Joe Carroll: Plenty of good things to take out of the defeat in Mayo

Defeat for Louth at Castlebar, but how close did it come to being a huge victory. Raging hot favourites, Mayo’s advantage at the end of this All-Ireland Group 1 match was just one point, 0-14 to 1-10.

But how different it all could have been had Conor Grimes made better use of his chances, had Sam Mulroy repeated his best performances, and had the industrious Leonard Grey kept his shot lower in the second half, going for a goal instead of taking a point.

But in fairness to the St Patrick’s clubman, he may have been fouled as he took his shot. Television analyst, Ciaran Whelan, thought it should have been a spot-kick, while his colleague on the RTE gantry, Sean Cavanagh, disagreed.

Before going any further, let’s take an overview of what’s been going on for the past few weeks. Having got to the Leinster final, Louth qualified for the All-Ireland as distinct from the Tailteann Cup, which is confined to the lower order.

The draw for the qualifying round wasn’t kind to the Wee County. In opposition would be Sam Maguire Cup holders, Kerry, along with Mayo and Cork, all of whom have been on, or near, the top plain in recent times.

This compared with Louth having been in the very lowest reaches three years ago, keeping company with teams in the league’s bottom division and only occasionally sending supporters home from a championship match in good form.

Mickey Harte proud of his Louth players despite another defeat

Portlaoise to host Louth vs Kerry as GAA announces final round neutral venues

Two rounds into the competition and Louth are pointless. But – and it’s a big ‘but’ – only after a two-point defeat by Cork, and, as said already, an even closer call in Sunday’s game with Mayo. This is much better than anyone could have expected.

Heady days, indeed, the preliminaries to be closed out next weekend after with a game against Kerry in Portlaoise.

Your writer didn’t travel last Sunday. The plan was to head for the West, but there was a last-minute hitch. RTE came to the rescue, and it was good to be looking in, except when the commentator said Conor Grimes’ last-minute point had brought Louth level.

We knew ourselves, however, that that wasn’t the case. The score on screen had it right – there was still a point between the sides.

But the build-up was good, a photo of each Louth player coming up, and then the line-up, which showed three changes from the team Mickey Harte had named on Friday. And we were left to wonder, had a county senior football team ever been featured ‘live’ on the telly before.

The best way to enjoy Sunday’s game was as a supporter of either team. For the neutral it could only have been a hard watch, nothing to compare with Louth’s match with Cork.

Darragh Maloney’s colleague on television, Paul Flynn, said it was “A difficult game to watch,” and later, “Not pretty on the eye.”

It wasn’t as bad as in the Dublin/Roscommon tie the weekend before, Roscommon retaining the ball for six minutes at one stage, and in that time executing 70 passes.

But the build-ups were for the most part laboured, with only Tommy Durnin and Niall Sharkey, on the Louth side, keen to run at the opposition. And it often happened, Louth having all 15 in their own half.

But as the game approached its final phase all else didn’t seem to matter as Louth sought to dismantle Mayo’s five-point lead.

When the industrious Conall McKeever rifled the ball to the top of the Mayo net and Conor Grimes got his angles right immediately afterwards, his point reducing the dividing margin to the minimum, all that had gone before didn’t seem to matter. Would there be enough time left for Louth to get an equaliser?

There wasn’t. All of the five minutes of time added on had been played – Louth would have to make do with another narrow defeat with several questions to be answered.

Sam Mulroy converted a free from beyond the 45 metre line, a first-cousin of the one he nailed the week before in the Cork match. But he was off-target with an easier one in the second half at a crucial stage, while in his overall play was perhaps a little too casual. He was, however, a marked man, most often having two defenders to contend with.

Mulroy’s long-time ally, Conor Grimes, like Bevan Duffy, Tommy Durnin, Niall Sharkey and McKeever worked harder than most, but didn’t have the best of luck with his shooting. He claimed two points but should at least have doubled his tally.

All of this can be interpreted as nit-picking. The strength of the opposition considered, it was another mighty Louth performance; and if there were only a few hundred who made the trip to McHale Park from these parts, expect to see many more next weekend for the county’s first senior championship match with Kerry in 70 years.