Des not dwelling on defeat but looking at the bigger picture

It was a gorgeous afternoon and the pitch in Longford was pristine, but while every intercounty player dreams of playing All-Ireland finals in the height of summer, ultimately the weather, the surface and all the rest of it becomes a lot less important when the result doesn’t go the right way.

And while Mayo came away with their growing reputation enhanced after playing their part in a thrilling final against Monaghan, joint manager Des Joyce still wished that it could have gone that little bit differently.

“I think we could have nearly got it back to level terms there near the end there, we'd have loved another minute or two (after Laoise Greally’s injury time goal),” said the Castlebar man, while he also lamented a contentious sideline ball that ultimately yielded a crucial Monaghan point.

Nonetheless, he still acknowledged that on the day, Monaghan “brought just that little bit more to the game”.

“We did a lot of things right in the second-half but overall I think Monaghan just brought a little bit more physicality to the game today, that we probably just didn't match.

“There’s small margins in this game but overall, they probably had a little bit on us everywhere today. That's sport, and that's camogie for you.” 

Regardless of what happened in Longford on Saturday, 2026 was always going to go into the record books as a really encouraging one for the sport of camogie in Mayo. A youthful panel ended the season with a league Division 3B title and promotion secured, while they bounced back from losing the first two rounds of games in the championship to coming within a puck of a ball of winning a championship.

All things being equal, Mayo will be expected to take further strides forward in 2027, thought Joyce has a clear view on what needs to happen for the long term benefit of the sport in the county.

“Three of the four teams in this competition weren't playing last year, we weren't playing last year,” he said.

“That's probably the most positive thing about all this; that this is a very competitive championship and we want to try and build on this for next year. We've shone a light on camogie and Mayo and we want to keep that going.

“We’ll take a lot of positives out of this, we won the league, we got to a final, lost by a point so it's not been a bad year, we'd have liked to have gone the whole way but it just didn't happen today.

“Over the next couple of years you'd like to see maybe four or five clubs, though that takes time and that takes effort.

“For now I think the crew of players we have are very good and we've got younger players coming through. We've a squad there of 30 here today so I think we've got the building blocks, there’s a lot of good positive things here,” he continued.

“The three clubs are due to go back competing in August in the championship in Galway now and we're all looking forward to that, hopefully bringing some of the positivity we've got out of the county scene back into the club scene.” 

Joyce concluded by sharing the message that he and his fellow manager Peter Dooley intended to give to the players in the dressing room.

“I’ll be telling them I wouldn't be disheartened, that they’ve worked really hard since last January. It's myself and Peter's first time managing at this level and they've been absolutely a joy to work with, so we’re really grateful to them for everything they’ve done.”