THE best that can be said about this play off is that it's over. For all the grim prospects conjured up by relegation to Division Three of the Church & General NFL the minds of both teams at Tuam yesterday were undoubtedly distracted by the imminence of the championship.

Mayo's need in that regard is more pressing with less than eight weeks to go before their return to St Jarlath's Park for the first round Connacht meeting with Galway whereas Clare don't swing into action for a month after that.

Mayo's need in relation to staying in Division Two didn't seem that pressing but they managed to pick off a meagre sufficiency of scores in a match dominated by defence.

Clare's performance in attack was, however, awful. A total of four points, two from frees and the other two scored by centrefielder Michael Hynes, gives direct evidence as to their forwards' shortcomings, further corroborated by 13 wides.

Mayo manager John Maughan was in cheery humour afterwards detailing to camera his relief at not having to plan for an attritional itinerary around the third division next season. He said he was unhappy with the first half performance but felt that Mayo had shown great character in the second half to hold off his former charges.

For his Clare counterpart - and successor - John O'Keeffe the whole exercise had been riven with woe. A plague of injuries had forced five changes from the team that beat Kerry recently in the McGrath Cup.

Most seriously, Francis McInerney suffered a fractured bone on his leg during that Kerry match and although it is not a long term injury, it lays him up for a few weeks.

O'Keeffe was downbeat in the Clare dressingroom. "It's very disheartening," he said about the county's second successive relegation. "Inconsistency has been our main problem. We hit a bad spell before Christmas and paid the price for it today. We need our bigger names available, we had too many under 21s playing.

"I thought McInerney was a big loss. It meant we'd no target man and that told against us when we had the wind in the second half. We also missed Aidan O'Keeffe's free taking. When we get players like that back and Padraig Conway and Odran Dwyer, we'll pick up again. I think the midfield will come good."

"We'll take stock for a week or so and then pick the panel for the championship."

Clare's defence stood its ground. Frankie Griffin, playing his 100th League match, gave no change at full back and wing backs - Barry Keating and Aodan MacCarthaigh controlled the flanks until the arrival of David Nestor.

Carrying such a casualty list in attack, it was perhaps no wonder that Clare failed to impress but there were other failings. Ger Keane was disappointing. Apart from his two frees, he never provided the sort of spark that might have fired a comeback. John Enright gave further evidence that he is best deployed at wing back and the formerly prolific Martin Daly had an anonymous afternoon before being substituted.

These were important lapses because Mayo spent the whole match flattering Clare on the scoreboard so any small inspiration might have nicked the goal which could well have undermined the Connacht champions' self belief.

With the summer in sight, Maughan will be concerned about a few things. Some of his established players did well yesterday whereas others didn't similarly with his newcomers.

The good points included most of the defence although James Nallen wasn't as dominant as last year had led us to expect. Fergal Costello, previously a panellist, acquitted himself well in the left corner back position. Elsewhere Kevin Cahill and Pat Holmes maintained their formidable reputations.

As with Clare, the trouble was further afield. Centrefield has been a recurring nightmare since the autumn. The impact of Liam McHale's precipitous loss of form was exacerbated by David Brady's broken leg and Pat Fallon's inability to reproduce his All Ireland replay performance levels.

Yesterday, Fallon still looked out of sorts but McHale showed encouraging signs of recovery, playing his part in moving the ball quickly and putting in a fair amount of work.

Two late changes to the attack gave little immediate hope of solution. With the retired Anthony Finnerty and Ray Dempsey both apparently finished at senior intercounty level, the search is on for corner forwards.

This search wasn't much assisted by Kevin O'Neill's declining of an invitation to rejoin the county panel. Yesterday Kieran McDonald and PJ Loftus came in for Ronan Golding and AN Other. Neither did much to suggest that they'll be contributing handsomely to another championship run by the county.

Loftus lacked conviction and when he had worked a genuine position for goal, McDonald left him inside and took a point, thus protecting the integrity of his apparent principle never to pass except in extremis.

Neither James Horan nor Maurice Sheridan - whose combined wing forward play contributed substantially to last year's achievements completed the match. Sheridan was sent off for a second bookable offence in the 50th minute and Horan was replaced at half time by Nestor.

Nestor gave what was without question the liveliest display in the Mayo attack, contributing a point and nearly scoring a goal after a sniping raid set up by John Casey who had evidently decided, after two tours of duty during four switches at full forward, to vacate the square and play deep.

This he did with enthusiasm and energy but it's not what the team need him to bring to the party.

Mayo led 0-4 to 0-1 at halftime. Once a three minute burst of two points by Clare was shown to have offered only an illusion of a comeback, the winners added a couple of points of their own.

Their failure to put the match away left them vulnerable to the concession of a goal but that proved to be every hit beyond Clare as it looked.