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Mayo manager Stephen Rochford named his starting 15 for Sunday’s league showdown with Roscommon on Sunday afternoon on Friday night. The team named from one to 15 shows three changes from the side that started against Kerry a fortnight ago with Chris Barrett, Evan Regan and Conor Loftus coming into the side with Donal Vaughan, Kevin McLoughlin and Cathal Carolan making way.

Over the past few years, Mayo haven’t really faced a must-win game until summer had really kicked in and summer holidays were in full swing. But this Sunday in the middle of the Easter break, Mayo are staring down the barrel of a must-win game of football or Division Two next year is becoming a very real possability.

It was a devastating loss for Castlebar Mitchels when they came up against a far superior and prepared Ballyboden St Enda’s yesterday. The comprehensive 13-point victory, wasn’t at all flattering on the Dublin men. Despite all the hype around Castlebar and through Mayo over the last few weeks, the huge support that came out to back them left Croke Park with heartbreak once again. From as early as the first minute when Colm Basquel burst through the Castlebar rearguard to finish in fantastic style, Castlebar were in trouble.

There will always be quibbles with the referees decisions in games, there were plenty to pick over from Rory Hickey’s display. In particular in the 26th minute when Aidan O’Shea was manhandled to the deck by a couple of Kerry players including Aidan O’Mahony, who were aided by Kieran Donaghy testing the strength of the material in the black and lime Mayo jersey. Aidan managed to scoop the ball over the bar somehow from being right under the crossbar for a point, but Hickey should have blown for a penalty before he ever got the shot off. But it wasn’t refereeing decisions that cost Mayo in MacHale Park, it was just bad decision making, poor execution of skills and just not being at the races in the final 35 minutes, all their own doing.

Mayo finally got off the mark after a pulsating battle with Ulster champions Monaghan in Clones last Sunday. Given the situation I feel this was the most important league game Mayo have played in the last 15 years as defeat would surely have left an insurmountable battle to survive in division one, so huge credit has to be given to both management and players. It would also have been the first time since 1994 that Mayo would have lost four games in a row at the start of a league campaign so needless to say Stephen Rochford did not want that statistic on his CV.

Vital interventions at the start and the end of this encounter from Robbie Hennelly saw Mayo over the line to gain their first two points in this years National Football League. Right from throw in Hennelly was called into action after Karl O’Connell burst through from half-way with the ball, but one on one with Hennelly the keeper stood tall to stop Mayo getting off to a terrible start.

GAA: National Football LeagueTwo games in to his first National League campaign, Stephen Rochford would have hoped that he would have some points on the board to show for it. But that is not the case. Injuries and club commitments had robbed him of a number of key players for the games against Cork and Dublin. Since that Dublin game, Mayo have had three weeks to get themselves up to pace after only coming together right at the tail end of last year.

If Stephen Rochford had any notion that the Mayo manager’s job was going to be a bed of roses and that the press and public would be forgiving for the settling in period then he was met with a rude awakening in Pairc Ui Rinn, Cork, last Sunday. On top of Mayo’s lethargic and very under par performance, three more players were added to the enormous injury/unavailable list, and serious question marks were asked about the Mayo medical team’s decision to leave Lee Keegan on the field after a head collision with Cork power house Eoghan Cadogan.

It was not the start to the National Football League that new Mayo manager Stephen Rochford would have hoped for last weekend, but Rochford was honest in his views on what went wrong last Sunday. Speaking to the Mayo Advertiser this week Rochford said: "Obviously the scoreline tells a story of being second best, having reviewed the video, you know the second quarter of the game, I would be very disappointed with because 15 or so minutes we were level and Cork went into a period where they couldn't miss and in that time we missed three or maybe four of what we'd call softer or easier chances, and if we had capitalised on those chances we could have really been within touching distance of four points at half time which would have left us in a more sprightly manner for the second half. But the way things materialise if you don't take your chances in this division, you're going to be punished and we met a Cork team that hit a lot of very sweet scores."

The long road home from Cork gave Stephen Rochford plenty time to think over what had just happened in his first game on the road in charge of Mayo after he watched his side get beaten out the gate by nine points in their league opener.