LEE Keegan believes the All-Ireland chances of Mayo and Tyrone have not been harmed by their early exits from the provincial Championships.
The Allianz League Division One final winners lost to Roscommon the following weekend, leaving them with a six-week wait until the new All-Ireland SFC round-robin series commences.
From ex-defender Keegan’s perspective, it’s a blessing in disguise for Mayo for a number of reasons.
Firstly, he reckons it would have been almost impossible to keep operating at such a high level of intensity indefinitely and that a break was necessary.
He also believes the gap between games will allow them to nail down their preferred line-up with an array of options up front to consider.
The bottom line for Keegan is that only four of the 16 teams – the provincial winners – will hit the new group stage without defeats on their record so Mayo’s Sam Maguire hopes haven’t been dented.
“Unless you’re getting to a provincial final, they’re the only teams that are going to be playing games,” said Keegan.
“You take Tyrone either, they’ve had no games from the same time nearly as Mayo, so they’re in the same boat. Like, take Galway and the Connacht final against Sligo. Not disrespecting Sligo but what benefit is it hammering Sligo?
Is that bringing momentum for Galway or do you rotate your squad for that game? Look, I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all for Mayo.
“Of course, nothing ever substitutes or replaces big games but in the grand scheme of things, even if they lose a game or two in the group stage, there’s still a chance of a preliminary quarter-final. So I don’t think losing in the province is going to be a huge deal. It’s the same situation for nearly all of the teams going into it.”
In Mayo’s case, five-time Allstar Keegan is hoping that manager Kevin McStay can use the training period to nail down a functioning forward line.
They handed game-time to 16 different forwards during the League campaign, though the team returned just 0-10 against Roscommon and four of the five substitutes that came on that day were forwards.
“I think what Mayo are looking for is more inside forwards,” said Keegan.
“They’ve tried 16 forwards, have got new combinations. Tommy Conroy is back, Ryan (O’Donoghue) is back fit, we’ve got Aidan (O’Shea) back playing good football, albeit the Roscommon game was tough for him.
“I would have been disappointed from the forward aspect against Roscommon. If you look, we had only three forwards who scored in that game. No forwards scored from play in the second half. So that’s definitely an area they need to work on.
“The big question is do they start Cillian (O’Connor)? Do you start Aidan? Do you start Ryan with them, or Tommy Conroy? Is Tommy an impact sub? Or James Carr? I don’t think he has a settled forward line just yet.
“I don’t think that they’re unsettled but I don’t think they have the full combination from what we’ve seen so far.”
Another area of concern for Keegan is the repositioning of Conor Loftus, a Mayo forward and midfielder in the past, to the pivotal centre-back slot.
“My only negative around that is, defensively, it’s that positioning,” said Keegan. “Does he have the awareness when marking a Sean O’Shea? Does he go with him, does he stay holding? How does he go about that? It’s a different role for him. He’s done okay so far, he had a good League. But the higher the quality team, they’ll figure that out, that he’s a forward essentially playing as a back. And can they exploit that? That’s going to be a challenge for Kevin, does he stick or twist with that? I expect they’re going to stay with it as they have all year.”
