McStay annoyed by ‘nonsense’ talk about Mayo approach

Mayo manager Kevin McStay hit back at the notion his side would sacrifice today’s All-Ireland SFC game with Dublin as he affirmed his belief the county can have a big say in the latter stages of the competition.

McStay’s side were seconds away from sealing a place in the quarter-final after a sterling performance in Dr Hyde Park.

Cormac Costello’s late point meant a preliminary match awaits the Connacht side next week.

Having struggled with the hectic schedule last year, it was suggested Mayo could put focus on next week’s game at the expense of the game with Dublin.

McStay described the notion as “nonsense” in the aftermath of a pulsating second half in particular.

He said: “It doesn’t feel like a defeat, and at the same time, we have no interest in moral victories either. We got ourselves into a great position. I hope people realise now we were trying to win the game.

“The nonsense, the people were waffling about, about saving yourself for next week. We gave it our best shot, but look, Dublin are a terrific team. It was very hard to see how they’d come back from that, but if the one team can do, they did it.

“Look, we’ll chew over that in the next 48 hours, but what I want to put on record is just how proud I am of our team. We asked for a big effort to represent the county well today in a significant fixture, kind of the marquee fixture of the weekend, and I really felt we did that.

“We went so deep into the well and almost pulled it off, and we executed really well under pressure and just got clipped at the end.”

McStay cut an angry figure in the heat of the moment at the full-time whistle but he denied there was annoyance at his team’s actions in those closing seconds.

“No, absolutely not. You’re top of the mountain, you are a point up with 20-30 seconds to go and there’s a kick-out to be taken. You think, wow, just all we need is a bounce or a break here and we’re going to hold on, but the Dubs are a good team and they worked a solution.

“We won’t be feeling sorry for ourselves. We’re in this Championship. We feel we’re going to have a say in this Championship still. We have a home venue next weekend. We’ll see what the draw throws up tomorrow and we’ll adjust our load now for the weekend.

“We were obviously preparing to go straight into a quarter-final. That was our objective. It hasn’t happened so we’re going to readjust. We did it previously. We learned a lot from last year and how we managed it.”

Counterpart Dessie Farrell was equally pleased with his players for passing a test of character and securing a home quarter-final in a fortnight.

He explained: “It was a very, very tough encounter. We expected no more, to be honest. Mayo are a great side and had made significant improvement, I think, since their defeat to Galway.

“Watching them over their last couple of games, you could see they definitely made some serious adjustments. And we were going to be in for a right battle today, and it panned out that way, it went down to the wire.”

Farrell has plotted out the two paths to the quarter-finals and is pleased to have extra time on training pitch and knowing they will be on their home patch.

“It’s a big prize for finishing top of the group, I think that’s the consensus across the board. Either way, we would have dealt with it if it didn’t work out that way.

“We were going to use the momentum of a couple of games, please God, to maybe get a level of intensity that we haven’t encountered in the championship, so we had set our sights on that if it turned out that way. Thankfully it didn’t [and it was just the Mayo game].

“To be honest, we prefer to have the two weeks now and be more in control of what’s happening.

“It just showed that great character [to come back in the dying seconds]. It’s something we talk about a lot. You’re never truly tested in that apartment until the fat is in the fire, so to speak. It was last-ditch stuff and we had to show composure to make it happen.”