Proud McEntee praises team but challenges them too

It was quite the contrast for supporters leaving Hastings Insurance MacHale Park after the Connacht SFC quarter-final. Mayo fans were murmuring to themselves about ‘only’ beating Sligo by three points while Sligo fans, albeit disappointed with the result, could look towards the Tailteann Cup with plenty of optimism.

That optimism was reflected in manager Tony McEntee who beamed with pride over his side’s performance.

“I think today, while it is a defeat, it's a defeat that we can look at, learn, grow and while disappointed now, we will get over that quickly and we will see it for what it was. It was a super performance.” 

When you consider that Sligo were hammered by 20 points when these sides last met in Connacht back in 2021, which was Tony McEntee’s first taste of the fixture in the Sligo hotseat, the strides the Black and White have made since have been enormous and the gap has closed, despite their poor start to the National Football League this year.

Evan Lyons held Ryan O’Donoghue to a goal from play, Eddie McGuinness battled valiantly all day against Aidan O’Shea and Canice Mulligan got the better of Matthew Ruane in every aspect, so much so that the Breaffy midfielder was withdrawn early in the second-half.

“The key players that Mayo had, we were able to target with excellent players of our own, and that gave us the foothold for the game here.

“Now, we did fall short, there were mistakes out there that we need to work on. But if you take it from the start of year when we played Offaly and Laois, the performance and the improvement of this team here is remarkable in those couple of months.” 

A big issue early doors in Division 3 was poor shooting, and Sligo certainly rectified that issue with a tally of 2-17 against the Division 1 table-toppers.

“Shot conversion was an issue. We were also giving away too many possessions. Today we lost a number of balls, maybe carelessly, that we didn't want to lose, but it’s incomparable to where we were against Offaly. It's like a different team on the field altogether.” 

Sligo trailed by three points at half-time but the concession of another early goal in the second-half gave Mayo breathing space. Sligo never wilted at any stage, with goals from Luke Towey and Cian Lally setting up a tense finale, as well as two pointers from Alan McLoughlin and one from Niall Murphy that appeared kicked from well inside the arc. McEntee would not be drawn on whether he thought Murphy’s two should have stood but praised the way his side did not fall away like they did in 2021.

“We're three down into the second-half where we have the breeze. Something we focused on at half-time was trying to continue aspects of the play that were going well.

“They got the goal early in the second half, which was obviously a sucker blow, but we didn't collapse, we kept at it, we kept fighting away.” 

Given their two points defeat to Galway last year and now a three points defeat to Mayo this year, Tony McEntee believes the gap is closing, but that it is also time to perform in the league against better opposition so they can have a foothold in Connacht.

“I think what we have to get right though here is that we need to get these performances earlier in the league to give us that chance to progress from (Division) Three into Two.

“If we can compete against Galway and we can compete against Mayo, then surely we can compete against most teams with the mindset right.”