Mayo seal Kildare relegation to set up league final with Kerry

Mayo 2-20 Kildare 0-18

The nomadic life suits Mayo just fine. James Horan’s team sailed through to a league final meeting with Kerry after a sunny outing in Carrick-on-Shannon which confirmed Kildare’s drop to division two.

There should be no surprise that Mayo have responded to September’s All-Ireland final disappointment by coming back twice as hard. They’ve been resilient throughout a league when they were effectively homeless and, like it or not, have a chance to grab the first meaningful silverware of the year next weekend.

Kildare fell away in the last quarter of the game. The players couldn’t have known it but their relegation fate was sealed by the events of a far-off county: Jack McCarron’s late, super heroic winner for Monaghan condemned the Lilywhites to the drop. Glenn Ryan is not a man who believes in sugar-coating life’s inescapable truths and he didn’t change that here.

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“At the end of the day, we can’t depend on others to allow us to achieve things. It’s down to ourselves, and they were by the ways. Unless we sort things out ourselves and prepare as best we can and get ourselves to as good a level as we can, that’s the only way we’re going to improve and we can’t look to others to help us improve. There’s home and away games, you have to play both. We don’t go out any harder to win our home games as we do our away games, and our away games were against Mayo who were in the All-Ireland final last year, and Tyrone who were the All-Ireland champions, so maybe there should be some cognisance made of that too.”

Thunder Road

So Mayo continue via the only route they know: Thunder Road. Ryan O'Donoghue had a sensational afternoon, giving a master class in creative forward play and bagging 1-3 for himself in the first period. Jason Doherty gradually turned white hot at full forward and Jordan Flynn, underlined a revelatory spring season at midfield by hitting 1-1 from play. In addition to 2-20, they had 12 wides and might have had another two goals. It was a serious exhibition of fire power.

Kildare matched Mayo score for score in the first half but like many teams found themselves slowly drained by the relentless turning of the Mayo wheels. The contest was only going one way after Flynn’s 50th minute goal.

Changes galore for Mayo here and not just confined to the sideline. James Horan was absent for the day to attend a family confirmation occasion with James Burke given the task of deputising. His first job was to inform the referee of wholesale amendments to the listed programme. But the one name that Mayo supporters were hoping to hear remains a conspicuous absence: no Cillian O’Connor. And there was a further blow when Brendan Harrison, the Aghamore man who has had a nightmarish spell with injuries, was stretchered off the field after just two minutes of play. He reappeared in a heavy knee brace and on crutches to watch the remainder of the game: another spell in rehabilitation beckons. Then Diarmuid O’Connor, another late inclusion, was forced off with what looked like a hamstring issue.

Carrick-on-Shannon had a bang of summer about it: glasses of iced ciders outside Cryans and the mighty Shannon itself glittering in the March sunshine. There was the usual traffic chaos around the pretty town’s needless proliferation of roundabouts. Once again, Seán McDiarmuid Park presented itself as a perfect sports ground. Neutrals who ambled in were treated to a spectacle of eye-catching forward play in the first half – if counterbalanced by a fairly casual approach to defence from both sides. There was an end-of-term giddiness about the occasion and as the scoreboard began to tick busily, scores from elsewhere began to drift in.

It was clear that if Kildare were going to go down, they would go down shooting. They hit 0-11 from play in the first half alone in a classy exhibition, fronted by the flawless Ben McCormack. Lee Keegan kept tabs on Jimmy Hyland, who would not get a score from play but Kildare still found the range easily, with Paul Cribbin striking two from two in the first half. Those stats won’t please the defensive monster within Mayo.

Gorgeous pick-up

Inevitably, their defensive intensity was significantly different when the teams returned. Kildare’s scoring rate slowed dramatically – just 0-2 in the last 22 minutes of the game. Lee Keegan and Oisín Mullin were terrific and Pádraig O’Hora, who replaced the luckless Harrison, brought his usual combustible energy and popped up to fire two points of his own. But O’Donoghue was in the zone, sharpest to every ball, seeing two moves ahead of him and always looking to involve his team-mates. Mayo’s penultimate score of the day characterised the best of them: O’Donoghue racing back to poke a ball loose, Aidan O’Shea coming in with a meaty tackle, Enda Hession arriving to execute a gorgeous pick-up and O’Donoghue popping up again at the end of the counterattack with a goal chance: Flynn was at hand to tap the save over the bar.

Mayo face the prospect of a league final without either of the O'Connor brothers or Tommy Conroy in the attack. Few teams are better at adaptation. Kilmeena's Jack Carney came further into the reckoning as a championship starter with a fine game here while the sight of Doherty will be reassuring for the Mayo faithful. It's the old story. They dust themselves down. They improvise and get on with it. What they think about it all is anyone's guess: Mayo confirmed before the game that nobody from the squad would be available for interview, in support of the GPA-GAA stand-off. The season is taking shape.

MAYO: 1 R Byrne; 2 L Keegan, 3 D McBrien, 17 B Harrison; 19 M Plunkett (0-2), 5 O Mullin, 20 R Brickenden; 8 J Flynn (1-2), 9 M Ruane (0-1); 6 A O'Shea, 11 J Carney (0-3), 25 D O'Connor, 24 J Carr (0-2, one mark), 14 J Doherty (0-5), 15 R O'Donoghue (1-1, one mark).

Substitutes: 4 P O’Hora (0-2) for 17 B Harrison (5 mins inj.), 22 K McLoughlin for 25 D O’Connor (24 mins), 21 E Hession for 3 D McBrien (half-time), 13 A Orme for 24 J Carr (49 mins), 7 S Coen for 14 J Doherty (67 mins.

KILDARE: 1 M Donnellan (0-1 free); 2 M O'Grady, 3 S Ryan, 4 R Houlihan; 5 T Archibold, 6 J Murray, 7 D Ryan; 8 K Feely, 9 K Flynn (0-1); 10 K O'Callaghan, 11 B McCormack (0-4), 12 P Cribbin (0-2) ; 13 P Woodgate (0-1 free), 14 D Kirwan (0-4), 15 J Hyland (0-4, 1 mark 3 frees).

Substitutes: 25 D Malone for 4 R Houlihan (30 mins inj.), 20 D Flynn for 10 K O’Callaghan (45 mins). 22 A Beirne for P Woodgate (57 mins), 21 B McLaughlin (0-1) for 11 B McCormack (59 mins), 19 P McDermott for 7 D Ryan (67 mins).

Referee: D Gough (Meath).