COLUMN: Positives for Moran as Mayo look ahead to Connacht Championship

Billy-Joe Padden, in his weekly column, offers his perspective on Mayo's National League campaign

IT was one of those afternoons where you nearly needed two pairs of eyes.

I had one eye on the Mayo game, another on what was unfolding in Armagh, and was constantly hopping back and forth as the bigger picture began to take shape.

By the closing stages, the focus had almost shifted as much to permutations as to performance. In the end, Mayo fell just short of a league final, and Armagh survived in Division One.

When you look at the numbers, it’s actually remarkable how close Mayo came to a place in the final. In the moment, there’s always a mix of emotions.

Watching the closing stages of the Armagh game, there was that split feeling — part of you hoping results would fall a certain way, part of you already accepting how things might land.

And when it doesn’t quite go your way, there’s an initial sense of disappointment.

But that tends to settle quickly.

Because when you step back and look at the league as a whole, the conclusion is fairly straightforward — the two best teams over the course of the campaign made the final.

Mayo, for all their progress, are probably still a step behind that level, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing to acknowledge at this stage of the year.

In fact, it may even be helpful. Because instead of getting caught up in a league final, the focus now sharpens quickly.

The next hurdle is London, and after that it’s Roscommon again — this time with far more at stake. That’s what makes a day like this slightly unusual. Both teams are left processing it in different ways.

Mayo did everything they........

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