Regan rejoices in attitude of carefree Mayo

As the Mayo team bus made its way into the grounds of Longford Slashers, the feeling among the team was one of confidence, almost jovial. Perhaps uncharacteristic of a team getting ready to play an All-Ireland semi-final. But after what unfolded last Thursday evening, who could blame them?

“If you've seen the craic in the bus on the way up and them singing Freed From Desire, I’d say the stewards outside are wondering are these going to a game or a disco? But that's this group of girls, they are just carefree and they're unreal, I can't be prouder of them,” said Francis Regan afterwards.

Proud was a word frequently used by the Mayo manager when speaking after the game as once again, the Green and Red produced champagne football in a pressure cooker situation to book their place in another All-Ireland U16 final.

“It's unbelievable. I’m kind of speechless to be honest. I wasn't expecting it to be like that. The scoreline didn't really reflect the efforts that Kildare put in. They were very, very good. They’ve some excellent footballers.

“It's just the work our girls have put in over the last couple of weeks, it's a credit to them. To go out in the semi-final to beat Kildare by eleven points in the end, it's a huge scoreline.” 

As well as ability, character was in abundance when needed. Aoibhinn McNamara netted a crucial second-half penalty after some first-half wides while Mikayla McLoughlin, who saw some goal chances ago astray in the Connacht final, burst the net the first time an opportunity presented itself.

“They all stepped up. Every single one of them. Yes, some of them hadn’t their best games but they still went out and died with their boots on. They just worked so unbelievably well, it was unreal,” said Francis Regan.

“I said that to [Mikayla] coming out of the dressing-room, ‘forget what happened before, you keep doing what you do’ and that's what Mikayla does.

“It wasn't just Mikayla, it was Katie Hughes, it was Emily Duffy, Katie Corcoran, getting her first start of championships today and she was unbelievable with the work-rate. The midfield, Ailbhe and Chloe, they worked their asses off. That's their first clean sheet of the year, so I have to be proud of that.

“Even at the end, it could be very easy to give away couple of soft fouls, but they stood strong, and I couldn't be prouder. In the first-half they were probably lucky at times that Kildare didn’t get in more, but we stood the test.” 

Sitting back and inviting Kildare on for the entire second-half could have been an easy thing to do, and Mayo did that at times, but the hunger for goals remained evident. They play a front-foot style and wouldn’t want it any other way.

“That's my philosophy since day one,” said Regan. “Ever since I ever got involved in coaching it’s go out and attack them. If you can outscore, you outscore them. That's it. Like I said to the girls in the dressing-room before the game, you can either go out and try not to lose or go out and try to win. And jeez, the girls went out to try and win and did it.

“They love goal shots so why stop them? That's their strength, let them at it. Five goals in the All-Ireland semi-final, it's huge.

“That's the way I want football played. That's the way football should be played, and we're starting to see that now in the men's games, where they're going back to their football and free-form stuff. That's what you want, that's what football is. That's where we grew up, where we're watching football like this.”