Injuries leave Mayo fighting losing battle

THE sense of anticipation didn't last long. From the moment that the full extent of Mayo's injury list became apparent, any notions of a tight margin between the teams began to evaporate. Before a crowd of 20,097, Derry made easy work of this National Football League semi-final, sponsored by Church & General.

For a team like Mayo to emerge from Division Three and rattle as solid an outfit as the League holders, they really needed everything to go in the right direction. With three first-choice players ruled out just before the throw-in, those ideal conditions were never going to apply.

All that stood between Mayo and a right hiding was Derry's relative indifference to the whole occasion. Even the winners must have known by the 20th minute at 0-3 to nil, that it would take a superhuman effort to lose this one and not even Derry are so stricken by ennui at the prospect of yet another league final - the third in five years - that they were willing to put in that kind of effort.

It wasn't so much that Mayo were completely out of it - they had reasonable possession - but that their attack was simply incapable of finding a purchase in the tightly-organised Derry defence.

The physical power of Derry was a constant factor in the match, as the younger, lighter Mayo footballers frequently found it impossible to establish a presence in telling positions. The holders played to all their traditional strengths a nearly-impenetrable full back line, towering midfield and a sprightly attack - given its greatest emphasis by Joe Brolly's spectacular current form in the right corner.

From the moment he got the match underway with the first score, a sixth-minute point, to the moment that he effectively killed it off with a crashing goal two minutes into the second half, Brolly was the main influence on his team's attack.

His display capped what has already been an impressive League campaign to date and shows the extent to which he has lost the debilitating hesitation that marked his championship performances in the All-Ireland year of 1993.

BroIly's clash with the Veteran Dermot Flanagan was given some airplay as a match between two barristers, but on the day the gap bin performance was every bit as marked as the distance between the respective jurisdictions in which they practice.

Flanagan, even in his pomp never the tightest of markers struggled to contain his marker and, suffering more than most from the slippery conditions, inadvertently gave the ball away to Brolly for a couple of his scores.

The Derryman's contribution far outstripped his haul of 1-3 from play. His constant activity band intelligent reading of the game were similarly useful. A point by Enda Gormley was created by Brolly's purposeful dummy run on the left which created space for his team's fourth score, taken by Enda Gormley.

The opening quarter saw Derry move two points clear. Damien Cassidy fisted the second before escaping lightly with a booking after flattening Mayo captain Noel Connelly, uncomfortably close to the match officials. The booking, should have been the last sanction applied, in that if an offence was committed, it looked fairly plainly to be one of striking.

In addition to giving the general appearance of being overpowered, Mayo were also fluffing chances. A couple of impressively incisive runs by Ronan Golding on the left wing each ended with him being, cleanly dispossessed. Ray Dempsey kicked a simple free wide.

To be fair to Mayo, they had started without their regular full back to whose absence was added three more names - midfielder Liam McHale, wing back Anthony McGarry and full forward John Casey. In as replacements came Colm McMenamon, Fergal Costello and Tom Reilly.

Brolly's third point came with five minutes to go to half-time and left Derry six points in front. Mayo had been missing chances and giving the ball away with such abandon that sensitive onlookers began to wonder if there wasn't one of those embarrassing Croke Park trimmings on the cards.

Nonetheless, points from Reilly, Ray Dempsey, McMenamon and David Nestor gave the match an evenly poised appearance approaching half-time, 0-7 to 0-4.

Mayo must have felt vaguely relieved at this stage. Having taken so long to get going, their late score-taking was encouraging. McMenamon and David Brady were pulling some possession out of the middle and a fine point from Nestor had indicated that he might be able to trouble Tony Scullion a little.

As it turned out, Derry's defence weren't that troubled at all. Scullion and Kieran McKeever preserved their reputation as the most durable corner-back combination in the country, keeping Nestor and veteran Anthony Finnerty under wraps. Henry Downey and the half backs squeezed the life out of everything that crossed the 40 and without early ball, Mayo's full forward line was never going to be able to buck the trend of the game.

Ironically on a day when the older heads were less effective than might have been expected, ii was the one senior figure who looked as if he could be in trouble from the outset who survived best. Pat Holmes has limited experience of playing full back but, in the absence of the suspended Kevin Cahill, he managed to restrict Seamus Downey to one point.

In the 32nd minute, Brolly's exuberant outstripping of the Mayo defence after Flanagan fumbled him the ball ended with a cracking shot into the top left corner of the net. At 1-7 to 0-4, the match was finished. The nearest Mayo came to a much-needed goal was a pot-shot from Dempsey which flew straight into Jonathan Kelly's arms in the 43rd minute.

Derry fine-tuned, bringing in young Sean Lockhart, Colm McEldowney and most significantly Johnny McGurk for his first appearance after injury. Anthony Tohill crowned a satisfactory first full match since injury with two well-taken points as Derry chugged out of sight.

With all the injuries, Mayo manager John Maughan had plenty of alibis. Nonetheless, he still sent on the obviously-injured Liam McHale to try and bring down the margin with 10 minutes left. It didn't happen but, in the most constructive way possible, Mayo will have learned a lot from the afternoon.