Mayo must break free of shackles
Take yesterday, and Mayo versus Derry in the league semi-final. The psychodrama was interesting: you know, seeing Derry fight on bravely when they’d lost Fergal Doherty on 22 minutes to a straight red, but a team with Mayo’s experience wasn’t going to let a game like yesterday’s get away from them. Not when a league final and another outing in Croke Park was at stake.
Well, that was going to be our tack until the facts got in the way.
Derry won, of course, and Mayo boss James Horan said afterwards that the longer the game went on, the more Derry would have won by, an honest appraisal of the game’s closing stages.
It shouldn’t have surprised anyone that the northerners were so game.
This writer saw them defeat Kerry in Killarney earlier this spring, and they also rallied from a double-digit deficit to come within a point of Cork in Páirc Uí Rinn.
Losing Doherty didn’t cripple them the way it might another team, because they trust in their possession game: even in the last 10 minutes, Derry players in possession deep in their own half had the composure to direct colleagues to better positions, waving with one hand as they carried the ball with the other. When the game finally broke up late on, they were well placed to take advantage and they showed plenty of initiative to range up field and take their scores.
Mayo didn’t look the same when they had 14 men to contend with, and Horan acknowledged that the traditional curse of the extra man — looking around for someone else to make it happen — might have infected his team.
The half-full version of an explanation might suggest that after the plethora of All-Ireland finals and semi-finals in Dublin 3 over the last few years that the westerners have been through, raising themselves mentally for a league semi-final might have been a bridge too far. Calibrating yourself to peak in September may not allow for a minor jump in performance in April.
An unkind appraisal might point to the long-running history of Mayo teams in GAA headquarters, but that’s a glib reference. The real concern for Horan, who muttered about a sweeping review of Mayo’s performance in the coming days, is a good deal more specific: against 14 men they not only failed to open Derry up that often, but on the occasions they did, defenders, not attackers, were left one-on-one with Thomas Mallon, who acquitted himself admirably on both occasions.
True, yesterday meant a good deal more to Derry than it did for Mayo, but having your backs pop up at the end of those moves is a technical problem that doesn’t augur well for the hard pitches of summer. It doesn’t sit well with a well-earned reputation for consistency that Horan has built for them in recent years either.
Finally, one of Horan’s throwaway comments was an indictment of his players’ ability to manage a game. The Mayo boss referred to his players dropping back in threes and fours and being unable to influence the proceedings, which isn’t something you’d expect from such an experienced group.
Is that excessive? Bear in mind, for instance, that Andy Moran was audible from the press box as he roared “Boyler, Boyler, Boyler,” in the first half, looking for a quick pass from his centre-back.
When the calls drift up to the Alpine heights of the press box, you know high summer has not embraced us quite yet. If it’s true for the acoustics, then maybe it’s true for the attitude.
But that still must be changed. You may be aware of Frozen, the Disney hit movie of recent months — you’ve surely heard the anthem, Let It Go, blared by a pre-teen of your acquaintance. The story revolves around Elsa, uptight, aware of her responsibilities, afraid to let her true nature free — and Anna, lively and open and true to herself.
Mayo look to be playing the Elsa role a touch too faithfully. A little more Anna wouldn’t hurt their chances at all this summer.
