Champions Donegal knocked out by Mayo’s heavyweight performance

They keep telling the world it’s different this time, so maybe now folk will believe it. Mayo didn’t so much dethrone Donegal in front of 63,466 slack-jawed guests yesterday as undress them. They ate them whole, running up a 4-17 to 1-10 win over the All-Ireland champions in a game that was over well before half-time. Never mind the scoreboard, check the Richter Scale.

It was the kind of afternoon where no matter where the laser pointed, it zapped a record. It was the heaviest beating suffered by reigning All-Ireland champions since Dublin lost the 1978 final to Kerry by 5-11 to 0-9. It was the first time since the 1950 that Donegal have conceded four goals in a championship game. It means that Mayo have won their four matches this summer by an aggregate of 61 points. “It has been written that we don’t have clinical forwards,” mused Andy Moran afterwards.

It won’t be written any longer. Mayo had 13 different scorers yesterday, including 3-4 from Cillian O’Connor who has now nailed back-to-back hat-tricks since returning from injury. They played Keith Higgins in the forwards from the start and gave Donal Vaughan all the licence he wanted to get up the pitch when he could. Higgins had a hand in three of their goals and Vaughan rounded Paul Durcan to score the second one himself on 14 minutes. It put Mayo 2-3 to 0-3 ahead and even by then you couldn’t see a way back for Donegal.

The All-Ireland champions had a complete systems failure. In their first 17 championship games under Jim McGuinness they had conceded a total of four goals. Yesterday, they coughed up four inside 45 minutes. The fact that it could have been more says everything about their day – only for Durcan saving at the feet of Lee Keegan and Kevin McLoughlin blazing wide when faced with an open goal, Mayo might have considered enforcing the follow-on.

This was the last strand of Donegal’s rope finally fraying and snapping. Jim McGuinness said several times afterwards that it was Mayo’s day and he didn’t want to take anything away from them. But no amount of magnanimity could hide the fact that Donegal were operating well below capacity and have been since way back at the start of the season.

Armless soldier
They were taking on water long before they sent Karl Lacey in with a bucket after 20 minutes. The 2012 Footballer of the Year carried himself around the pitch like the armless soldier in the Monty Python sketch, obviously unfit yet ceaseless in his defiance. He was his team in microcosm – willing but unable.

“We haven’t been at ourselves all year,” said McGuinness. “I don’t want to make excuses because it’s Mayo’s day and they’re fully deserving of their victory. But we haven’t got traction all year. We’ve had niggles and an awful lot of key players out and we haven’t been able to build momentum.

“But you’ve got say Mayo were on the money today. Even if we were fully at ourselves I think the result would have been with Mayo because of what they brought to the table. The intensity, the drive – they believe in their manager, they believe in their game plan. All those things push you forward. That’s exactly what we had last year.”

For a short spell, they looked like they might be able to dredge it up again. After O’Connor’s first goal put Mayo 1-2 to 0-0 up on six minutes, Donegal got three points on the bounce and it briefly looked like we could see a classic .

Clear water
But Vaughan's goal put clear water between them and from there on they just trampled Donegal underfoot. Michael Murphy scored to make it 2-3 to 0-4 on 16 minutes; by the time David Walsh kicked Donegal's next score 13 minutes into the second half, they were 4-12 to 0-5 behind. Mayo were merciless, Donegal collapsed.

“Collapse is a hard word but that’s the reality,” McGuinness conceded. “I knew we weren’t ourselves and I knew that instead of managing a team, we were managing a situation. That’s the difference probably.”

As for Mayo, the year is theirs to do with what they will. There isn’t a better team left in the championship and if the likes of the Aidan O’Shea – who was outstanding here – Vaughan, O’Connor and Moran keep on keeping on in this vein, it will take them where they yearn to go.

This year is different. It isn’t a matter of Mayo turning up and hoping for the best any more. Their credentials are genuine and their will has one target and one target only. They barely celebrated at the end here, regardless of the fact that they had ousted the All-Ireland champions for the third season in a row.

Imagine that even just a year ago.