Rainbow time in Letterkenny. As a heavenly covenant that we wouldn’t be drowned on this occasion, it was a bit equivocal. Four times, a rainbow appeared in the sky over O’Donnell Park in Letterkenny and four times, the rain resumed shortly afterwards.
In metaphorical terms, what lies at the end of these rainbows for Donegal and Mayo?
This was a big February league match, attended by 8,900 people. The visit of Mayo was an anticipated contest between the only two counties to have won their opening two matches in Division One.
Both sides were left last year nursing championship wounds. Donegal lost the All-Ireland final to Kerry – convincingly – whereas Mayo lost the critical match of their campaign to Donegal.
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They lost again this time, but not by last June’s single, agonising Ciarán Moore point when a draw would have seen both counties progress. This time was more comprehensive but also more bearable.
A poor start by Mayo meant they surrendered the initiative to Donegal. The home team enforced their game to such effect that the result never really looked in doubt after the opening exchanges. Conor O’Donnell’s 46th-minute goal – the only green flag of the afternoon – administered the last rites in an authoritative 1-19 to 0-14 victory.
Summer may be a long way off in meteorological terms, but even on wet February afternoons, it’s always in the air.
Mayo manager Andy Moran was upbeat. He had been unhappy with the team’s opening 26 minutes, but heartened by the bench-driven revival – he singled out Conor Loftus, back in action for the first time in two years – that made the second half more competitive without threatening the outcome. He also made a crucial distinction.
“That’s the great thing about the league, lads,” said Moran. “It’s that every week you get the chance to go and improve again, whereas when Mayo got beaten by Donegal last year at the end of the championship, that was it.”
His team began the campaign with a reputation for no-strings-attached attack and they certainly created plenty of chances against Galway and Dublin. The concerning statistic from the first week was the number of goal chances conceded and Moran spoke of the need to find a balance between performance levels at either end of the field.
This time, he ruefully acknowledged that striking the balance continues to prove elusive.
“We’re obviously not [doing it], if I’m being honest, because we were very good in attack against Galway and our defence wasn’t great. Today, I’d say we’re nearly 90 per cent on our own kickout but we’re going in six points down at half-time. So, it was the back end of the field that was the problem today.
“That’s the nature of these things when you’re starting afresh. You need to get the two of them together. We probably sorted that side a tiny bit in terms of the defensive shape, but today we weren’t good enough up top.”
Of course, the opposition has a direct influence on such things and Donegal were very good. Jim McGuinness’s men were more sustained and menacing than in the jittery win over an under-strength Kerry two weeks previously – less ponderous in the build-up once they had figured out the wind.
Oisín Gallen kicked 0-6, four from play, on his first start of the year and was the television man of the match. There were also telling contributions from Conor O’Donnell, who weighed in with 1-3, while 20-year-old Finnbarr Roarty did a consummate marking job on Mayo’s forward conductor Ryan O’Donoghue. He not only outscored O’Donoghue from play, but showed impressive pace and stamina in his dashes up and down the pitch.
McGuinness said afterwards that when he had devised the weekend’s match-up, “I said we’ll know a bit more about Ryan O’Donoghue after today and we’ll know a bit more about Finnbarr as well because Ryan is . . . physical, he’s strong, he’s doing so much for them”.
The Donegal manager continued: “He’s in the front line and presses, he’s out the back for kickouts, he takes the ball, he kicks twos, he’s a playmaker. So yeah, we just wanted to have a look at it.
“There’s another couple of fellas we wanted to look at as well before the league’s out in that man-to-man marking role.”
That suggests he’s looking for a broader range of options this summer if hand-to-hand combat becomes a necessity after a winter thrumming with reflections on Paudie Clifford’s 76 touches in last year’s All-Ireland.
Yet the league remains the league for McGuinness. The Donegal manager was asked if he had greater ambitions to win the competition this year, in light of the additional break between the league finals and the start of the championship. In his answer, he was straightforward about his goals for the spring campaign.
“Those three things that we were looking to do: points on the board, develop young players and develop depth in the squad. That’s what the next four games are about as well. And if we win games, we win games.”
Some way to go until rainbow’s end.
