THE Sky Blue 'statos' were left scratching their heads in Castlebar, wondering when was the last time Dublin won three on the spin in Division One of the Allianz National Football League.

The home town statos had a different type of head-wrecking experience: the type that involves pulling hair out while simultaneously keeping pace with another epic roll call of Mayo wides.

They eventually amounted to 18, compared to Dublin's miserly three. That's not the only reason the latter prevailed by a single point, but it's a fairly big one. The visitors were commendably defiant in defence and yet, if Mayo had converted even 50pc of their chances they would have won with several points to spare.

Maybe that explains why Pat Gilroy sounded almost half-apologetic in victory while John O'Mahony was left to bemoan that you don't win games when you don't take your chances -- "as simple as that".

COMPOUND

Just to compound O'Mahony's misery came news of Peadar Gardiner's broken elbow -- leaving his vice-captain with a race against time to make the championship starting grid away to Sligo on June 5.

"Obviously Mayo hit a hell of a lot of wides there and had an awful lot of possession, so we're blessed to get out of it," Gilroy conceded.

"I think we just didn't play as well as we have in the previous two games. I suppose it was a little bit like the first half against Derry ... but Mayo are a very good team, they're not going to allow you (to) just take the game on, and I think the goal after half-time really put us under pressure. But it was good that we came back from that."

Then, of course, came the obligatory caveat: "This is still March and it's all about the summer."

Notwithstanding all these positive results, Dublin are clearly in transitional mode and this was the worst performance of their three NFL outings to date.

For all that, Gilroy can glean positives too. His defence was packed with rookies but coped admirably for much of the contest, with Michael Fitzsimons arguably the pick of the six.

The Cuala clubman was conceding several inches to Aidan O'Shea but gave little away in terms of space or shooting opportunity. It was another frustrating afternoon for the recently out-of-sorts O'Shea -- one where very few balls seemed to stick -- but Fitzsimons can take at least some of the credit for the Mayo prodigy's misfortune.

For the third game running, Dublin tackled like dervishes and this contributed, at least in part, to all the Mayo misfiring. But the free count was high and they were lucky that while the home side converted six frees, they fluffed several more that were eminently gettable.

Midfield was a strange affair: Dublin seemed to catch more clean possession, especially after Ronan McGarrity hobbled off early, and yet Mayo's territorial dominance suggests something else.

"We didn't control the middle of the field at all. For little patches we seemed to get on top, but overall I thought that Mayo dominated that sector," suggested Gilroy.

Eamonn Fennell certainly failed to emulate the excellence shown against Kerry and Derry, yet he had his first-half moments (capped by one barnstorming point) and his 50th minute substitution may have been a case of his manager reacting to Mayo's strong third-quarter. Alongside, Ross McConnell had an early goal chance blocked on the line by Ger Cafferkey and then advanced for two critical points in the last 20 minutes.

Up front, though, while Paul Flynn cleverly linked play in the opening half, Dublin's inside raiders were too often isolated. Gilroy insisted afterwards that getting men behind the ball was not a deliberate tactic, rather a by-product of their ball-winning problems in midfield.

Maybe so, but chances were in scarce supply and Kevin McManamon found that, where he had flourished against Kerry and Derry, the sleek-moving Keith Higgins is a much tougher nut to crack.

Indeed, it was only with the introduction of goalscorer Bernard Brogan and creator-in-chief Conal Keaney that Dublin suddenly had two go-to forwards capable of capitalising on slim pickings and turning this fraught, finely balanced contest in their favour.

How Mayo -- robbed of the suspended Mark Ronaldson and with Alan Dillon back from his travels but warming the bench -- could have done with such quality. It wasn't easy keeping count of their mounting wides: they had already tallied 10 when trailing by 0-5 to 0-4 after an error-strewn first half.

Mayo improved on the restart and Enda Varley's powerful 46th minute finish (after good approach work by Tom Parsons, Higgins and Aidan O'Shea) left them a goal ahead. Yet the squandermania continued and, at one point, it seemed the Mayo PR department would have to reconsider a larger A4 design for their match programmes -- just to facilitate those reporters and fans who like to record wides in all their gory details.

Dublin, comparative paragons of frugality, kicked no wides after an early Flynn brace until Keaney missed on 67 minutes.

RECRIMINATION

Not that too many fingers of recrimination should be pointed his way. When the match was over, and Dublin had hung on for another one of those backs-to-the-wall league victories that do squad morale a power of good, this observer found himself leaning towards the view that Keaney may well have been man of the match. And he'd only been on the pitch 20 minutes.

In that brief cameo -- his first appearance of 2010 -- Keaney scored a point and set up another 1-1. With possibly his first touch, he fielded a long ball brilliantly and immediately slipped in Brogan for the 53rd-minute goal that restored a one-point lead for Dublin.

Keaney's own smartly taken score left them three up after 62 minutes. Mayo launched a predictable late onslaught that had huff and puff but little in the way of conviction.

Alan Freeman nailed a free, having missed several earlier ones, and then in the game's final play they engineered a close-in free ... and they almost sneaked it, with Andy Moran's pinpoint piledriver seemingly destined for the top corner before a defender deflected it up and over the bar.

With a maximum six points in the bag, and an eminently winnable home fixture against Monaghan next Saturday night, all that grim early-season talk of relegation battles is null and void. "We're probably after playing 25 guys in terms of starting positions in the last three games. We've probably played 30 guys in total.

"So, we're learning things the whole time and that's the important thing," Gilroy surmised. "And the fact that we've got wins is great. Of course, everybody feels better when you get a win ... and it gives us the opportunity to do more experimentation in the rest of the league."

- Frank Roche