Moran credits players for finding solutions to provincial setback

Much has been made of Mayo’s failure of their ‘goal’ to win a Connacht title. But according to manager Andy Moran, the real goal was achieved last Saturday.

Staring down the barrel of another early championship exit, Mayo rallied back brilliantly to reach their first All-Ireland quarter-final in three years as well as a first trip to Croke Park since that defeat to Dublin in July 2023.

“People said to us at the start of the year what was our goal. I think you wrote locally that our goal was to win a Connacht title. That was never our goal,” a bullish Moran told the media in the wake of his side’s three points win against Meath. “Our goal was to try to get back to Croke Park and bring this promising bunch of young players to Croke Park and see how we get on. That was our goal at start of the year. We were nearly there up in Tyrone. We got here today and we're just delighted.” 

Delight was certainly not the feeling as half-time approached but a vital period in the final five minutes of that first-half, which saw Mayo score four of the last five points, gave them some badly needed momentum.

“Our team talk changed at half-time because of what the likes of Jack [Carney] and Ryan [O’Donoghue] and Enda [Hession] and Jordy [Flynn] did, and Kobe [McDonald] just before half-time. They really took the game by the scruff of the neck and kept us in the game. That game could have went to a 12, 13 point game and we’d have been out the door.

“But the boys pulled it back to seven, so all of a sudden your conversation at half-time then changes. Now the boys have pulled you back into it.

“We knew we had to get better on the breaking ball. We knew we had to get better at winning the ball inside. The two scores just before half-time gave us a lovely indication. Diarmuid O'Connor put two lovely balls into Ryan, and we got two scores off it. It kind of gave us the blueprint of what to do in the second-half.” 

That second-half performance was in real contrast to Mayo’s showing against Roscommon in the same venue only two months previously.

“Against Roscommon when you're against the wind with these new rules and the momentum goes against you, it's really hard to put up with,” said the Ballaghaderreen native.

“The lads, not me, Jack and these boys asked awful hard questions about themselves after the Roscommon game. They were the ones that met straight away after the game that week and it wasn't a nice meeting, I'm sure. I wasn't allowed in!

“They asked all the hard questions themselves, and it was them that came up with the solutions and that team that you see out there today was a result of that.” 

Mayo’s reward is an All-Ireland SFC quarter-final meeting with Cork, and it will be the 14th time the two counties have met in the championship. Cork lead 8-5 on victories, the most painful of the wins being the 1989 All-Ireland SFC final. However, Mayo’s record since 2011 has been fruitful, with three of their five wins coming in this period.

Manager Andy Moran was involved, along with Rob Hennelly, Cillian O’Connor and Aidan O’Shea for the victories in the 2011 and 2014 All-Ireland quarter-finals, the former when Cork were defending All-Ireland champions, as well as the 2017 All-Ireland qualifier that went to extra-time. The most recent meeting in 2023 was one to forget, as Mayo were reeled in by Cork at the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick.

Of the 16 players who saw action against Meath, eleven of them played against Cork that day three years ago. One of them, Paddy Durcan, is a doubt for this Saturday, while Darragh Beirne is also in a race against time after both men were withdrawn in the first-half against Meath due to injury.

But momentum and belief is growing, especially if the crowd in MacHale Park is anything to go by.

“We haven't been in Croke Park for a long time, getting a championship game like that. You could sense the crowd were getting behind the lads in Monaghan. You could definitely sense it in Omagh even after the game.

“We talked about it in the dressing room, you could sense that the crowd was here today to support the boys and you could hear it coming down the stretch, you could hear it just before half-time.

“The Mayo football public are a very intelligent crew. They're not easy at times to me and everybody else but that's life, that's the job we're in. But they're a very intelligent football county and they knew before half-time that we'd turn the screw a tiny bit which is huge and you can see the emotion out there today, it's huge.

“The goal for the team is to get back to Croke Park and see what we can do there. The last couple of years, the boys have been looking in, and they've been peeping in through the window to try to get into it.

“Now they're back in the big time, a quarter-final. Anything can happen in the quarter-final, you just wouldn't know. So let's just wait and see. We'll try to patch up a few bodies. Looks like Paddy might be out for next week but we'll to patch up a few bodies and go from there,” concluded Moran.