Pragmatic Mayo will take plenty from winning ugly
SILVERWARE BAGGED: Aidan O'Shea of Mayo celebrates at the final whistle of the Allianz Football League Division 1 final against Galway at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
A fittingly grim final for a gruesome competition but this new Mayo wave will take plenty from winning ugly against their most familiar foes.
A miserly four points from play was enough to keep Galway at bay and lay down a marker ahead of a Connacht championship draw lopsided by the heft of them and third-placed Division 1 finishers Roscommon on one side.
Kevin McStay genuinely loves the beautiful game and yet during his time in charge of Roscommon and now with his phalanx of assistants in his native county he has purveyed the practical. Mayo were just that as they frustrated Galway, doing more of the simple things right and forcing them into coughing up frees.
At the same time, they were living on their wits for elements of the game. Goalkeeper Colm Reape made four saves, three of them truly impressive that went a long way to him picking up a deserved man of the match award.
Attended by a 45,041 crowd, Mayo didn’t score from play from the 16th minute until the first minute of additional time of this game but they were justified winners, leading from start to finish. Three times in the second half Galway were a hair’s breadth away and couldn’t square it as Ryan O’Donoghue’s marksmanship for the most part kept Mayo ahead.
“We knew they were going to rely on frees a lot,” rued Pádraic Joyce. “They only kicked four from play. We expended a lot of energy trying to get back up to level and we just couldn’t. It would have been nice if we had got level and maybe pushed a point up. But we didn’t.”
A Robert Finnerty brace of points had Galway breathing down Mayo’s necks in the third quarter but they were thankful for a couple of denials in the 46th minute as Seán Kelly first stopped a Jordan Flynn strike at goal and Galway goalkeeper Connor Gleeson kept out James Carr.
The consequence to the scoreboard was Reape picked off his second 45 and, after Shane Walsh cancelled it out with one of his own, Mayo’s last line of defence saved a Matthew Tierney shot when Peter Cooke delivered the ball inside.
Mayo followed it up with two further O’Donoghue points and while Walsh responded Reape was again able to keep out Damien Comer’s 55th minute attempt. Cooke brought Galway within a point but substitute Tommy Conroy won two frees, which O’Donoghue duly sent over, and Jack Coyne slotted over an insurance point prior to Reape confirming his clean sheet with a stop from Cooke.
Kevin McStay didn’t need to be told it wasn’t a perfect performance but he was okay with that.
“We’ve won lots of national titles here before, this team hasn’t, this current Mayo team. I think it’s important in terms of their development, I think they’ll take a lot of confidence, I think we all will, from the manner of the victory because there were plenty of errors. But I think we still showed the greater desire to win it, which is always nice, and I think we’ll take a lot of momentum from winning today.”
Mayo didn’t score for 24 minutes of the first half, five of them admittedly taken up by an injury that would eventually end Johnny Heaney’s involvement, but they were still three points to the good at the break, 0-8 to 0-5.
Their start had been sparkling. Aidan O’Shea’s foot passing was parting the Galway cover, O’Donoghue was giving John McGrath his fill of it while Jack Coyne was bettering Robert Finnerty at the other end. Diarmuid O’Connor’s cover work was exemplary.
The first three scores in the opening eight minutes came Mayo’s way, goalkeeper Reape exploiting a free drawn by O’Donoghue from McGrath, Carr kicking over a speculative effort and O’Donoghue penalising a foul on Jack Carney.
After Reape denied John Maher in the ninth minute, Galway captain Kelly, who initiated the attack, followed up the goal opportunity to fist the ball over the bar. However, Mayo responded with another hat-trick of unanswered points: O’Donoghue catching a low mark from O’Shea and pointing it, Patrick Durcan taking receipt of a Carney pass to bisect the posts and Flynn made it 0-6 to 0-1 in the 16th minute after O’Donoghue beat McGrath once more.
Two Walsh frees steadied Galway even though the latter of them in the 29th minute followed Heaney’s injury when he collided with Reape after kicking a ball narrowly wide having been put into the position by John Daly, a foul that earned Reape a booking.
Walsh kicked his first from play after a lot of recycling play and Maher’s tidy finish from an acute angle two minutes into injury time brought Galway within one.
O’Donoghue’s second converted free ended Mayo’s barren spell and Reape stepped up to send over his second a minute later when O’Shea was illegitimately tackled.
The veteran of the team enjoying one of his best league campaigns, O’Shea was a torment in the second half too sucking in defenders for frees and again showing his distribution acumen.
Knowing how much a win would have meant for Galway who have lost a third consecutive Croke Park final makes this a sweet triumph for him and his team-mates. Anything more seems a stretch when the season is about to begin in earnest.
R. O’Donoghue (0-7, 5 frees, 2 marks); C. Reape (0-3, 2 frees, 1 45); J. Carr, P. Durcan, J. Flynn, J. Coyne (0-1 each).
S. Walsh (0-5, 2 frees, 1 45); R. Finnerty (0-2, 1 mark); S. Kelly, J. Maher, P. Cooke, T. Culhane (0-1 each).
C. Reape; S. Callinan, D. McBrien, J. Coyne; S. Coen, C. Loftus, P. Durcan (c); M. Ruane, D. O’Connor; F. McDonagh, J. Carney; J. Flynn; A. O’Shea, J. Carr, R. O’Donoghue.
E. McLaughlin for D. McBrien (h-t); T. Conroy for J. Carr (56); M. Plunkett for F. McDonagh (66); B. Tuohy for M. Ruane (70); P. O’Hora for J. Coyne (70+3).
C. Gleeson; J. McGrath, S. Fitzgerald, S. Kelly (c); D. McHugh, J. Daly, C. Hernon; P. Conroy, J. Maher; M. Tierney, J. Heaney, P. Cooke; R. Finnerty, S. Walsh, C. Sweeney.
D. Comer for J. Heaney (inj 33); J. Glynn for C. Hernon (h-t); T. Culhane for R. Finnerty (62); D. O’Flaherty for C. Sweeney (65); D. Conneely for P. Conroy (70+2).
B. Cawley (Kildare).
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