Fáilte chuig gaa.ie - suíomh oifigiúil CLG

Football

football

Preview: Division I - Mayo v Dublin

Stephen Rochford

Stephen Rochford

Saturday, February 6

Allianz Football League Division I**

Mayo v Dublin, Elverys MacHale Park, 7pm - Live on Setanta

Stephen Rochford always knew there would be days like this during his time with Mayo, but he probably didn’t expect them to come so soon. And with a visit from Dublin coming six days after a chastening defeat to Cork, the immediate forecast isn’t much brighter for the rookie manager.

It’s been nothing but bad news for the last few days. Lee Keegan has now definitely been ruled out of action following a much-publicised concussion incident in Páirc Uí Rinn. To add to Mayo’s woes, Kevin McLoughlin and Mikey Sweeney both sustained hamstring injuries in Cork, but neither was ruled out of the game at the time of writing.

On the plus side, Alan Freeman is reported to be available for the first time this year, while there are also indications that captain Keith Higgins is making a quicker than expected recovery from a knee injury sustained in January and could play some part.

Those minor bright spots aside, it’s been a fairly dismal start to the Allianz League for Mayo and Rochford. While a lengthy injury list, and the involvement of three Mayo sides in the latter stages of the AIB All-Ireland club championships, explains a lot, it doesn’t fully explain just how poor the performance in Cork was.

With 13 minutes to go, Rochford’s side were 14 points down and facing humiliation. In fairness, Conor O’Shea and Tom Parsons showed some fight in the closing stages, but Cork took the foot off the gas and were reduced to 13 men. It could have been far worse than the final, nine-point losing margin.

“We'd be disappointed, but league is league, you have got six games to move on towards in the next two months,” Rochford said afterwards, an attitude to the competition that some have taken issue with in recent days.

However, when you consider Mayo have been utterly dominant in Connacht for five years, and with the knock-out stages of the All-Ireland series still nearly six months away, building slowly towards a late summer peak is probably a sensible plan.

"You can't judge any team or say where they are going to end up next summer based on what happens in January," midfielder Barry Moran, who is currently preparing for an All-Ireland semi-final with Castlebar, said this week. "It was a bad defeat to Cork but to say that the team is on the slide, or anything like that, I wouldn't think that's it.”

Regardless, Mayo will be expected to put on a show for the visit of Dublin to Castlebar on Saturday night. Having orchestrated the departure of joint managers Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes at the end of last season, the always expectant Mayo supporters will demand it from the players; they will also expect to see more fight than the startlingly timid showing in Cork and more of the high-octane stuff that has defined their rivalry with Dublin in recent years.

/>If any team can draw a performance out of Mayo, it’s Dublin. The sides have now met 11 times (Dublin six wins; Mayo two; three draws) in the Allianz League and championship in the last five years, and the rivalry came to the boil in the two All-Ireland semi-final meetings last summer.

While a well-contested replay, which Dublin won by 3-15 to 1-14, drew much of the poison from a brutal opening game, this remains an intense and enthralling rivalry which rarely fails to entertain. Consider their last four League meetings. Dublin hammered Mayo (2-18 to 0-10) in the Allianz League last year, they drew in Croke Park in 2014, Dublin won a thriller in 2013, and who could forget the night Mayo ambushed the Dubs (0-20 to 0-8) in MacHale Park in 2012 before repeating the dose in the All-Ireland semi-final later that summer?

Given the scary early season performance levels Dublin hit last Saturday night in their 2-14 to 0-14 win over Kerry – Paddy Andrews’ performance in particular was remarkable – Mayo have some work to do to turn things around in six days.

“Mayo always bring that physicality and intensity that a lot of other teams don’t,” Dublin attacker Dean Rock said after his seven-point contribution against Kerry. “That’s the thing that stands out for me really – the high-octane games when ourselves and Mayo come up against each other.”

Dublin are still without a number of frontline players, but their supporting act is so strong it shouldn’t matter much. Mayo have lots to prove and going on their always entertaining past meetings, this is the can’t-miss game of the second weekend of the Allianz League.