James Horan unfazed by Mayo doubts

Another summer, same old doubts. The odds are that Mayo will have too much about them for Sligo in Castlebar this Sunday. 

They may even put a halt to talk of a Galway resurrection in the ensuing Connacht semi-final and get to Croke Park by beating Roscommon in the provincial final.

And after that?

James Horan has seen this before. Twice he led a free-scoring side through the bones of a summer before coming unstuck at the last when Donegal, in 2012, and Dublin a year later put the screws on a forward line dismissed as light on star power.

It was similar last year when they drew with Dublin in September and lost by a single point in the replay.

The regrets generated across all three seasons were many and varied but it is the attacking platoon routinely targeted by the snipers in the stands.

Jim McGuinness, for one, believes the same shortfall will cost them in 2017.

“Mayo have been very close over the last number of years,” said Horan.

“If you had a top-level Padraic Joyce or a Peter Canavan, that when a team was playing badly and he gets very little ball he can still get a high percentage of scores from shots, that obviously helps.

“Mayo have a lot of good players who mightn’t be as celebrated as some of those fellas but if you look back through those games, the replay last year and back throughout the years, I don’t think you could just pin it directly on there not being a marquee forward.

“It’s ‘can they win two more kick-outs? Can they reduce the amount of frees they gave away in the scoring zone by two? Can they make sure their handpass completion is 5% higher?’ It reduces the opposition having one or two shots and they get one or two extra.”

If Mayo are to end the “Curse of ‘51” then they will have to do it with much the same admirable but ageing squad.

Only Fergal Boland, a half-forward, has made any sort of a push for a starting slot from the margins.

Horan doesn’t seem worried. He met Andy Moran recently and was encouraged by the enthusiasm that radiated off the veteran for the campaign and it isn’t as if Mayo are the only side approaching the championship swatting away doubts. Even Dublin’s wellbeing has been queried.

“Some of the players have already mentioned that the front door is the way they’d like to go because you can plan everything,” said Horan.

“Otherwise, if you go week to week, it’s helter skelter. Players get injured and it’s way harder to get things organised. I’d say there will be a real focus for a Connacht title this year.”