Mayo need to bag six points and start working on a system - Keegan
by John Melvin
LEE Keegan feels Mayo should aim to get to the magic six points in the league and concentrate on working on a system for the championship.
The RTÉ pundit wasn’t reading too much into Mayo’s victory over Galway last Sunday at Pearse Stadium, descrinbing Galway as ‘leggy’, ‘leaderless’ and ‘sloppy’.
Fellow pundit and former Tyrone player Peter Canavan also felt the edge that is traditionally evident when Mayo and Galway clash was missing from Sunday’s encounter in breezy Salthill.
“I don’t think Galway will worry too much about this result given that they without two of their key players,” said Canavan, a reference to Damien Comer and Seán Kelley who were out through injury.
RTÉ Sunday Game host, Joanne Cantwell, asked about importance of winning the league, which promoted the reply from Canavan: “Ask Mickey Harte how important the league is!”
The clear inference is that while he was manager of Tyrone, Harte was only interested in winning All-Irelands.
Canavan noted that none of the top four in the league were around for the semi-finals of the championship, and that in itself is a reflection on just how some teams view the importance of the league.
Keegan said one big positive from a Mayo perspective after Sunday was the performance of Fergal Boland, who had been dropped from the panel when McStay took over.
“He scored three points and had a big hand in setting up the goal for Eoghan McLaughlin,” said Keegan, who felt Galway face a huge task to get back anywhere near where they were last year and the year before.
Mayo fans went home more than happy from Pearse Stadium and the win does set up an intriguing clash next Saturday night at Hastings Insurance MacHale, Castlebar, where the All-Ireland champions, Dublin, arrive looking for their first points of the league, having lost to Monaghan in the opening round in Croke Park.
Another brace of league points would put McStay in a very strong position to move closer to the magic six points and allow him time to rotate his panel and give some bench players match time.
I expect we will see a few more men drafted in as Mayo seek to avenge that defeat to Dublin at the quarterfinal stage of last year’s championship.
McStay started Conor Reid from Bohola-Moy Davits against Galway and also introduced Diarmuid Duffy from Ballinrobe, who played minor for Mayo two years ago.
One of the most impressive subs was Paul Towey, while Cillian O’Connor was given time to get some juice into those legs as he still looks to be a key player in Mayo's bid to take the best route to the knockout stages of the championship by winning the Connacht title.
But for Mayo fans, it is now all about Saturday night fever in Castlebar against Dublin – and if Mayo can back up Sunday’s performance against Galway, it could turn out to be a cracking game.