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Wednesday, June 23, 2010
A first step on the road to a summer recovery?
By Anthony Hennigan
THERE has to be an angle. There’s always an angle. Of course there’s an angle!
Okay, so it mightn’t be as common as one team’s manager having once trained the other or that the chairman of one county is in exile from the other, but there’s an angle to Mayo’s championship visit to Longford next Saturday, tenuous I admit, but worth exploring nonetheless.
It’s that the last time Mayo’s senior team played a competitive game against Longford in Pearse Park, the year was 1989, the man at the helm was a certain John O’Mahony and we all know where that season took Mayo football.
And if you think that because of defeat in Sligo last time out, Mayo football is at a low ebb entering next Saturday’s game, it hardly compares to when the Green and Red travelled to Longford on February 26 all of 21 years ago. Mayo headed for Pearse Park on the back of a Division 2 league defeat at home to Cavan (a game in which Mayo scored just seven times), a match preceded by a draw away to Louth (a game in which Mayo scored just six times) and a defeat away to Roscommon (a game in which Mayo again scored just seven times).
The surprising thing about that trio of results was that Mayo’s season had started so positively; in the months after their 1988 All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Meath (a similarity with the current squad, who also lost last season to the Royals in Croke Park), Mayo had opened their pre-Christmas NFL campaign with consecutive victories over Cork, Galway and Kildare.
Cork scored just 1-4 to Mayo’s 0-12 in that meeting in Charlestown so to predict – even considering their back-to-back All-Ireland final appearances in ‘87 and ‘88 – that the Rebels would end up meeting and beating Mayo in that season’s All-Ireland final, would have taken a brave pundit.
And for Mayo’s part, to have regrouped by ending that winless streak against Cavan, Louth and Roscommon with a final round 2-11 to 2-5 league win in Longford, was equally important given how it helped prepare them for the provincial championship that followed, one that let’s not forget was also not without its ups and downs either, resulting in draws against both Galway and Roscommon before victories were secured.
Perhaps that 1988/‘89 season reminds us that nothing is impossible. But of course it’s believing in that same mantra that Longford also enter next Saturday’s historic first championship meeting of the teams.
I’ll admit, the fixture, when pulled from the bowls, got me about as excited as when learning I had drawn North Korea in the WP’s in-house World Cup sweep (funny that, how I and the others out of office that day seemed to get the weakest teams), but perhaps it’s easier to regain some of our lost optimism if considering what might be should Mayo record the expected victory.
In Round 2 of the Qualifiers, there would be the chance of another ‘softish’ draw, the sort of game that could further aid Mayo’s rehabilitation following their back-to-back League final and championship defeats to Cork and Sligo. And after that? Well, let’s get that far first.
The flip side, however, is if a fired up Sligo could win so convincingly against Mayo, what damage might a fired up Kerry or Cork inflict upon the Green and Road if the teams were to meet somewhere further down the championship road?
But to look beyond playing Longford next Saturday is a luxury Mayo players, unlike the supporters, can ill afford. Kerry might be proven past masters at timing their championship runs by playing less than full throttle against such back-door opposition, but you feel nothing less than a vim-and-vigour type performance is required of Mayo, if only to restore some lost confidence among the players.
It might also help get supporters believing again that they were right; that yes, what during the National League they had perceived as improvements in the team, are just that – improvements; that some of the younger and newer additions to the team have, after all, what it takes to cut it on the championship stage.
That’s all fine and well until we remember that it was the failure of some of the more established players to lead and inspire that disappointed most in Markievicz Park earlier this month.
An all-round improvement is required. In fact, it’s at times like this where you better understand the manager who preaches not about the importance of the result but about the need of their team to perform. "Get the performance right and the result will take care of itself" they oft times tell us.
Mayo need not only to win next Saturday, they need to win well. Even if it is ‘only’ Longford, Mayo need to produce a performance that instils supporters with a belief that they might yet see tangible reward for the four years labour by a manager of proven pedigree.
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