Moran reflects on league campaign: ‘This can’t just be a one-year project’

Mayo manager Andy Moran was more relieved than disappointed that Sunday’s 21 point victory did not bring his team to a league final next Sunday in Croke Park.

Had Armagh grabbed a winning point late on against Kerry, it would have been Donegal facing Mayo in the Division 1 final, and Moran admitted his overall preference was to avoid the extra fixture.

“If I am being perfectly honest, if we got to a league final, we would have went after it, we would have tried to win it of course and you’d have respected the competition but we now have a three-week gap into London. We can give the lads five, six days off here and then go into their same two week pattern that they’ve been in all year. It is probably better for the group that that’s the way it was. 

"Would you have taken a league final? Of course you would. I was lucky enough to be there the last two Marches for Division 4 and Division 2, they are a great occasion but for the team, Kerry getting that draw was probably a good result for us,” he said.

Mayo finished the league on ten points with five victories and two defeats to Donegal and Kerry. For Moran, the development of his squad and blooding new players was equally important.

“Over the course of the league, we’ve used 36, 37 players. I think out of those 36, 37, 32 of them have got a start, and we got three or four new debuts today. That’s what we’re using the league for.

“The first game we tried Eoin McGreal and Darragh Beirne and we haven’t stopped and that’s what we’re going to keep doing. This can’t just be a one-year project, it has to be looking towards the future,” he said.

Sunday’s win helps put the 16-point defeat to Kerry eight days previously more in the rear-view mirror but Moran stressed that they had compartmentalised it before they left Tralee.

“We came out after half-time (in Tralee), there was a bit of a storm blowing after half-time, we were three down and had played with the wind. It was never going to be easy. We watched Armagh v Dublin on the way up. Armagh lost the first-half by 13 and then won the second half by 14. This is the way the game is going, once you get momentum (against you), you are in trouble.

“If Kerry get momentum with Clifford and Séan O’Shea and these guys and you’ve a bit of inexperience on the pitch, it could get out of hand but I’ll be honest and Diarmuid (Duffy) will back me on this one, we weren’t too excited coming up the road last week. We thought we didn’t do our job, we didn’t execute it well and we just move on and we understand that Kerry are the form team in the country but we did understand and the boys were very cognisant that we made six changes and we’d an awful lot of youth on the pitch at the start of the second-half,” he said.

Moran observed that in changing their style of play from recent years, there will be pitfalls whilst also adding particular praise for one of his four league debutants.

“When it is quick, we need to learn … because we’re trying to implement a quicker style than we’ve maybe played in the last couple of years so when you do that sometimes you go too quick and sometimes you’ve to slow it down so you’re just learning all the time and learning which players can play in that system. You see Hugh O’Loughlin today, can he play in that system? Most certainly.” 

The manager was also quick to seek to park the relevance of a 21-point trimming of the neighbours on Sunday. Should Mayo overcome London and Roscommon defeat New York, the sides are on a collision course for a Connacht semi-final in five weeks and for Moran, that framed Sunday’s approach for both teams.

“Ah it is immaterial. It means absolutely nothing. I said to Mark (Dowd, Roscommon manager) there at the end, a bit of shadow boxing and that’s what it was,” he said.

For Ballinrobe’s Diarmuid Duffy, Sunday represented a first league start in over two years.

“It was great to be out there playing a match. Andy has been onto us all year to stay with it, you’ll get your chance and I got that today and I was just delighted to be out on the pitch. The likes of Hugh (O’Loughlin) and Séamie (Howard) and Jack (Livingstone), we all got a chance, like he said it was great to be out there with all the experienced lads that are back, like Cillian (O’Connor) coming back there and kicking a two-pointer, that was massive. They’ve just been guiding us and there’s just a great feeling around the group.

“We’re all going in the one direction. You just look forward to going to training on Tuesday night and Friday night. It is going the right way and we can’t wait now until London.” 

Duffy played at corner-back and helped himself to a point. He said there is plenty to work on.

“It was fast. There was a lot of spaces out there, probably at some stages a bit too much space in the full-back line, more than we would have liked. There’s loads of stuff for us to work on from that game in defence especially.”