Larkin vows to bounce back from bump in the road
Mayo’s Ryan Duffy takes on Tyrone’s Seamus Sweeney and Aidan Kelly at MacHale Park. The Green and Red head for Fermanagh next Sunday. Picture: David Farrell Photography
Mayo manager Ray Larkin admitted that his side will likely have to go the ‘hard route’ if they are to reach the Nicky Rackard Cup final after their defeat to Tyrone last Sunday.
Should they defeat Louth this weekend, Tyrone will be in a strong position to advance directly to the Nicky Rackard Cup final after the round-robin phase.
The Green and Red likely will need to win all their remaining games to book a semi-final against last year’s Lory Meagher champions New York.
It would also mean that if Mayo got to the final, Mayo would be out four consecutive weekends, and Larkin could not hide his disappointment, particularly with the opening nine minutes that saw his team concede four goals.
“I’m disappointed with the goals. Overall, we hurled okay I thought. I think we had three goals conceded after seven minutes.
“We made a few changes and again settled a small bit but the damage was done in the first 15 minutes.
“It looked in the first-half as if anytime the ball went in they were going to get goals. We weren’t getting first to the ball and we weren't tracking the runners, but we got in at half-time and settled down a small bit.
“We picked off 1-26, it was nice shooting and it'd win a lot of games, but conceding five goals is just disappointing.”
Ray Larkin also felt Tyrone’s Oran McKee was fortunate to only get a yellow card after a late hit on Fionn Delaney midway through the second-half.
“I thought he'd planted and gave him a fair rattle now in fairness. It could have been a bit more, it was right in front of us there.”
With Tyrone defending in numbers, Mayo’s shooters were forced into midfield, but the accuracy of Cormac and Adrian Phillips was excellent throughout, combining for 16-points. Some early wides in the second-half proved costly late on though, while Sean Kenny saw a stoppage time goal chance to salvage a draw denied by the Tyrone goalkeeper.
“They were very defensive. We knew that they'd be playing two backs. We put our shooters out there to midfield and we told them to just keep popping over from there. I think that was the only save for the goalie in the whole game.
“They're a big team, they're a good team. They're weren’t in Christy Ring hurling for nothing. That's the class that we need to be up at.”
Should Mayo reach the final, it will likely be a meeting with Tyrone once again in what would be a repeat of the 2021 Nicky Rackard Cup decider.
The good news for Larkin is that he expects the experienced Eoghan Collins back next week for the game against Fermanagh as well as Paudie Murphy, while Conal Hession could also be back for the game against the Ernesiders as Mayo look to get their Nicky Rackard campaign back on track.
“It's a sucker punch to us in fairness. [Tyrone] played Christy Ring last year, they came down, we knew we'd be up against them. Those three lads coming back, that's the positive side of it.
“Corey [Scahill] at wing-back was excellent, Oisin Ivers, Oisin Greally, David Kenny did well. It's a blip for us but we'll settle again and we'll train hard next week,” assured Larkin.
