McStay turns focus to championship

Mayo manager Kevin McStay had few complaints about defeat to a Derry side which was ‘essentially their championship selection’.

In a frantic encounter, Mayo looked out of it after Conor McCluskey’s goal for Dery in the second half put nine between the sides. A chaotic 20 minutes followed that saw Paul Towey find the net and further points brought the gap to two before Derry pulled away late on.

“The better team won on the day, so well done to Derry. A very good side,” admitted McStay. “You can see that they were well up for today. They togged very strong, essentially their championship selection” McStay was very pleased with the character shown by Mayo after a poor second quarter saw them concede 1-4 without reply, before hitting back with 1-4 of their own in the second half and heaped praise on the influence of Ryan O’Donoghue when he moved to centre-forward. The Belmullet man was unfortunate not get a goal of his own after Derry goalkeeper Odhran Lynch was caught off his line but O’Donoghue had to settle for a point.

“It was a massive test and we stuck at it. We got into a bad place the third quarter, you know, nine down but really did well to bring it back to two. We had our moments. I don't know what (Ryan) was telling me inside, he actually went for that chip that went over the crossbar but that's the way it goes.

“(Ryan) has a gorgeous range of skills, like the two passes he put in behind the full back for Towey’s goal and then he gave Tommy Conroy another one immediately after it, just took out the defender. But yeah, he was good.

“But overall, not enough. We didn't have enough to beat Derry today.

On the flipside, McStay was critical of the amount of scores Mayo conceded from turnovers while he is sweating on the fitness of Conor Loftus after he went off injured late on “The turnover count killed us. 2-8, that's what they're telling us. That's when we have the ball and we don't give it away, there's pressure involved of course, but 2-8 from turnovers, it's about 2-4 too much.

“We were working (Conor) back, giving him minutes to get him back. He's trained very well the last three, four weeks and he was ready. So I don't know, but we're worried about him now. I'm hoping it's a niggle or something.” Following defeats for Galway, Monaghan and Roscommon, Mayo are safe and can focus now turns to the championship for Mayo, with a trip to New York in the opening round of the Connacht championship. Before that, they travel to Clones to take on already-relegated Monaghan this Sunday.

While the prospect of playing a league final a week before New York seemed an unwelcome scenario, any idea of Mayo not wanting one was not something McStay was entertaining “We knew obviously before the throwing that we were safe, and so we're very happy with that. We're safe in the division, two games out, you know, before we even played against Derry.

I can't say this often enough to journalists, what sort of a game do you think we'd say, “well we won't bother with that one, we're not interested, that's one now we have to lose.” “Every game you go out in this division you want to win it. Our focus now moves to championship obviously, and that's no bad thing, but if it had worked out the other way, we'd have honoured it the same way, we'd have been serious about it the same way we're serious, I hope, about every game.”

McStay went to praise Aaron McDonnell, Kevin Quinn and Fenton Kelly for making their league debuts while he also reserved a work for Aidan O’Shea, who made his 100th National league appearance for Mayo “I was delighted for (Aaron). He scored a great point with his left foot out on the wing and he gave a really good account of himself and he deserved to start. He's been around the matchday 26s quite a bit and so definitely would mention Aaron and big shout to Aidan O'Shea as well. His 100th league match for Aidan. He gave it a great clip as well. He was right in the middle of everything that was happening in that match today.

“We got Kevin Quinn and Fenton Kelly in as well today for their first taste of National League and they did themselves no harm at all.”

Meanwhile, Derry manager Mickey Harte said they made life hard for themselves but was delighted to come away with a win in the end.

“I wasn't happy with certain times. Obviously, from the start of the game, Mayo started very well, considering that we were playing with the breeze, and it didn't look a great day for us. But then we actually put together some good play and put up a decent lead at halftime.

“We figured we'd have to add more to that, to keep them at arms length. We probably got away too well, maybe, too early in the second half, and took our foot of the pedal and they got a new lease of life.

“They had to be speculative and look for goals from long shots and putting high balls into the square and they did that and they were effective. So we made it hard for ourselves.

I think when you're nine points up ten or fifteen minutes into the second half I thought we'd have an easier end to our day but it proved a lot otherwise and Mayo were serious, serious operators when they came back at us there, closed it to two points again.

“Lucky enough, we had a few men that picked off vital scores to give us that wee bit of a cushion again. So, a lot of learning in it, and we're lucky to learn without losing.”

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Allianz NFL Division 1 - Round 7

Monaghan v Mayo

Sunday, March 24

1.45pm in St Tiernach's Park, Clones