Mayo, God help us.

It’s believed that that phrase originated in the 1930s, when Mayo won one All-Ireland, seven Connacht championships and six straight national football league titles. Such a fearsome proposition were they that opponents sought divine assistance when the westerners were next up, the saying given as a response to, “Who are ye playing next?”

However, as the veneer of invincibility thinned and the decades passed with Mayo not adding to their Sam Maguire tally beyond the 1950 and 1951 victories, the words were turned into a form of a sympathetic blessing issued to the county.

House of Pain

In 2007, Irish Times journalist Keith Duggan wrote House of Pain: Through The Rooms of Mayo Football. At that stage, the county had lost five All-Ireland finals in the previous 18 years – 1989, 1996, 1997, 2004 and 2006 – and the heartache made for some rich, if almost voyeuristic, content.

In the 17 years since the book came out, six more All-Ireland final defeats have followed – 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2020 and 2021. It’s not a huge stretch to say that a sequel to Duggan’s book would tell quite a journey of turmoil.

The wait to end their quest for another All-Ireland will have to go on, following last Saturday’s penalty shootout defeat at home to Derry in their preliminary quarter-final.

Round Robin

The cheap line is to say that only Mayo could draw with Dublin in the round-robin group stage and then fail to advance to the quarter-finals – but their neighbours Roscommon did the same thing in 2023. However, exiting the All-Ireland series without a ‘proper’ defeat is another gut-punch.

But for Cormac Costello’s late equaliser for Dublin at Dr Hyde Park in Roscommon the previous week, Mayo would have been in the quarter-finals with Dublin having to navigate the unusual step of the preliminaries. Instead, the 0-17 each draw meant the All-Ireland champions finished top of the group thanks to their superior scoring difference.

Even so, a home tie against a Derry side who looked to have lost their early-season form was a navigable obstacle for Mayo but they never got going.

When the 90 minutes of normal time and extra time finished level, the bookmakers were offering 5/6 on either side to progress.

However, Derry had won last year’s Ulster final and this year’s league decider on penalties, with goalkeeper Odhran Lynch saving three of the kicks he faced. They were the smart money and so it proved, with Lynch saving two more.

We would like to say that days like Saturday will make it all the sweeter when Mayo finally do get over the line, but we’re not sure if that is fully true. As a Cork person who was lucky enough to be in Croke Park in 2010 for a first victory in 20 years, that joy didn’t necessarily erase the pain of 1993, 1999, 2007 or, especially, 2009. Of course, following Sunday’s defeat to Louth, there’s pain of a different kind being experienced.

For them and for Mayo, there are wounds to be licked and drawing-boards to be returned to. The motto of solace will be that the journey is more important than the destination, but sometimes it surely feels like that journey doesn’t have to have so many sideways or backwards turns.

Still, it’s a journey that the faithful persevere with – and anyway, if they did win, wouldn’t they become just another county?

For Derry, the ‘prize’ after playing tough games two weekends in a row is a quarter-final against Kerry in Croke Park this weekend. Can they repeat the league final heroics? It’s a tall order but, given that they, Louth and Roscommon – who beat Tyrone – upset the odds, there is at least still some hope for the underdog.

Galway are in that bracket this weekend and should provide a stiff test for Dublin, given that Pádraic Joyce’s side won the Connacht title (not to lash on the Mayo torture, but it was with three late points) and were unbeaten in the group stages.

For Athletics Ireland, this weekend’s National Track and Field Championships could scarcely have fallen at a better time.

Morton Stadium in Santry hosts the 152nd edition of what are the longest-running (pardon the pun) national championships in the world and the timing – after the high of the European Championships and with Olympic fever building – is ideal.

For those attending, it’s a brilliant opportunity to see European medallists up close. It might sound trite but, for any younger athletes present, this kind of visibility is something of huge importance in showing that their own pathway can reach similar heights.

Rhasidat Adeleke (100m), Sharlene Mawdsley (200m), Sophie Becker (400m), Phil Healy (200m and 400m), Lauren Cadden (400m), Christopher O’Donnell (400m) and Thomas Barr (400m) will all be on the track – quite the roll-call of stars.

All of those top performers on show were once under-age club competitors themselves and had to work their way up to there they are. It’s tough but it is doable.

Their presence also provides a target for the rest of the entrants, an elite marker against which to measure themselves and see how much of a gap there is to be closed.

There is also the benefit for Irish athletics of wider exposure as some of the events will be broadcast live to a television audience. If nothing else, the casual spectator will have the chance to become more familiar with those who will be on our screens in August for the Olympics.

RTÉ will show coverage from 1pm to 2.30pm on Sunday, before racing from the Curragh, while there is also the Gaelic football from Croke Park and the knockout stages of Euro 2024. Get the grass cut and the farm jobs done early.