Manager rates Mayo attacker as 'best he has seen'

The result was as expected. What wasn’t as expected was the level to which Mayo manager Kevin McStay went in praise of Ryan O’Donoghue, who had just posted the highest score by any player against New York in the 25 years that the Big Apple boys have been playing championship football.

“He’s a special talent, the best corner-forward I’ve ever seen in my time – and that’s going back a little biteen,” exclaimed McStay. “He’s a marvellous, marvellous player, and leads by example from start to finish. He’s just hyper-competitive and we’re delighted to have him on our team wearing a Mayo jersey.” 

McStay had just watched his team emerge fit and healthy from a game that saw O’Donoghue score 1-13, including 1-4 from play, with Mayo ending up with a 15 points cushion over their hosts at full-time. The manager said he was unconcerned by the lack of scores from the other forwards in a first-half that ended with O’Donoghue having scored all but two points of Mayo’s 1-11 total.

“People are supplying him. He is a scoring forward and his first move is towards scoring, then it’s pass or take on, but his option number one is scoring and that’s what he does.

“There was some great movement, very slick hands, we generated a lot of goal chances and the game was done at half-time.” And it was, with Mayo already a dozen points in front.

“We’ve come through it injury free which was the objective. We got a nice run out and I’m happy enough.

“The expectation was that we’d win and that we’d perform and we pretty much did that. It was a tricky occasion because it was full of Mayos, but you have to keep focused on the game.

“It was a good event, a brilliant crowd, great support for us, and we got a decent win,” McStay declared.

2-21 was impressive scoring by the Green and Red considering their eleven wides and numerous goal chances that went unconverted. Team captain Paddy Durcan hit the butt of the post early in the first-half, Ryan O’Donoghue had a fisted attempt saved by New York goalkeeper Joey Grace before half-time and in the second-half, Grace also saved close-range efforts by Aidan O’Shea, Paul Towey and Sam Callinan.

“We have to better in front of the goal and that’s number one work-on, to tidy up our play,” conceded the manager. “But we’re generating these goal chances very regularly so I’m not going to get sleepless nights over that. Once we’re generating them and we’re getting into position, I’m happy. One of the days we’re going to stick them in the net and then it’s God help somebody.” Pleased with the margin of the win, Kevin McStay did however admit to some disappointment over the concession of two second-half goals. In five previous championship meetings between the teams, New York had scored just one goal yet centre-forward Frank O’Reilly and full-back (and captain) Jamie Boyle each struck the net just eight minutes apart in the third quarter.

“We’ll have a bit of an inquest and see how they came about, but in a general sense the lads are really professional, they’re preparing really, really well, and they understand the expectation around the fixture, that we’ll win it by double digits. It’s sometimes hard to deliver on that expectation.

“It doesn’t matter what you win by here, whether it’s by two or 22, you’re not going to take a whole lot from it. It’s a fixture that I know from experience has been tricky and we negotiated that quite easily I think. There was never any great fear of the gap closing. Of course there’s loads of work ahead of us but I think it’s a good place to be, we’ve lots to have a peep at and lots of players to see what role they can play going forward into the championship.

“Huge kudos to Seamus (Tuohy), our chairman, and the board who stretched it and got the 36 players out here and a big backroom team as well. We’ve huge backing from the board… and it worked really well for us because we’re here for four or five days and we’re looking ahead as well, we’re planning for what’s down the line.

“We don’t really get back to work until Friday, which is the downside of the travel, but the upside is that this was well worth it, we’ve had a great experience for the four or five days here and we were made feel very welcome,” said McStay who said that Mayo will be in a better headspace for playing Roscommon on Sunday week than they were when playing them in last season’s championship.

“You saw the Westmeath result today. You can say all you want, that you’re ready and we’ve done our stuff, but it’s just difficult to come from the high of winning a National League title. You think you have it managed but you’re just a bit flat and once you’re a bit flat in the championship, it gets squeaky.

“The sense I have is that we’ll be chomping by the time we get to Hyde Park,” he concluded.