By John Harrington

Mayo’s championship story for the past six years has been a pretty epic one, and the latest chapter has come with a few unexpected twists.

They’ve been provided by the team’s first journey through the All-Ireland Qualifiers in six years, which has been a novel experience after five years of provincial success.

As Mayo midfielder Tom Parsons readily admits, the do or die nature of the Qualifiers guarantees a desperate sort of drama, especially when you teeter on the brink like Mayo did against Fermanagh.

“Well, look, we're in a situation now where every game that we play is essentially an All-Ireland Final,” says Parsons. “We can't lose. So week in, week out they're big games and the first game in the qualifier round we were drawn against Fermanagh, a really tough side, a good side.

“So, look, it's been really intensive the last three weeks, there's no doubt about it, since Galway, and this week will be the same leading into the Westmeath game.

“It comes with its positives and its negatives. It's negatives are that it's certainly a more fatiguing route on the body and these are big games where guys use and utilise a lot of energy.

“So fatigue wise it's more difficult but you can't beat games and you learn a lot about yourselves as a group in games so it's definitely a positive with the quantity of games that we've got. Hopefully it will stead us well against Westmeath next Saturday.”

Optimistic Mayo supporters, if they still exist after years of All-Ireland title near-misses, are clinging to the hope that a run of hard matches through the Qualifiers will benefit this team more than their sustained provincial dominance did.

Parsons isn’t buying the line though that five Connacht titles in a row didn’t sufficiently steel them for the demands of the All-Ireland series.

“No, no, over the last five years, the Connacht championship in itself has been competitive. If you look at Mayo's record in Connacht, Mayo weren't winning Connacht titles by big margins.

“They played Sligo in a Connacht final and won by a point, played Roscommon in 2014 and won by a point, so the Connacht games had been competitive and like that, winning a provincial championship gives you a bit more recovery time to prepare for the All-Ireland series.

“We don't know where this route will bring us but all we do know is that we can be really focused on the next game. Since we lost to Galway as a group, there has been a huge focus on the next game being the be all and end all and that's a key learning point.”

The Qualifiers have certainly given Mayo the opportunity to tweak and experiment with their system of play.

At times in recent years they have been accused of being naïve defensively, so the adoption of a sweeper system this year with Kevin McLaughlin in the role has been a notable development.

“If we look at every team in the country they are looking at the option of the sweeper system, let that be one man or a group sweeping system, and I think every team in the country utilizes their resources to the best of their abilities,” says Parsons.

“The Mayo management team as a group have recognised that Kevin McLoughlin is a very good tackler and naturally going up through the ranks at under-21 grade Kevin was naturally a defender so it is a new role for Kevin but I don’t think we were doing anything different to what other counties are doing at the moment.

“But, I think Kevin has been in that role for three games and I think he is playing really well. If we keep learning on those aspects of the game that has failed against the Fermanaghs, the Kildares of this world and try and keep improving this system hopefully it is something which will stead us well.

“Certainly we haven’t as a group nailed a 100 per cent polished sweeper system. On top of that the main aspects of how Mayo play football are based upon aggression, work rate, running ability, tackling, all of these key factors and regardless of system in place if those key aspects of your game are not in place then no system will make up for that shortfall.”

Mayo have proven themselves to be adaptable in their two Qualifier matches to date. The most obvious example of this was when Aidan O’Shea was moved to full-back against Kildare to good effect.

Some would say that O’Shea’s effectiveness in the last couple of years has been blunted by being shuttled from one position to another, but Parsons believes the multi-functionality of the Mayo players is a strength rather than a weakness.

“I don't think Aidan's position has been messed around,” he said. “It was quite clear against Kildare that our full-back went off injured, Ger Caff our other full-back has sustained a long term injury and won't be playing this year and Kildare moved Feely and Moolick intermittently into the full-forward line so it was an obvious decision and choice to move a big guy like Aidan O'Shea to full-back.

“We don't know what Westmeath brings the next day and decisions will need to be made on the day and if you look at Keith Higgins, he's an All-Star corner-back playing in the half-forward line, equally the next day he could be in the full-forward line, half-forward line, half-back line or full-back line.

“With the modern game now players need to be adaptable to what happens on game day and Aidan is one of these players who is very adaptable and that's a strength.”

If Mayo beat Westmeath on Saturday they’ll be back in the much more familiar territory of an All-Ireland Quarter-Final, and perhaps better for the Qualifier experience. Parsons isn’t looking that far ahead though, because he doesn’t think what they’ve produced so far in the Championship would be good enough to ensure victory over Westmeath.

“I think in our performance against Galway, we had to better that performance to beat Fermanagh, and equally our performance against Fermanagh we were six points down at half time, we had to better the Fermanagh performance to beat Kildare.

“I think next Saturday we're facing a Westmeath team who have had two outings in Croke Park this year, beating Kildare and representing themselves well against Dublin, and arguably for 35 minutes of the game were a better team than Dublin.

“We need to improve on our performance against Kildare to beat Westmeath and I think every team if they want to progress in this competition needs to improve on their last performance or they'll be out.”