Colm Boyle: Mayo's huge setback and why Donegal need to keep Michael Murphy fit

Irish Daily Mirror

19 hours ago

What a brilliant weekend it was for football in what is probably, to date, the best Championship that I can remember.
Donegal and Mayo maybe didn't live up to the other games but it still had a dramatic last 15 minutes.
Mayo will have huge regrets about not dropping off Shaun Patton's last kickout. It was very similar to Dublin last year - the same stage of the competition at the same venue - where they lost the last kickout to Ciaran Kilkenny and Dublin went upfield to draw the game.
Donegal weren't hugely impressive but they did enough to win, led by the brilliant Michael Murphy, who hasn't just come back to Donegal this year to be a bit part player.
He is absolutely their main man. His response to giving away the hand pass for the Mayo goal, probably one of the few mistakes he made on the day, was superb.
Straight away he scored a point and set up a brilliant score for Shane O'Donnell. He also won a couple of kickouts and settled Donegal down in the closing stages.
Tyrone's win over Cavan was as expected, which might have fed into the lackluster Donegal performance, when they knew they couldn't top the group.
For Mayo, a lot of damage was done in that first half when they were playing with the breeze. They had an extra man for 10 minutes with Peadar Mogan black carded, but went in at half time 0-9 to 0-6 down.
Three of them scores came when Mogan was off the pitch and Donegal were down to 14 men. Mayo went 20 minutes without scoring, playing with the breeze, which isn't good enough.
They just looked nervous and afraid to take a shot on and Brendan McCole probably had the edge on Ryan O'Donoghue. He was being marked tightly and wasn't getting his shots away.
Another factor from the first half was the Donegal backs running the Mayo forward line up the field.
They started Caolan McColgan on Aidan O'Shea and he was one of those creating an overlap every time they came out of defence.
Five of Donegal's nine points in the first half came from defenders and that was just by overrunning the Mayo forward line.
At half time, I thought Donegal were going to pull away in the second half with the wind to come, but they never kicked on. They started to play a slow, laborious game and Mayo turned them over a couple of times.
Donegal had their warning shot when they were playing the ball around and Jack Carney had a goal chance. It was the same scenario when Michael Murphy got turned over for David McBrien's goal.
But Donegal were much better after that. It was as if the goal almost woke them up from their slumber and they attacked with far more pace for the last 12 or 13 minutes than they had done in the second half up to that point.
Shaun Patton's kickouts over the top caused Mayo issues in the second half, with the length he had on them helped by the breeze.
It looked like he was injured at one stage in the first half. He was over talking to Jim McGuinness and he didn't go long once in the first half. It looked like he wasn't able to kick them long, but in the second half he unleashed some boomers then.
Patton and Murphy are absolutely critical for Donegal in the next couple of weeks.
I am surprised that Murphy has come back and been such a main man. I'd say for 80 per cent of the Donegal attacks, the ball goes through his hands at some stage.
Jack Coyne had a brilliant game at corner back on Oisin Gallen and Patrick McBrearty only came on for seven or eight minutes, which says something about where he's at.
If Donegal are to make the All-Ireland semi-finals it will mean two more hard games for Murphy and three hard games inside two weeks, including this one.
Will he be able to keep that going? That's going to be the key for Donegal, and can Patton stay fit.
This is a huge setback for this Mayo group going forward - another tight game that they haven't won. That's a couple of Connacht Finals against Galway, the penalties against Derry and the Dublin game last year.
This is another big blow for the current set-up. They're just not winning the big moments.
The similarities in the way Donegal won the game compared to how Dublin got a draw last year are there. Maybe they're not learning from what happened in the past.
Some of it is a small bit of luck. That Patton kickout could have fallen to a Mayo player and they could have gone down and got the winner.
Or Patton could have hit the last kickout over the sideline as the winner made no difference to Donegal. They were already secure in second place with a draw. All it did was save Cavan and knock Mayo out.
Donegal should take care of business next weekend at Ballybofey if they play Louth or Cork, but Galway would be a sticky draw.