Mayo buoyant as another September comes around

Seamus O’Shea didn’t shout it as much as whisper it but he reckons Mayo are in better fettle going into this year’s All-Ireland final than last September.

The Breaffy man was a used substitute in the defeat to Donegal but, like Alan Freeman, has fought his way to become a regular starter this season. They are verified examples of the competition in James Horan’s ranks and although O’Shea describes Mayo as having earned just “a ticket to a final”, he agreed there is reason for more optimism going into the decider this time around.

“You’d like to think the experience of last year will help. We probably have a stronger panel. You see the boys coming in there. Richie [Feeney] came in and made a difference, Cathal Carolan and Barry Moran the same.

“Then you’ve [Enda] Varley and [Mikey] Conroy up front, all these boys are helping. There’s going to be huge competition now in A v B games over next few weeks.”

Freeman gave a further indication of his maturity with a leading role in the full-forward line, putting over three frees in Cillian O’Connor’s injury-enforced absence as well as the all-important penalty.

“Obviously, Cillian is our first-choice penalty taker but I knew exactly what I was going to do with it,” he said. “I struck it fairly well and got a good bit of power in it. If it wasn’t that much in the corner, he [Pascal McConnell] probably would have saved it as he was gone the right way.”

He missed one long-range free but otherwise his radar was accurate. “Earlier on in the year when Cillian was out with his shoulder, I was taking frees. When Cillian was back for championship, obviously he’s so good at them, he was going to step back in.

“But I was more than happy for that. We practise together most training sessions, before or after together. I’d enough practice done so I was happy to step in. I was confident taking them.

“I had it in my own head if Cillian was taken off or had to go off, I’d be taking them. I practised a few before the game and I was striking them fairly well. I was happy enough to hit them.

“I was fairly confident taking them because I’d practised during the year. I take them for my club as well. I was more than happy to step in.”

Tackling the hype in the county, which is considerably more evident than it was last year, will be a challenge. As a shoeshop owner, centre-back Donal Vaughan jokingly hoped the heightened expectations will convert themselves into sales.

However, he added: “Look, the team is mature enough. There was a lot of excitement leading into this game and in fairness there was fantastic support out there, I don’t know what the numbers were [on Sunday] but I’d say Mayo outnumbered [Tyrone].

“I mean driving in on the bus, they gave us a bit of a lift. Mayo fans over the years have been among the best in the country and that won’t change. They’re entitled to enjoy the next few weeks.”

Vaughan, even with his Cork lineage, has no preference for who they face in the final, Kerry or Dublin.

“Ah no, like. People were even asking me coming into this game who would you rather play and we weren’t even looking at it and I’m not going to change now. We’ll be playing our own game and we’ll see who comes through that game.”

But they will go into the game having finally been given a test by Tyrone after facile wins over Galway, Roscommon, London and Donegal.

“Every game has its own ebb and flow, whether you win by big margins or small margins. It’s just when you’re in the game to keep adapting and keep playing away.

“So look, we’re not overly happy with the performance, we’re going to go away over the next few weeks and look to improve our game and it would be no different if we won by a massive margin as well.

“Our target all year was to improve on last year, so individually first we looked to improve our skill-set, identify weaknesses and I think collectively improve as a team. So that hasn’t changed. We’re still looking to improve on last year.”