Lack-lustre Mayo must be wary of a Galway backlash
by John Melvin
IT is hard to believe that the 2024 Connacht GAA Senior Football Championship final is here already.
It is only the first Sunday in May – yet the showpiece game in the Connacht Gaelic football season is upon us.
And to make it better, the decider is between arch rivals Mayo and Galway with all roads lead to Pearse Stadium in Salthill, where one can expect a massive attendance at this seaside venue.
However, the burning question is which of Mayo or Galway will come out on top?
The answer to this question is as difficult as it ever was, and this is not because both teams have been performing to a level that we naturally expect of them in recent times.
Indeed, whichever team comes out on top next Sunday will have to do so by giving a much improved performance if they are to be considered close in any way to taking on the big guns for the Sam Maguire Cup this year.
We have only to look back just over a week ago when Mayo and Galway played their respective Connacht semi-finals.
To put it mildly, neither set the world on fire with a performance that their supporters would have taken heart from.
Galway travelled to Sligo to take on the home side in Markievicz Park. Beforehand, this was expected to be an easy assignment for the Tribesmen. However, as things turned out, it was anything but. Indeed, it took a goal in the third minute of added time for Galway to pull the game out of the fire.
The Galway manager, Padraic Joyce, acknowledge after the final whistle that his side had robbed Sligo of a victory.
While not taking anything away from Sligo, this was a Division 1 team playing against a Division 3 team, and Galway should not have had to rely on a very late goal to win the contest. But such was the level of performance by Galway that they nearly got punished. They got out of jail on the day.
The second semi-final saw Mayo having to travel to Dr. Hyde Park to play Roscommon. On paper, this was a more difficult task for Kevin McStay's charges as they were playing a Division 1 side – albeit one that had a poor campaign and suffered relegation on the final day.
Having accounted for Roscommon in the league, Mayo travel for this championship outing with a good degree of confidence.
Yet, with Roscommon having three of their long-term injured players back for this semi-final, we expected them to provide Mayo with a much harder test.
And yet they didn’t – and the reason why was that Roscommon were extremely poor. They were all over the shop and looked like a team that were playing together for the very first time.
However, the fact of the matter was that Mayo weren’t that much better.
Yes, they won by five points, which generally in any championship encounter is a good winning margin. But this was not the case here.
Indeed, had Roscommon scored one of their two good goal chances in the second half, we might not be previewing a Mayo versus Galway Connacht final right now.
The simple fact was that Mayo played in fits and starts against Roscommon.
They got off to a very good start and dominated the opening 15 minutes of the game, but then just fell away and really didn’t play for the remainder of the half.
Yes, after the resumption they put in a good third quarter, taking control of the game. But again, they failed to put Roscommon away, which left the result in the balance up to the closing stages.
As a consequence of all this, we have two teams going head-to-head today with a lot to prove as neither side have performed anything close to their best in the league or championship to date.
They haven't done enough to show they are ready to take on the big guns.
Both Mayo and Galway maintained their Division 1 status for next year by scraping over the line in a number of their games. And, as already alluded too, the two Connacht semi-final victories were far from anything to write home about.
For Mayo to come out on top today, I think they will have to produce a performance that they haven’t delivered in well over a year.
I expect a big backlash from Galway. They travelled to Sligo with most of their injured players back in action.
The likes of Sean Kelly, Shane Walsh and Damien Comer had missed most of their league campaign. It should have been a mere walk in the park for such a talented team against Sligo, but they didn’t produce the goods.
Did they take too much for granted against Sligo? I think maybe they did, and they almost paid the price for it.
They received a lot of criticism for this performance, and I expect they will be chomping at the bit to put this right against Mayo.
However, we know that Mayo are capable of playing good football. When they are in full flight, Mayo can make it difficult for any team to stop them.
They will need to produce a 70-plus minute display. We know, as we saw against Roscommon, they are well able to dominate a game at different intervals.
But they will have to do this for the full 70 minutes. Otherwise, the big teams from now on will take them out.
Of course, we don’t know what Mayo’s starting team will be against Galway. Yes, there have been a few injuries. However, despite this, we don't have close to a settled Mayo team up to now.
It is good news that team captain Paddy Durcan is in the starting line-up while both Diarmuid and Cillian O’Connor are in the match-day squad.
I think we will need every experienced player available for this upcoming clash.
The other main thing Mayo will need to do today is to turn defence into attack much faster.
Mayo are very good at getting turnovers, but then it takes them a considerable amount of time to get up the field.
The forwards need to get fast ball into them. As we have seen on numerous occasions, when they do, they create good scoring chances.
Overall, it is a difficult Connacht final to predict.
Although Galway will be playing on home soil, it will not bother Mayo having to play in Salthill. Indeed, their success rate at the seaside venue in recent times is very good.
But at the end of the day, it will all come down to which side shows the most improvement from the lacklustre semi-final displays.