as the Spailpín Fánach, self-styled “well known blog on contemporary Irish life” and proud Mayo man, is wont to tell us every championship season — you can only dance with the girls in the dance hall!
