How Carney and Mayo finally embraced the two-pointer

Jack Carney posing for pictures at a Mayo media event in McHale Park. Pic: James Crombie/Inpho

Sometimes the numbers are overwhelming. In the 2025 season, Jack Carney took 22 shots. He didn’t score a single two-pointer. In 2026, he has scored nine.

The Mayo midfielder has taken 33 shots, with 19 of those coming from outside the arc. It took time, but he is now thriving in the new era.

“I didn’t become a two-point shooter overnight,” he says.

“I got there probably through repetition. A big thing for me is trust from team-mates and from management that I have earned the right to take them.

“There have been countless occasions throughout this year; I have missed the first one and missed the first two, but I know I’m entrusted, and I’ve earned the right to take the third one. That really frees me up to say I’m going after the next one.” Mayo’s full embrace of orange flags has been remarkable. They kicked three in the 2025 championship. They have 29 in the 2026 championship, and counting.

Why did he shoot less? It is something this new management team sought to address early on. Speaking at the All-Ireland final press night, coach Colm Boyle said last winter they felt there was more in him. Boyle listed a series of questions that needed to be answered.

Was he getting enough shots off over the last couple of years? Was he getting into position to get those shots off? Was he putting in the work off the pitch to be confident enough to take shots on, especially when they really matter?

For Carney, it boils down to faith.

“I suppose it is a confidence thing. It is also being entrusted by management and players; when you are missing, you are trusted to take the next one. But you have to earn the right to do that. You have to put the hours in here. As you know, Andy is a very positive person, but he has no problem really going after you on areas he thinks you can improve. In one of our first conversations, that is what he and I hashed out.” 

This group has had to learn from setbacks. That is the nature of the championship now. For the third successive year, the All-Ireland champion will have lost at least one game. Ground zero for this group was the Roscommon defeat. The only positive was that it gave them a significant gap to address some issues and unite as a group.

“We did lose to Roscommon; that was a tough game. While that wasn’t the turning point, the fact we had five consecutive weeks together to really spend a lot of time in each other’s company and really understand one another, to find the right mix of team we needed.

“Andy has referenced before; he was very kind to Sigerson. We were missing a lot of the lads, a lot of the time. We had boys gone for U-20 as well, Kobe, Darragh, Eoin McGreal, so we did not train fully as a squad, everyone together until that five-week block.

“As you know, within the game momentum is huge, but also, in a winning streak, it is huge.” There were honest conversations in the aftermath of their exit from the Connacht championship. In the second half, they lost their way and went into a shell.

“The end of the Roscommon game was a huge learning point for us. When momentum is against you, what should you do and what shouldn’t you do.

“We went into ourselves there in the second half and that is the first thing you shouldn’t do really. And again, we’ve lost really close games over the last few years by a point, or in the last moment we had a shot to win the game or to level the game. If those shots went over, we might not have taken the experience or the learning from that.

"But we have lost and those losses were very hard to deal with."

He continued: “It’s very easy in those moments to go quiet and to stop looking for the ball and to look for others to try and solve it.

“But I suppose if you’re connected as a group, whether that is on your own kick outs or in defence, then that can be a huge positive for you.

“And in a couple of those scenarios when things went against us, we either went quiet or else we were not connected on our own kickout or else we stopped looking for the ball.” 

They are made up of the old and the new. Carney’s hero growing up was Ciaran McDonald. He will line out alongside his son on Sunday. When he first started supporting the team, the player he adored was Aidan O’Shea. He can still remember the time O'Shea spent with him at Cúl Camps.

A photo of the 1936 All-Ireland winning Mayo side is behind him as he talks in MacHale Park. They were captained by Jackie Carney, “a relation supposedly.” It is a distinctive makeup that can serve them well on Sunday.

“The blend between the innocence and the naivety and the expression that the younger guys give us, that rubs off on us and we, as a result, are more expressive and play with real freedom. But the experience and the learnings that (the more experienced players) have actually lived through and can tell you firsthand on what to expect, what you might see and what you might face, is invaluable.”