Pictured is University of Galway and Mayo footballer, Ryan O’Donoghue as Electric Ireland teams up with six intercounty Camogie and GAA stars to look ahead to the upcoming matches and rivalries across the Electric Ireland Camogie Third Level Championships and the Electric Ireland GAA Higher Education Championships. Through its #FirstClassRivals campaign Electric Ireland will continue to celebrate the unexpected alliances that form between county rivals as they come together in pursuit of some of the most coveted titles across Camogie and GAA.
By John Harrington
Ryan O’Donoghue is convinced that the Mayo footballers can challenge for top honours in 2024.
An up and down season in 2023 saw them beat arch-rivals Galway in the League Final, lose to Roscommon in Connacht, and then beat Galway again in the All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final before suffering a heavy defeat to eventual champions Dublin in the All-Ireland quarter-final.
They suffered a second-half collapse that day against Dublin but O’Donoghue believes they’ll be a match for anyone this year if they develop more consistency from match to match and within individual games.
“Of course," he said. "I don't think I'd be training and putting my life on hold and making all of these sacrifices if I didn't think we weren't one of the top teams in the country.
“We've a lot to get better at. We did well in the League last year but obviously the second-half against Dublin was not good enough. We just didn't perform well.
“Going in at half-time that day we were there or there abouts. Other than that goal that sucker-punched us we would have been in the lead but we were only a point down at half-time.
“The second-half was just disappointing on my behalf and the team's behalf because we under-performed so much.
“Then Dublin go on to win the All-Ireland so we know we're not that far off, we just maybe need to consistently perform throughout games and from week to week and maybe not put ourselves under as much pressure.
“That's part of our goal this year, we've already talked about that, trying to improve our consistency of performance from one week to the next and not be as up down as we have been in the past.
“The squad that we have now has a lot of experience of good days, bad days, and different days. We've a lot of good players coming through, good U-20s, lads pushing on. We're just going to do our best again, train hard, listen to Stephen and Kevin and crack on again for 2024.”
Ryan O'Donoghue of Mayo in action against Colm Basquel of Dublin during the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship quarter-final match between Dublin and Mayo at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Ray McManus
Before he thinks too much about the season ahead for Mayo, O’Donoghue is fully focused on University of Galway’s upcoming Sigerson Cup campaign.
He’s excited about the prospect of finally playing in the competition having missed out during his three years in the University of Limerick due to a combination of injury and Covid-19.
“Unfortunately I've never gotten to play a minute of Sigerson so far so looking forward to hopefully getting the first minutes on Tuesday (in the first round against TU Dublin).
“At the end of the day it's a national title and when Galway won it a couple of years ago and there were great celebrations.
“Our manager Maurice Sheridan's father won a Sigerson title many years ago and he still remembers it very well. It would be a proud achievement to have on the CV so we'll be giving it all we can over the next couple of weeks.”
It’s going to be a hectic start to the season for the 25-year-old but he believes he’s learned from past mistakes now knows how to look after his body to ensure it doesn’t buckle under the load.
“Over the last couple of years you get more experienced about how you want to approach the season and pre-season,” he says.
“After the 2021 season getting to the All-Ireland Final with Mayo and then Belmullet got to the county final I literally went back training in December relatively straight away and then unfortunately after the League campaign and against Galway in the championship I picked up a groin injury that I just couldn't shake for the whole summer and ended up being out for the guts of seven months.
“So, I learned a lot through that and then thankfully last year I didn't miss one game or one session virtually for the whole year. Again, that's my goal for the year coming ahead. It's all about working with physios and S&Cs in the off-season to make sure you're putting your body in the best place it can be.
“This year there will be a few more games to get through in the January/February stage of the year which is why I've worked extra-hard with the physios and S&C coaches to make sure my body can withstand that.”