Mayo manager John O'Mahony says he expects his side to be in for a stern test when they travel to Longford for the first round of the All-Ireland SFC qualifiers.

After their shock defeat to Sligo on the quarter-finals of the Connacht SFC, O'Mahony's charges must come through four rounds of the backdoor if they are to reach the last eight of the All-Ireland series, as they did last year, and the first step starts with Longford on Saturday week.

"We must concentrate on our own performance and we'll be working hard to try and put right what went wrong against Sligo," O'Mahony told the Western People newspaper.

"We must put a performance on the field. We didn't do that in Sligo and that had to be our primary goal now."

The Mayo boss knows that even with a good performance from his team, defeating a Longford side with Brian Kavanagh back in their ranks and home advantage will be no easy task.

"At this stage of the preparation it's all about us and how we perform," he said. The first game of the qualifiers is always crucial because teams are coming into it on the back of a defeat and it's important that we approach it right.

"I was in this situation previously with Galway way, way back, and Mayo and no matter who you're playing it can be very difficult. We could have got a worse draw in terms of location, but let me tell you there'll be nothing easy about playing Longford. They ran Kerry close twice in the last few years and if we underestimate them in any way we'll be in serious trouble," he added. Tweet

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