How Mayo must solve Castlebar conundrum
MacHale Park provides few home comforts for Mayo in competitive football, as the accompanying statistics establish.
A lot of their checkered history there can be premised on just how disjointed their early season preparations are when those based in and around the county and those in Dublin meet up once a week, usually on a Friday.
On away days, they are together for the best part of 48 hours, which might explain their better form on the road and their ability to remain in the top flight of the league for what will be a 22nd consecutive season in 2020.
While they claimed this year’s Division 1 title and reached the final in 2010 and ‘12, that geographical difficulty may explain why their National League record at home this decade — a win rate of less than 46% — is so poor.
Saturday’s opponents Donegal know all about the benefits of playing at home. For 21 League and Championship games from 2010, they made Ballybofey’s MacCumhaill Park a fortress until Tyrone beat them there to knock them out of the Championship at this very stage last year. At the same time, the vast majority of Donegal’s defeats in the League this decade have come in Letterkenny’s O’Donnell Park.
Galway (twice) and Roscommon most recently belied Mayo’s home advantage in the Connacht championship and the county’s 100% All-Ireland SFC record there fails to tell the whole tale of just how much they were pressurised by Fermanagh, Derry and Armagh in qualifier games.
Of the last four Mayo managers, current boss James Horan has the best home record — 60.8% win rate ahead of John O’Mahony (55.6% between 2008 and ‘10. The stadium’s stand was redeveloped in early 2009) Stephen Rochford (43.8%), Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes (25%).
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