Bottle the hurt and use it again to your advantage, says Heaney

The defeat will sting for a while to come but Mayo joint-manager David Heaney expressed immense pride in his players and hopes they will ‘rise the boat of Mayo football’.

A powerful second-half display from Armagh was too much for the Green and Red to handle in Sunday evening’s All-Ireland semi-final. The loss, however, can inspire these players to greater heights in future, believes the former Mayo captain.

“They had a great run. I know when I played minor it was one and done, you know, one game and you're down. I think that was their seventh game. So that'll make an awful difference to them.

“It's a hard thing to say, but to build a resiliency you kind of have to lose these games, you know, and it's not the way you want to. But we hope if we come up against an Armagh in a year or two's time, or even at under-20 level if we're lucky enough, that they'll remember the hurt and pain that of when they lost, and maybe they'll double down twice as much.

“We've just said to them go back to the clubs, try and take your learnings that we've shown them in the last year or two or three years and let's try and lift the standard of football in Mayo totally. Bring your club players up with you, show them what you've learned and hopefully that'll just rise the boat of Mayo football.” 

The game was level at half-time, with Mayo getting a dream start through Andrew Quinn’s goal inside a minute, but Armagh were beginning to dominate and certainly had the edge physically over their Mayo counterparts. Once Armagh got ahead of Mayo, only one outcome looked likely.

“They're a very good team. They came through a hard Ulster campaign. I think they've probably won seven or eight games all year. It just didn't happen for us today. They died with their boots on, like they worked as hard as they'd have in any game.

“Balls weren't sticking for no reason. Days like that happen and it's just unfortunate that it happened in our semi-final. But look, that's a very good team out there and they'll push Derry all the way.

“They're very tough tacklers. I suppose we knew the way they played. We practiced for that. So we knew they'd bring them back and try and break at pace. But it just felt like they had an extra man all the time. Our lads were pressing, but it just felt like they had an extra man.

“They had an extra runner all the time and once they broke the press, we were kind of slightly exposed but look, that's the way we played all year. We tried to be brave. We wanted to play front-foot football and most of the time it worked. Unfortunately it didn't work and we just couldn't get back into it once they got on top.” 

Heaney added: “They're really battle-hardened and they look stronger physically than us as well. So if a ball was 50-50, invariably they came out.

“I suppose they seemed to have a bigger, stronger team and then they brought numbers back. We probably brought the ball a bit too much into the tackle instead of recycling and then they broke fast.

“We tried to spread it out in the second-half, but they got a run. The first four attacks, they got four points and then I suppose we were just scrambling a little bit. We made a few substitutions trying to improve it, but it didn't really make an awful difference. But look, we're happy with the year we had. Unfortunately, we didn't end it the way we wanted to. But that's a very good team we lost to today.” 

Heaney said that six of the players are still eligible for the minor grade next year, including starters Conor Coghill and Barry Langan, and believes they will lead the way for the group next year.

“They'll have a good experience. They'll have seen what standards they set themselves, not even what we set. They set the standards, they trained every night and they will hopefully be able to help the new lads coming in when the panel is picked towards the end of the year.”