Roscommon shock Mayo in Castlebar smash and grab

Roscommon 2-8

Mayo 0-10

THE PROVINCIAL CHAMPIONSHIPS live and breathe!

If you were among the 19,361 souls in Hastings MacHale Park on Sunday, you might have felt it was championship football in league weather, but whatever about events in Croke Park last Sunday, eaten bread is soon forgotten as Roscommon wiped out Mayo in their province.

Will it harm Mayo? Will it finish them for the year?

I’d doubt it. So will you. A six-week period now when they will be plotting and scheming, away from the glare of their own adoring-but-wavering support base, might go down very well once the initial sting of defeat subsides.

Maybe the league title had nothing to do with anything.

All the same you can’t help but wonder that somewhere on the Dublin-Kildare border, Roscommon manager Davy Burke might have been licking his chops at the sight of Mayo lifting silverware last Sunday.

When he woke up on Sunday morning to a squally west of Ireland day in keeping with the finest of traditions, he would have known that the omens were good.

For Roscommon put on nothing short of a clinic in the opening half, of pragmatic, thought-out football.

When Mayo won the toss and elected to start with the benefit of the wind, Rossies goalkeeper Conor Carroll would become a key facet of the shape of the game.

While the guests opened the scoring with a Diarmuid Murtagh free, Mayo were on level terms on three minutes, Ryan O’Donoghue pointed his own free awarded after being held back by Enda Smith.

On Carroll’s kickout, no fewer than eight Mayo players were stationed in two banks of four, inside the Roscommon ’45. It wasn’t a press. It was a smothering.

For Carroll’s nine kickouts in the opening half, they only surrendered possession twice. He mainly kicked long where Enda Smith might catch but there were a colony of breakball merchants in primrose and blue under it.

He was getting his worth out of each kickout too, just waiting long enough that it would agitate Mayo players and the crowd, without incurring the sharper judgement of referee Noel Mooney.

It took Mayo 23 minutes to register their next score, that coming from captain Paddy Durcan.

They might have had a goal on eight minutes when Durcan tried a hanging ball in towards Aidan O’Shea. He outmuscled Conor Daly and flicked it into the path of Stephen Coen who unleashed a thunderbolt, but it cannoned off the crossbar.

The frustrations mounted for Mayo as Roscommon recycled the ball around the rearguard killed the emotion of the game. Mayo thrive on emotion and spark, but all their giddiness was met with deadpan austerity. The sight of Rossies coach Mark McHugh on the touchline shaking his fist at the defence was oddly fitting.

Enda Smith rolls his penalty home. James Crombie / INPHO James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO

Eventually, something had to break out of the proscripted stuff and it arrived when Roscommon put together a move involving Niall Daly, David Murray and Dylan Ruane to give the Glaveys man a sight of goal. While Jordan Flynn smothered the first shot, Conor Loftus committed a footblock.

Enda Smith rolled the penalty to Colm Reape’s left and to the net.

Mayo’s revival would begin with Durcan’s point, followed by two dead ball efforts from Reape, but they were rocked back once again.

A long period of play finished with a backdoor cut to Ciaran Lennon and while Jack Carney got in the way of the shot, Donie Smith followed up in an Ian Rush sense to slot the ball to the net leaving the score 2-2 to 0-4 in Roscommon’s favour at the break.

But, sometimes it’s not easy to hold back the river. Mayo needed more energy and when was the last time you watched a flat Mayo performance all the way through?

Mayo hit four of the next five points, Donnacha McHugh floating over, Matthew Ruane lacing one, Tommy Conroy dancing inside Brian Stack’s path to swing over and Aidan O’Shea capitalising on a Ryan O’Donoghue turnover from a short kickout brought the temperature up.

But they were also answered by two Diarmuid Murtagh frees. And then Murtagh hoisted up a brilliant shot on the breeze that carried them three points clear.

Cillian O’Connor flung an outrageous effort over but for all that brilliance it was answered again by another Murtagh special on the break from a sustained period of Mayo pressure that amounted to nothing.

Going man for man, Roscommon held out against the waves of crashing pressure, Enda Smith adding another point for security as the seconds ticked away.

Scorers for Roscommon: Diarmuid Murtagh 0-6 (0-4f), Enda Smith 1-1 (1-0 penalty), Donie Smith 1-0, Conor Cox 0-1

Scorers for Mayo: Colm Reape 0-2 (1f, 1x’45), Ryan O’Donoghue 0-2 (0-2f), Donnacha McHugh, Paddy Durcan, Matthew Ruane, Aidan O’Shea, Tommy Conroy, Cillian O’Connor 0-1 each

MAYO

1. Colm Reape (Knockmore)

2. Jack Coyne (Ballyhaunis), 22. Eoghan McLaughlin (Westport), 4. Donnacha McHugh (Castlebar Mitchells)

5. Stephen Coen (Hollymout), 6. Conor Loftus (Crossmolina Deel Rovers), 7. Paddy Durcan (Castlebar Mitchels)

8. Matthew Ruane (Breaffy), 9. Diarmuid O’Connor (Ballntubber)

10. Fionn McDonagh (Westport), 11. Jack Carney (Kilmeena), 12. Jordan Flynn (Crossmolian Deel Rovers)

13. Aidan O’Shea (Breaffy), 18. Tommy Conroy (The Neale), 15. Ryan O’Donoghue (Belmullet)

Subs:

21. Darren McHale ( Knockmore) for McDonagh (51) 

24. Cillian O’Connor (Ballintubber) for McHale (Blood sub, 51)

19. Jason Doherty (Burrishole) for Eoghan McLaughlin (62)

23. Conor McStay (Ballina) for Jordan Flynn (62)

21. Darren McHale for Ruane (70)

ROSCOMMON

1. Conor Carroll (Oranmore/Maree)

2. Conor Hussey (Michael Glaveys), 3. Conor Daly (Pearses), 4. David Murray (Pearses)

5. Niall Daly (Pearses), 6. Brian Stack (St Brigid’s), 7. Eoin McCormack (St Dominic’s)

8. Dylan Ruane (Michael Glaveys), 9. Keith Doyle (St Dominic’s)

10. Ciaran Murtagh (St Faithleach’s), 11. Ciaran Lennon (Clann na nGael), 12. Enda Smith (Boyle)

22. Donie Smith (Boyle), 14. Diarmuid Murtagh (St Faithleach’s), 15. Ben O’Carroll (St Brigid’s)

Subs

23. Cian  McKeon (Boyle) for Lennon (52)

13. Conor Cox (Eire Og) for Donie Smith (60)

19. Richard Hughes (Roscommon Gaels) for Daly (66)

24. Niall Kilroy (Fuerty) for Ruane (70)

21. Cian Connolly for O’Carroll (70)

Referee: Noel Mooney (Cavan)

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