Fast start is a false dawn as Mayo are held to draw

Connacht U20 Football Championship – Round 1 

Roscommon 1-13 

Mayo 3-7 

Kevin Egan at Dr Hyde Park 

In soccer, you might hear about a result where two teams draw, but one side won on penalties – and in gaelic football, that’s more and more common now too.

Long before penalty kicks were used to determine the official winner for the record books however, GAA supporters had their own way of working out who came out on top in a game where the scores were equal.

“It finished in a draw, but (insert team here) will be the happier team,” is the local currency, accepted in any pub/terrace/post-Mass conversation near you.

And while the scoreboard showed that Mayo and Roscommon finished level in their Connacht U20 championship opener last Wednesday night at Dr Hyde Park, even the most optimistic of away supporters would struggle to smile quite as widely as their Roscommon counterparts in the aftermath of this result.

The same supporters would gladly have taken a draw in the closing minutes, when David Dolan was black-carded for charging off his line to close down Roscommon’s Ryan Dowling, only to arrive late and flatten the attacking substitute. Dowling got his flick on the ball but it crept wide and once Shane McGinley popped over his sixth free of the night to tie up the game, Roscommon had an extra man and all the momentum.

Rob Heneghan had a chance to make himself the toast of the Cloonfad community, just on the Roscommon side of the three-county border, but he was denied by a fantastic full-length block by Eoin McGreal, and so Mayo got a share of the spoils for themselves.

Will it be enough, in a championship where both Galway and Sligo look like very strong contenders? Tomorrow night’s game in Hastings Insurance MacHale Park will go a long way to telling us, but right now, Mayo look like a side with plenty of potential, plenty of scoring threat, but perhaps lacking the physical strength and athletic ability in the middle third that they will need to really load the bullets for players like Niall Hurley and Darragh Beirne inside.

In the opening 20 minutes, the Claremorris duo were very much to the fore as Mayo pillaged the Rossie defence for three goals, looking for all the world as if they might plunder plenty more over the course of the remainder of the game.

At midfield and defence, Peadar Gardiner’s side was pushed to the pin of their collar, and even though Roscommon were struggling to put scores on the board, you didn’t need a tablet with a stats tagging programme to know that Mayo were struggling to gain parity. Conor Ryan and Shane Walsh offered an element of pure power and physicality at midfield that contrasted with the Mayo duo who looked happier when the ball was in hand, and it took a couple of vital interventions from David Slattery and John McMonagle to prevent Roscommon getting off the mark in the first quarter.

At the other end however, Mayo looked lethal every time they had ball in hand. Darragh Beirne kicked an early free, Niall Hurley hit the net with a clinical low near post finish from 12 metres, and when Hurley followed up with a gorgeous strike from the right hand side to split the uprights, it was so far so good.

A long-range free from Shane McGinley broke Roscommon’s duck and the same player put his name to a goal when he got a flick on a long Shane Walsh delivery, enough to deflect the ball past David Dolan and into the net.

Roscommon were still all at sea at the other end of the pitch. Hurley claimed a mark just inside the 45m line and then picked out Finbar McLaughlin with a long diagonal ball. The Westport man should have been swallowed up and forced backwards, but a well-intentioned, utterly foolish shoulder to shoulder tackle from a Roscommon defender propelled him out of traffic and clean through on goal, and his finish was emphatic and effective.

A calamitous goal from a Roscommon perspective followed, with Darragh Beirne rewarded for his honest effort as he closed down Roscommon goalkeeper Seán Allen, whose mishit handpass allowed Beirne to block the ball into the net. As a goal, it was worth three points, but as a psychological blow to a young home team that had metaphorically shot themselves in the foot, it felt like it was worth much more.

At 3-2 to 1-1, Mayo were in command, but even though a string of changes from home manager Noel Dunning didn’t quite address their defensive issues, Roscommon worked their way back into the game through energy, effort and their superiority in winning contested possessions at midfield and in the tackle. Eden Kerins, Conor Harley and Ryan Conlon were all brought into the action by the start of the second-half, and all three were upgrades on the men they replaced. Meanwhile, Mayo struggled to generate the energy and go-forward momentum that is traditionally associated with teams from the county, in no small part because of the careers of men like this team’s manager.

Shane McGinley was the scorer-in-chief for the Rossies with Bobby Nugent, wing-forward on the St Brigid’s team that lost the All-Ireland club final, also chipping in with two points.

3-3 to 1-6 was the lead at half-time and for most of the second-half, that balance continued. Four times Mayo extended the lead to four, four times Roscommon responded with the next point. A misplaced Roscommon handpass allowed Mayo to strike on the break and ultimately for Brendan Collins to shoot for goal with just the goalkeeper to beat, but he went high, wide and fruitless, leaving the Rossies in the game.

It was to prove costly. Two Shane McGinley frees either side of a point from the impressive substitute Ryan Conlon levelled the game, with the second of those frees awarded after David Dolan cleaned out Ryan Dowling, who was attempting to punch a high ball over the Balla custodian and into the net.

Dolan was given a black card and as it denied a goalscoring chance and was inside the arc, for a moment, the question of a penalty wasn’t entirely off the table.

In the end, his decision to arrive on the scene in such a wholehearted fashion was justified, as the ball crept wide, and while Roscommon generated one subsequent chance, Eoin McGreal’s block ensured a third first-round draw for Mayo in this championship in five years.

A draw, but Roscommon definitely the happier team, as the barstool and back-of-the-church pundits might say.

Scorers – Roscommon: Shane McGinley 1-8 (0-6f, 1 ‘45), Bobby Nugent 0-3 (1f), Ryan Conlon 0-2.

Mayo: Darragh Beirne (0-2f) and Niall Hurley 1-2 each, Finbar McLaughlin 1-0, Oisín Cronin 0-2, David Doland 0-1 (’45).

Roscommon: Seán Allen; Tommy Morris, Dan Casey, James Brady; James McGreal, David Flanagan, Eoghan Carthy; Conor Ryan, Shane Walsh; Dan Hagney, Bobby Nugent, Rob Heneghan; Shane McGinley, Senan Lambe, Rory Hester. Subs: Ryan Conlon (for Hagney 28), Eden Kerins (for Flanagan 28), Conor Harley (for Brady ht), Oisín O’Flaherty (for Ryan 45), Ryan Dowling (for Hester 51).

Mayo: David Dolan; Lorcan Silke, John MacMonagle, David Slattery; Jack Mulchrone, Yousif Coghill, Paul Gilmore; Diarmuid Duffy, Conal Dawson; Finbar McLaughlin, Cathal Keaveney, Tom O’Flaherty; Darragh Beirne, Niall Hurley, Darragh Reilly. Subs: Eoin McGreal (for Coghill 35), Brendan Collins (for Mulchrone 38), Oisín Cronin (for Reilly 38), Tom Lydon (for McLaughlin 48), Dylan O’Brien (for Dawson 60).

REF: John Gilmartin (Sligo)