Criticism of western warriors Mayo is undeserved after late Dublin draw

WHEN Mayo emerged from their dressing room just seconds after the Dublin players had begun filtering through the tunnel on Sunday, there was always the potential for friction.

Dublin were heading towards the bench for the squad photograph but many of the Mayo players took off in that direction too. Aidan O’Shea and Michael Darragh Macauley got entangled in a scrape.

Then Keith Higgins hit Macauley a dig. Most of the Dublin players had their backs to the commotion by that stage but a group of Mayo players had circled around Macauley. Before the game had even begun, Mayo had sent out a message to Dublin; this time, it was going to be different; this time, there was no backing down.

Mayo didn’t blink but the general feeling afterwards was, and still is, indelibly linked to their identity and history. It’s already been said a thousand times; Mayo have blown it again; they will never get a better chance; Dublin won’t be as poor in the replay. Yet, did that level of underperformance, especially from the Dublin attack, have anything to do with Mayo?

In total, Dublin had 325 possessions. Mayo had 247. Dublin had five more shots at the target. Mayo conceded two own goals. Mayo didn’t raise a green flag. With those numbers, Dublin should definitely have won. But they didn’t.

Dublin may not have hit Mayo with their best shots but they took whatever Dublin could summon, including two killer sucker punches, and Mayo still didn’t go down.

Nobody highlighted that resilience and relentless drive more than Donie Vaughan. He didn’t make his first play until the 17th minute. He had the second-lowest number of possessions of any outfield starting Mayo player. And yet, Vaughan ran and tackled and worked like a demon all day, kicking two massive points.

Cillian O’Connor didn’t have his best game but his work-rate off the ball was phenomenal. He had the seventh highest tackle-count of the 41 players on the pitch. He nailed seven from nine shots in difficult conditions. And O’Connor had the courage and the conviction to land that late equalising point.

O’Connor visualised making that shot because he has made it in training a thousand times. So has Alan Dillon. In the warm-up beforehand, Dillon repeatedly kicked points from the exact same spot where he landed his late score.

Dublin’s numbers were way down, primarily because of the weather and the heat that Mayo put on them. Dublin only converted six of 23 scoring chances from play. After converting 39 out of 43 placed balls prior to Sunday, Dean Rock only nailed one of his first five attempts.

Jim Gavin’s side struggled to deal with Mayo’s defensive set up. Five of their six forwards underperformed. Ciaran Kilkenny was Dublin’s best forward. He made more plays than anyone else (51) but there are a number of ways of analysing Kilkenny’s performance.

He had to go wing-back after James McCarthy’s black card. Kilkenny gets on a lot of ball but does he penetrate enough? Does he hold up the ball too much? On the other hand, Kilkenny repeatedly waits for the right moment to try and initiate a lot of attacks. And he had 12 possessions in the last seven minutes because he was the guy looking to take responsibility.

Lee Keegan clearly sacrificed his game to tie up Diarmuid Connolly because Keegan never went forward, nor was he the attacking threat Mayo need him to be. Kevin McLoughlin was very effective as the sweeper, having the second highest tackle-count, but his positioning and reading of the game, without the ball, did impact on the supply going into the Dublin attack. Bernard Brogan had 11 possessions but he only managed to get off two shots, none of which were converted.

Having 12 turnovers in the first-half, half of which were cheap, hurt Mayo. They turned over a lot of ball too in the second-half, especially Seamus O’Shea, but Mayo managed the game as smartly as they could.

Their kick-out tactic to the left corner inside their own 20-metre line did leave the Westerners with a lot to do but they tried to starve Dublin of as much possession as they could. Mayo’s shot-conversion rate of 60 per cent needs to be higher but it was decent in the conditions. They also made more tackles (68-60) and had just one more unforced error (14-13).

Mayo had more consistent performers but John Small and Brian Fenton were still the two outstanding players on the pitch. Small made 34 plays and kicked a decisive late score. Fenton made 32 plays. He could have had two goals only for two brilliant David Clarke saves, but Fenton also kicked a crucial point in the second-half when Dublin desperately needed a score.

Fenton and Dublin caused huge problems for Mayo down that left flank in the first-half, but Mayo finally got a handle on that issue. Critically, the Connacht side also had the legs to not allow Dublin get a run on them in the last quarter, when Dublin win most of their games.

After coming off the bench, Paddy Andrews was Dublin’s most effective forward, but Mayo never allowed Dublin to really damage them at a time when they normally inflict the deepest wounds on the opposition.

Dublin still looked to have done enough late on but Mayo refused to yield. In his column on Sunday morning, Joe Brolly took a flamethrower to these Mayo players. He accused them of being ‘Celebrity losers’. Then Brolly asked: ‘What type of men are they?’

They’re warriors. Absolute warriors.

• Dublin and Mayo will replay on October 1 with a throw-in time of 5pm