Mayo and Roscommon have issues ahead of Connacht tilt

What to do... whether to focus on the league final fallout or the upcoming blitz of championship fare, with games all arriving on top of one another.

No gentle intro to the championship like in the good old days, where you might have a game in the Bronx a full fortnight or so before anyone else got started.

The league final post-mortem column has to double as the championship lead-in column this week.

For Mayo, the league that started in unpromising fashion ended with a whimper. It wasn't quite as ugly as my last league final in 2022, though it was still a non-event, played out in front of a poor crowd.

If league finals are going to play out like that, one wonders at the worth in having them, especially in the context of a cluttered calendar, where there's barely pause for breath.

It was Mayo's worst performance since the Round 3 game against Tyrone, a dismal match which they somehow won thanks to their opponents kicking an avalanche of wides.

Kevin McStay created a clever little diversion by directing the media towards the tussle between David Clifford and Donnacha McHugh. The focus was better there than on how Mayo came to score only 1-12 down the other end.

Sunday's game underlined the concerns around Mayo's depth in attack, and who is going to step up if Ryan O'Donoghue is shackled. Frank Irwin had progressed during the league proper but struggled to impact things in Croker.

Outside of that, we were dependent on Aidan O'Shea, who was excellent again, and kicked 0-03 from play. Matty Ruane has been chipping in with scores all spring but couldn't get brackets after his name at the weekend. One bright spot for Mayo's attacking options is that Tommy Conroy is supposedly back training but he'll have to get up to speed quickly as we're on the cusp of championship now.

On the matter of Clifford and the alleged soft frees, the Kerry star's body language was definitely persuasive in convincing David Coldrick that he was being dragged around the place on a constant basis.

David Clifford being tackled again by Donnacha McHugh

However, examining each of the calls individually, I think most of the frees he got could be fairly described as fouls, with the exception of the incident involving O'Shea. McHugh did OK on the most difficult defensive assignment in the sport but in most instances where a free was awarded, there was a jersey tug at some stage.

McStay did reference Clifford's size which, all things being equal, should come into the equation, but we're probably so conditioned to seeing the big man being denied a free that a small man would be granted over the years - no one knows this better than Aido...

Kerry weren't at their rip-roaring best and again managed no two-pointers - a really strange aversion given that other teams, a la Monaghan, are specifically playing for them - but their attack was easily the more well-oiled machine.

Paudie Clifford was again the conductor of their attack and the time has probably come for specialist man-markers to be designated to track him in the way they do his brother. Joe O'Connor ruled the roost around the middle, in the absence of Diarmuid O'Connor.

And so, it's time to draw a line under the 2025 league, which thrilled us from time to time but concluded in its usual anti-climactic fashion.

Rossies have work to do for provincial tilt

The question out west is can anyone end Galway's hold on the Nestor Cup? The provincial crown still has a fair cachet in both Ulster and Connacht, whatever about the other two provinces. The last time Galway did four in a row was the mid-1960s and there might be some anxiety among their rivals to prevent it from happening again.

As in two years ago, Mayo are out a week after a league final. We saw last year that Sligo are a dangerous opponent, with the likes of Paddy O'Connor and Niall Murphy capable of shooting the lights out. They took Galway to the absolute brink in Markievicz Park last summer and were edged out in extra-time by Down in the Tailteann semi-final.

I thought they might give promotion a rattle this year but they were slow out of the blocks in Division 3. Aaron Kernan hinted that they were having difficulties securing possession under the new kickout rules early on, and the loss of Sean Carrabine - another gone to Australia for the year - will have hampered them.

That all being said, it's still a Division 1 team coming up against a Division 3 team. While Mayo's home record in championship is very ordinary (to put it mildly), Sligo themselves are much more of a homebird than the other Connacht sides. Mayo should have seven or eight points to spare in the end, and we know the likes of Cork and Louth in the bottom half of Division 2 will have their fingers crossed for it.

As Dessie Dolan observed this week, Roscommon are in a "funny" place on the eve of championship. The consummate yo-yo team, they secured promotion back to Division 1, as is their wont, but they seem to have finished the league in a worse place than they started it from a confidence perspective.

Davy Burke's side have issues after uninspiring league showing

I'm not sure Davy Burke's bizarre outburst after the Cavan game would have helped matters, and they've only won one of their last five.

None of the problems that were identified last year seem to have been remedied. The forward talent is there but it's no use if your defence is being ripped asunder, as Roscommon's was in the second half last Saturday.

They'll navigate the trip to London, handy enough, but the test will come in the semi-final. On recent evidence, you'd fear for that defence coming up against the Galway forward line. It doesn't even look like it would be a particularly close game, on recent form. A traditional final beckons?

Prime-time clash in Ballybofey

We'll skip over the first round in Leinster, where at least some management teams are still fully intact. The most attractive fixture is obviously in Ballybofey, even if it's a bit less enticing after Derry's implosion in the final rounds of the league.

It's nearly been all downhill for them since that ambush that Jim McGuinness masterminded in Celtic Park this time last year. It's almost like something broke in Derry with each goal that Donegal rattled into an empty net. Since then, their momentum has stalled and gone into reverse.

Derry's league ended with a shellacking in the Athletic Grounds

The generous interpretation of Derry's second half collapse in Armagh as that they were already checked out mentally. Shipping 18 goals in a league campaign is definitely a worry, and you wonder whether they suffered from Paddy Tally being appointed very late or whether some of their players have been back to the well too often in the past two years.

There again, the league didn't give us much of a steer on Derry's championship last summer, they'll be hoping it offers a similar false reading this year.

Donegal's All-Ireland credentials were only strengthened during the league and they had enough of a cushion to give the wider squad a runout in the last couple of weeks. It's hard to envisage a goal-glut on a par with last April - they're not bothered about goals this year it seems - but I'd expect Donegal to get the job done, probably with a degree of comfort.

Watch Donegal v Derry in the Ulster Football Championship on Sunday from 1.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1

Watch The Sunday Game from 9.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on all matches on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app. Listen to updates from around the country on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio

Click here to read article