Tactical breakdown: Derry pin back Mayo’s forwards to blunt their attacking threat

Anthony Daly once said about hurling; “A million mad things and someone wins”. This saying could certainly be attributed to many matches that Mayo footballers have been involved in. The dashboard below only tells half a story of what was an absorbing game against Derry last Saturday.

A lot of the metrics were well below what is expected of two teams at this stage of the competition. There is also the contrast in Mayo’s shooting efficiency between left and right and Derry favouring shooting primarily on the left side around the D.

Mayo forwards working tirelessly has a trade off

Derry’s method to try to shut down the attacking threat of the key Mayo forwards was two-pronged. They made it their business to suffocate them at every opportunity when Mayo attacked.

Ryan O’Donoghue, Tommy Conroy and Aidan O’Shea worked back the field tirelessly throughout the game. It is admirable that forwards are working back the field so hard. They had to work back the field as Derry backs like Conor McCluskey raided forward.

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This is an area where the Mayo man-to-man approach inhibits them from an attacking perspective. These three forwards should have been at the outer edges of the Mayo defence where possible, rather than stuck back towards their 20-metre line with a myriad of bodies to get beyond to impact a fast-paced attack.

They simply couldn’t advance up the field and be part of the pacy attacks Mayo are known for. This was well orchestrated by Derry to keep these danger men occupied with defensive duties.

The Mayo attacking trio accounted for nine turnovers in the tackle, O’Donoghue (four), Conroy (two) and O’Shea (three). Furthermore, four of these were inside their own 20-metre line. This is effectively half of the turnovers that Mayo won in the game, yet they only partially managed to transition these nine turnovers up the field, scoring 0-4 from them. Also, due to his defensive duties, O’Donoghue was only involved at the end of these moves in a free-taking capacity.

It is unlikely that Kerry will allow a situation where David Clifford and Seán O’Shea are pinned back inside their own 20-metre line, occupied with onerous defensive duties. However, Derry, at times, have made it their business to get men who are key to an opposition’s game plan doing jobs they didn’t necessarily want to do. Similar to getting the Mayo forwards to work back the field, in last year’s All Ireland semi-final Ciarán McFaul occupied Tadhg Morley and took him away from his customary sweeper role with Kerry.

Derry learning lessons

It has been widely highlighted how Derry faltered badly on long kick-outs and middle turnovers against Armagh, with their Ulster rivals punishing them in devastating manner with goals. Derry made sure they halted Mayo’s unstructured attacks at the earliest opportunity all day.

Five particular fouls by Derry players highlighted this. Chrissy McKaigue fouled Aidan O’Shea when he was stripped of possession in the middle third in the 18th minute; Eoin McEvoy hauled down O’Donoghue as Mayo attacked with pace from a turnover in the 22nd minute; and Shane McGuigan did likewise at the start of extra-time. Mayo didn’t get a return off any of these three turnovers, as Derry got their defensive shape set.

Furthermore, an Aidan O’Shea high turnover on McEvoy in the 43rd minute was also killed when Mayo looked to use the free quickly. In the 68th minute, on a long kick-out from Colm Reape, where Jordan Flynn outjumped Glass and got goal-side, he was unceremoniously stopped, and when Mayo tried to get the free away they were quickly by Derry killing the play.

In both instances, referee Brendan Cawley correctly brought the free forward into shooting range for Mayo, O’Donoghue executing the first, but Reape missing the second attempt. That is one point conceded by Derry from these five attacks where they were vulnerable, a massive shift on where they’ve been in recent weeks.

Derry leaders stepping up

Shane McGuigan made two huge contributions in clutch moments in Castlebar. He scored a point in the 66th minute when Derry trailed by two. He had an involvement on the left side of the attack and was blocked off by the resolute Mayo defence. He moved laterally to the right side of attack as Derry maintained possession before he lost his man with a cutback and scored a point from the edge of the D to bring the deficit back to one point.

In the second period of extra-time he rose highest to win an Odhrán Lynch kick-out in the 84th minute. He opted to ignore the mark and played the ball through the hands quickly and he got on the end of the move as Brendan Rogers assisted him for Derry’s final score of the game.

While in recent seasons, McGuigan has carried the majority of the scoring burden, he is now being ably assisted, at times, by Lachlan Murray, who scored 0-5 in Castlebar, a mark and four from play. He didn’t miss an effort at the posts. He has had other big games against Dublin in the league final and Roscommon in the league, but he will need to perform in Croke Park this weekend.

From a newcomer to an old head, Rogers gave a titanic display in the first half of extra-time as he almost single-handedly drove Derry on. He won two turnovers, scored a point and assisted an Ethan Doherty point in this first period of extra-time.

Derry will need leaders to stand up to shut down Kerry this weekend if they are to have a chance. They will need to come up with a very specific plan to shut down the Clifford brothers and the threat of Tom O’Sullivan and others coming from the other end of the field. A problem for Derry, though, in formulating this plan is have they really seen what Kerry are about this year yet? They have yet to be asked questions which would require them to show their hand.

Paul O’Brien is a performance analyst with The Performance Process (twitter.com/NoPlanBGAA).