Conor Mortimer backs Mayo to edge battle with Louth

By John Harrington

Former Mayo footballer, Conor Mortimer, believes Andy Moran’s team will have to shore things up defensively if they’re to beat Louth in Saturday’s All-Ireland SFC semi-final.

Mayo have been an encouraging work in progress during the championship campaign but have consistently coughed up a lot of goal chances that could have proven fatal if opponents like Monaghan, Meath and Cork were more clinical.

“I think that's where the main focus of work would have been for the last two, three, four weeks,” says Mortimer.

“I think particularly from the Meath game. And it has gotten a bit better. We didn't cough up a huge amount of goal chances against Cork, but we coughed up enough two-point range shots that they didn't put over the bar.

“So, there is room for improvement and it'll have to be found because Louth have a lot of scorers, they have a lot of running power as well. The later you get in the Championship, if a team takes those chances, it's very hard to come back from it. There's two or three, four goals that teams are leaving behind them in the couple of games that we've played.

“Big, big Championship games are won defensively, more so than offensively. You've got to be tight defensively to have a chance of winning any game whe you get to a quarter-final, semi-final, final. There's no question, because the better teams will expose it.

“They'll have watched enough videos of Mayo to know where to kind of attack them. So you'd expect the work is being done there and that it will be solid on Saturday.

“I wouldn't want a shoot-out, I don't think that would be hugely beneficial for us, because ultimately I think Louth have more of a spread in terms of nine or ten lads that can kick points regularly, where we have five or six that I'd be looking at getting two or three points.

“So I think if we can keep it kind of tight early and stop their running game, we have a great opportunity of turning them over. There's no question of that if we get enough ball inside to our forwards and let the guys play.”

That inside-forward line of Ryan O’Donoghue, Darragh Beirne and Kobe McDonald scored a combined 13 points from play in Mayo’s quarter-final win over Cork and Mortimer is hopeful they can work the oracle once more against Louth.

“All good players,” he says. “You have balance in terms of your left footers and your right footers. You can go either side. And from looking to kick pass the ball in, it's just more optional. You have guys coming off the shoulder and the movement is good.

“And they're young, they're full of running, they're playing with huge freedom. Now, typically, as the championship goes on, defenders and defences will generally give you less freedom.

“But I think, for our group, it's about improving on what we did against Cork another five or ten percent and seeing where that takes us, I think that's ultimately what the focus will be on, and it's just getting a performance. It's a 50-50 game for me, but I think if we can do that we'll be there in the last five or ten minutes.

“Obviously everyone talks about it, but the kick-out and the possession around the middle is a big factor. Louth are very big around the middle. So we need to navigate that from their kick-outs and then we've got to have our own. If we get enough possession, we'll be okay.

“That's the key, to get enough possession and try and turn them over and then pip it at the end. It'll be close, but I fancy Mayo to win it.”