Mayo v Roscommon Prediction, Preview, Odds – Connacht Championship
Check out our Mayo v Roscommon prediction plus the betting odds as we preview this Sunday’s Connacht Championship quarter-final clash.
Mayo v Roscommon Match Info
When? 4.00pm, Sunday, April 9th
Where? McHale Park, Castlebar, Co. Mayo
TV Channel? RTÉ 2
Mayo v Roscommon Preview
Mayo’s Form
To put it quite simply there is no team in gaelic football in better form than Mayo right now. Many expected this to be a rebuilding/transition year for the westerners after a disappointing 2022 Championship campaign saw them limp out of the All-Ireland series without putting much of a fight up to eventual champions Kerry.
Following that loss Mayo manager James Horan stepped down from his role and soon after the county lost their best ever player in Lee Keegan to retirement and young phenom Oisin Mullin to Aussie Rules. Hope for 2023 was in short supply.
Fast forward to now and this Mayo side look like a completely different animal. Kevin McStay has come in as manager and a familiar face, Stephen Rochford, has also joined him on the sidelines. This new management team have completely transformed this side from one that looked a few years away from seriously competing for All-Ireland honours to a serious threat to finally land that elusive Sam Maguire.
You could have got Mayo at 12/1 in the betting coming into 2023 but now they are as short as 5/1 for the All-Ireland after a brilliant league campaign. McStay’s men have not lost a meaningful match so far this year (their only loss came to Monaghan when they had already qualified for the league final).
Their Division One League Final victory over local rivals Galway sees this team go into the Connacht Championship in a rich vein of form and with serious confidence in the camp.
Roscommon’s Form
This Roscommon side will not be short of confidence coming into this showdown against Mayo in McHale Park Sunday afternoon. The Rossies played their football in Division One this year, a step up in class from Division Two which they were promoted from in 2022 following a league final win against Galway.
Some, perhaps myself, would have expected Roscommon to find the step up to Division One tough going but they looked very much like they belonged in the top tier of gaelic football throughout their campaign.
In the end the Rossies finished third in Division One behind their Connacht neighbours Mayo and Galway and had an outside chance of clinching a league final spot going into their final game.
League victories over Tyrone, Galway, Armagh and Donegal along with all three of their losses being close fought games suggest that this team is more ready for Championship than we have ever seen from them before.
Key Players To Watch
Aidan O’Shea
Breaffy man Aidan O’Shea has been absolutely outstanding this season for Mayo with a return to the full-forward line bringing out the best we have seen from him in recent years.
Kevin McStay’s arrival to the scene as the new Mayo manager was always going to mean O’Shea make the move to the inside forward line as the former RTÉ analyst has long been an advocate that the Breaffy clubman plays his best football when in and around the goal.
The now 32-year-old will sometimes look to drop deeper and playmake, which he did effectively on a number of occasions throughout the league campaign this year for newly crowned National League champions Mayo.
However, apart from the occasional wander into the half-forward and midfield lines O’Shea will be firmly planted near the nets and Roscommon in turn will undoubtedly have some sort of a game plan as to how they want to defend the big full-forward. Dublin legend Diarmuid Connolly recently claimed that putting O’Shea at full-forward has given Mayo ‘a new lease of life‘.
It will be interesting to see how much Mayo target O’Shea with the long diagonal ball into the danger zone. We saw a lot of ball come his way earlier in the league but that seemed to ease off in the later rounds, perhaps McStay wanted to keep this tactic in the backpocket for Championship? I suspect we will see plenty of balls coming O’Shea’s way in this Roscommon game.
Enda Smith
Smith is a classy player who has been one of the best footballers for Roscommon going on a decade at this stage. The Boyle native already has two Connacht Championships under his belt following victories in this competition in 2017 and 2019.
The last time these two teams played was in March for a National League game and on that occasion Smith put 1-01 on the scoreboard with both of those scores coming from play.
A question that has lingered around Mayo for a long time has been the quality of the full-back line. This year we have seen a completely revamped full-back line and while they have performed well to this point they are an inexperienced unit when it comes to Championship football. Enda Smith will fancy his chances to put test these backs and put up together a productive day on the scoreboard.
If Roscommon are to go into Castlebar and replicate their 2019 win, which ultimately led to a Connacht Championship, then a big performance front the Boyle man will likely be a part of that formula for success.
Mayo v Roscommon Head-To-Head Results
2023 National League | Roscommon 2-11 1-16 Mayo
2023 FBD League | Mayo 0-13 0-09 Roscommon
2020 Connacht Championship | Roscommon 0-13 1-16 Mayo
2019 Connacht Championship | Mayo 0-17 2-12 Roscommon
2019 National League | Mayo 1-08 1-07 Roscommon
Mayo have won four of the last five meetings between these two sides which is certainly worth noting as we come up with a Mayo v Roscommon prediction. However, the last time these teams met up in Castlebar in the Connacht Championship it was Roscommon who won.
That was the Rossies first victory over Mayo in Mayo for 33 years and their first victory over Mayo in the Championship for 18 years. Could history repeat itself this Sunday?
Mayo v Roscommon Betting Odds
By the look of the betting odds our odds makers really fancy Mayo to come out on top in this Connacht Championship clash as the green and red have been installed as heavy 1/3 favourites.
Roscommon on the other hand are listed as 10/3 underdogs which is a big price considering just how good they looked in Division One of the National League this year.
The draw is set at a healthy price of 8/1 and it is always a tempting bet when two teams that are so familiar with each other go head-to-head.
Mayo v Roscommon Prediction & Best Bet
Prediction: Mayo 2-13 1-12 Roscommon
I’ll admit I was a little bit surprised when I saw the Mayo v Roscommon betting odds. Mayo were always going to be favourites given the fact that this team just won Division One of the National League and played better football than any other county on their way to picking up that title.
However, Roscommon were no slouches in the league and they were competitive in every single game on their way to a third place finish in Division One. My Mayo v Roscommon prediction is that Mayo win by four points but I can see the Rossies keeping this tight right up until the final few minutes.
Best Bet: Mayo by 4-6 points @ 3/1
The other televised gaelic football match this weekend is Armagh v Antrim which we previewed in a recent post.
Click Below For All Our Mayo v Roscommon Odds
*Prices subject to fluctuation
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