Stephen Rochford makes plenty of great changes that he doesn’t necessarily get the praise for.
His use of Lee Keegan all throughout last year was simply brilliant. Deploying him on Enda Smith at midfield was genius.
Bringing Jason Doherty into the full forward line has kept Andy Moran inside instead of making the first run to get the ball.
Aidan O’Shea has found the form of his life – at centre forward/midfield, not at full back.
When one of Rochford’s decisions work against him, we go to town and probably unfairly so – at least unevenly. Probably the product of being in charge of Mayo and, let’s face it, everything Mayo is blown out of proportion. But, sometimes, questions need to be asked.
They need to be asked especially when the victim of some of his changes is Colm Boyle.
I would say if Colm Boyle had scored 1-09, he would still be taken off. No doubt that's a pre match decision & a ridiculous one at that.
— Killeavy13 (@StevenMcD13) August 20, 2017
Boyle seems to come off in every game now no matter how well he is playing. He rattled the net against Kerry in the All-Ireland semi-final and, yet again, never once looked to be tiring as he drove through bodies time and time again.
Come the 43rd minute, he was whipped off.
In fairness to Mayo, they needed Patrick Durcan on the field – that was never an option not bringing him on. Barrett was never going to be sacrificed because he was destroying James O’Donoghue but it was time to unleash Durcan – probably well after time.
They didn’t want to reshuffle, Lee Keegan was in half forward and occupying Paul Murphy and, although you’d easily argue that Aidan O’Shea at full back was the obvious one to shift, the management were set on keeping him on Donaghy. So Boyle got the chop but, in a brilliant interview with The GAA Hour, Stephen Rochford didn’t shirk any questions.
“He is playing well. If he wasn’t playing well he mightn’t be there after 45 minutes of the game but that game was attritional and you’re marking someone like Stephen O’Brien, a real powerhouse, working, really running hard, Colm got up and down the field,” Rochford explained.
“I mean, if you look at him, he contributed to one or two scores, had one or two shots. So he’s covering that ground hard and the way he plays the game… he’s into every tackle and at the same time we took that assessment that the likes of Paddy (Durcan), we need to get him into the game and it fell today that Colm came off.”
But he denies that it is a pre-arranged decision.
“People say ‘you’ve it predetermined that Andy (Moran) comes off’ – Andy played the whole game today,” the Mayo manager said.
“It was a really hard call leaving Paddy out in the first place, are you going to change your full back line that are doing quite well? We needed to get a little bit more mobility into the middle of the field, we’d just conceded a goal.
“(Colm Boyle) is no longer 24-years-of-age, his way that he plays is that he plays it very attritional and we love him for that and he does a super super job in that and look god knows what the next day will bring.”
You can listen to the full Rochford interview with Colm Parkinson (from 17:30) and much more tactical analysis during The GAA Hour right here.
