Big win for Mayo but league final spot eludes them

Mayo missed out narrowly on a place in the Allianz National Football League Divsision 1 final despite a comprehsive 4-26 to 2-11 victory over Roscommon in Hastings Insurance MacHale Park, writes Brian Gillespie.

Andy Moran's men finished on 10 points, level with Kerry and just one behind table-toppers Donegal, but were pipped in the race for next Sunday's decider on the head-to-head rule following the defeat to the Kingdom in Tralee last weekend.

Overall, however, the new Mayo manager could be pleased with the league campaign, only suffering defeat to the two teams that finished above them in the table.

And in defeating Roscommon so comprehensively, they laid down a marker ahead of a potential Connacht Championship semi-final next month.

The game was over as a contest by half-time, at which point Mayo held a 4-11 to 1-5 lead. A Ben O'Carroll goal left Roscommon level at 1-2 to 0-5 after 20 minutes but Mayo had already created a number of goal chances by then.

After that they started to not only create chances, but finish them off. The first two goals, scored by Paul Towey and Jack Carney after great set-up work by Ryan O'Donoghue, came within 60 seconds of each other, and before the break, Aidan O'Shea and O'Donoghue, from the penalty spot, had also found the net.

The visitors, a man down to due to the black card picked up by Caelim Keogh in conceding the penalty, needed a good start to the second half but it was Mayo who landed the first six points of the new period, putting the result beyond all doubt.

Roscommon's first score of the second half was a goal by Eoin Colleran on 46 minutes and they followed it up immediately with a Daire Cregg point, showing a bit of fight.

However, the visitors were outscored by nine points to five over the remainder of the game as Mayo were able to give game time to a number of subs, with three of them – Tommy Conroy, Frank Irwin and Cillian O'Connor (two-pointer) – getting on the scoresheet.

The victory for Mayo marked a welcome return to form following the heavy defeat to Kerry a week ago.

*See Tuesday's print edition for a full report on the game