Cadburys Connacht U-21 Football Championship
CHAMPIONSHIP football is all about the result and that certainly was the theme when joint-manager Noel Connelly put words on his thoughts following Mayo’s one-point win over Galway in last Saturday’s Connacht under 21 preliminary round match in Charlestown.
“It was close. It wasn’t graceful or nice football, but from my experience of the opening games in the under 21 championship there’s very little pretty about them. All that matters is getting a result and building momentum for the next one.
“We had mixed performances in challenges over the past few weeks because we only had our full team for one of them and things didn’t go too well for us in other matches, but today was the one that mattered and we managed to get over it.
“We always knew it was going to be a battle. They won the minor All-Ireland two years ago and had the nucleaus of that team here today.
“We didn’t take our chances in the first half even though we had the wind behind us and went in at half time only a goal up which put us under pressure. We should have had another goal and three or four points and that was disappointing,” the Hollymount man added before turning his attention to Mayo’s second half performance into the face of a powerful breeze.
“Against the wind we worked hard and carried the ball well. We put them under pressure whenever they had the ball and got a vital goal to put a bit of daylight between us.
“The lads worked hard on not giving Galway any room to hit short frees or pick up soft breaks and in fairness to our lads they carried out exactly what they had been told at half time.
“There are lots of things we have to work on this week. Galway seemed to get scores easier than we did in the second half. Any time they came down they just popped the ball over the bar and if the game had gone on for another minute or two it might have been different, but we got out of jail,” he admitted as next weekend’s semi-final with Roscommon came into focus.
“This is the Roscommon team that won the minor championship three years ago and they have months of preparation put in for this game. It’s going to be a big step up from today’s match for us. It’s going to be another huge battle, but we’re on our home patch and hopefully that’ll be worth a few points to us. Today’s game will bring lads on a lot and we’ll be looking for another huge performance on Saturday,” he concluded.
