McHale 'disappointed' as Mayo exit All-Ireland

Mayo’s exit from the All-Ireland ladies football championship last Sunday did not come with a bang, but a whimper.

Goals from Blaithin Mackin and Aoife McCoy ended the Green and Red hopes for another year. Like the Connacht final against Galway, Mayo’s performance was curiously flat and Liam McHale was ‘very disappointed’ within his side tumble out.

“ Very much like the Galway game, kind of couldn't seem to get our flow going, said McHale. “We practiced and we wanted to play the way Armagh played in that second half. It was definitely a struggle. We looked tired, but you look tired in that heat when the opposition are playing as well as they do and moving the ball around and stretching and making a sprint. We couldn't get any joy out of their kick outs and we were trying to press expending energy on that. “All that makes it very, very difficult and then I thought we had some opportunities maybe to get a goal in the second half but our last hand pass was a little bit short. I thought that happened two or three times. We hung in there, I think we lost by six in the end but they kept us at arm’s length.

McHale paid tribute to the quality of Armagh, but lamented the inconsistencies that have affected Mayo all year.

“Then when you have Blathin Mackin and Aoife McCoy, they were just superb. When you have that quality of player, just getting on the ball, holding up the play and has a great understanding of how the game should be played in different situations. It's very, very difficult but again they're great girls. They try their hearts out and I thought we had a right good chance coming up here today.

“I think we've improved but we've been inconsistent and that was the thing that worries me that we can play very well for a game or within a game. We've had some really good wins when you consider how inexperienced the team is and how young the team is. Today now you'd be very very, very disappointed for them.” In McHale’s first year, he has given many young players their chance, including Fionnuala McLaughlin. The Westport roadrunner, however, has been dealing with shin splints the last six weeks with shin splints, and she struggled to have an influence when she arrived on the pitch “We probably should have put her in earlier but I didn't want to jeopardize her too much. She gives us great dash and pace. The two Needhams were out. We'd one or two more injuries. A lot of the girls in the dugout are very, very young and very inexperienced. When you're struggling the way we were there for the whole game, it's hard to get those guys in. Again, the guys were great, the commitment is unbelievable, their attitude to learning is great. We're better than what we showed today and that's the pity about it. You don't mind going down swinging but we didn't do that today. We tried hard but we just couldn't get a stranglehold of the game at all.

McHale added: “They tried very hard. Everybody tried. We made a lot of mistakes. We look at the stats now, one of the stats guys came over to me, we had loads of possession and loads of opportunities but we took the wrong option and got a shot blocked down five or six times.

“All those sort of things just give the other team life and oxygen. Not that they needed anything but we kept giving it to them, getting ourselves in good positions. We were parked down here for ten minutes, we didn't get a score in the first half, a couple of shots dropped into the keeper's hands. All that sort of stuff is a killer against good teams like this. They moved the ball really well. They played good football today.” Galway’s surprise win over Dublin has blown the championship open for the four remaining side. Armagh, Cork, Galway and Kerry will all feel the Brendan Martin Cup is in arms reach but whether the Tribeswomen’s victory over the Dubs added pressure to Mayo is hard to know.

“We didn't talk about that now. Obviously everybody's aware about that and it's a good point, but we never mentioned that. Maybe it did distract them, I don't know, it's hard to know. No one could give you a definitive answer on that. Obviously the Dubs looked like they were up here and everybody else was down there, but now the Dubs are gone. So the four teams that are left and Armagh will think they can win it.