Horan needs a different game plan

I’m not too sure how much thought James Horan puts into his public utterances during the off season, but last November when he lamented the fact Mayo’s league form hadn’t been more consistent over the past few seasons, I took notice.

He also said winning tough games on the road and building character and confidence ahead of the championship were priorities that needed addressing in the current campaign.

“We haven’t won enough games in the league, we haven’t ground out some of the hard games we could have ground out, ” he said on these pages before Christmas. Three months later, unless his team do the business in Croke Park this evening, there will be an unticked box beside ‘grinding out hard away games’ on the Mayo man’s to do list. After tonight, Mayo’s next and final game of the 2014 campaign is a home tie against Derry.

In fairness to Horan and his team, the two or three opportunities that presented themselves for an away victory in the league might have come at a bad time. They lost their opening game to a last gasp Paddy Brophy point against Kildare and the following week were run ragged in Omagh by Darren McCurry and Mattie Donnelly before things settled down with a first home win against Kerry earlier this month.

Mayo’s only other away game was a peculiar affair. Playing Westmeath three weeks ago, Mayo were nine points up (2-4 to 0-1) after just 10 minutes but strangely found themselves a point down at half time.

They recovered to post nine points in a row in the second-half, thus recording their only way win to date, but the game highlighted all that has been wrong with Mayo football since the start of spring.

A quick glance at the tables shows Mayo and their opponents this evening, Dublin, are equal on league points and on scoring difference. But the devil of inconsistency is in the detail in the scores for and scores against columns. The 10 goals and 77 points scored gives lie to the notion Mayo lack potent forwards, but 10 goals and 70 points conceded makes a mockery of the fact Mayo have ownership of three of the starting six All Star defensive positions from 2013.

Mayo’s more recent home form offers little by way of comfort either. Against Cork a fortnight ago, they trailed 0-5 to 0- 0 after 12 minutes, outscored Cork by 3-12 to 0-4 for the next 37 minutes before slacking off again to finish out the match being outscored 2-5 to 1-0.

In short, Mayo have been playing mad and maddening football and it’s about time they found some consistency. An obvious starting point would be to shore up a defence that has conceded goals against all of their five opponents to date. Dublin, however, with just three green flags, have surprisingly scored the least amount of goals in the top flight this season, and two of those came on the opening day against Kerry.

Watching a Mayo defence that badly needs shoring up take on a Dublin forward requiring the oxygen of scoring goals at home in Croke Park could be the most intriguing aspect of this evening’s clash.

Since last season’s All-Ireland final, there has been a lot of worrying done in Mayo about the mobility or otherwise of their midfield. Because Stephen Cluxton was so consistently accurate and varied with his kickouts in the second-half of last year’s final, there is a sense within Mayo that a lack of athleticism and mobility is what cost them the midfield battle.

As a result, there is some momentum gathering behind the notion that perhaps Aidan O’Shea might be utilised as a full-forward at various stages during the big games this year.

I’m not convinced. Have Mayo people forgotten how inept he was as a full-forward in the final minutes of the 2012 decider against Donegal? Placing somebody as obviously imposing as O’Shea at full forward isn’t something that can be done without a certain amount of ground work being carried out beforehand. Situations need to be engineered so that O’Shea is plied with the right type of ball rather than being left stranded at the edge of the square with missiles raining on top of him.

Other players also need to buy into such a plan, especially as it would increase the potential for turnover ball. O’Shea might put in the tackles when he loses possession but, given the counter attacking ability of so many defenders now, with Mayo on the back foot, he wouldn’t be responsible for most of the grunt work. That said, with the advent of the black card, a marauding O’Shea could be a serious threat at full-forward. But only if he were to get early ball and could turn quickly. Otherwise the trade off of having those around him do most of the work when not in possession wouldn’t be worth it.

In the event of O’Shea and Barry Moran being considered as battering ram full forwards, Jason Gibons and Seamus O’Shea might seem like a perfectly viable midfield pairing with, but, in reality, the strategy places a huge workload on the likes of Kevin McLoughlin, Keith Higgins and Jason Doherty and I’m not convinced it’s a burden they’d be willing to carry for too long if scores weren’t forthcoming.

The dilemma for James Horan is still the same as it was at the start of the league: the full-forward line. It’s the same full-forward line that started last year’s final and is still slow to combine the elements of winning individual possession, taking on opponents, using the ball wisely and, most problematically, executing scoring chances. No team has created as many goal chances as Mayo have since the start of the league nor has any team spurned as many chances. Unless he shakes up the forward line in some way, Horan can expect to get the same results as he’s been getting in big matches up to now.

Perhaps with Rory O’Carroll away from the edge of the square, the temptation to give Aidan O’Shea a spring road- test at full forward might prove too great. Alan Freeman’s form at full forward these past few weeks offers some hope too, but Horan has shown as recently as last September he doesn’t consider Freeman to be a genuine match winner. A good showing this evening might convince him. Either way, Mayo need a true and worthy contribution from the inside trio to convince themselves of their attacking credentials.

If they get that this evening, I have a sneaking feeling they could grind out their first character-building away win of their campaign. Now that would represent a breakthrough for a team desperately seeking signs of progress.