McGinley: More solid look to McStay’s Mayo now

While Mayo will be disappointed that they didn’t manage the closing seconds of their Hyde Park clash with Dublin and see out the win, Enda McGinley is getting a “more solid sense” from Kevin McStay’s side this year compared to 2023.

Dublin needed a last-gasp point from Cormac Costello to snatch a draw at the Roscommon town venue, a result that saw them top Group 2 in the All-Ireland round-robin ahead of Mayo, who now must prepare for a preliminary All-Ireland quarter-final clash with Derry next weekend.

Kevin McStay’s team looked set to pull off a big upset when the outstanding Ryan O’Donoghue converted a free three minutes into added-time to give the Westerners the lead. At that moment they looked set to top the section.

But Dublin swept downfield from Stephen Cluxton’s resultant restart and Jack McCaffrey set up the influential Costello for his seventh point, which levelled the match for the 12th and final time. The Dubs are heading back to Croker then for a last-eight clash in a fortnight’s time.

Reflecting on those final few seconds when the Green and Red got their noses in front, McGinley told the RTÉ GAA Podcast that “Mayo lacked Dublin’s cynicism in dealing with that last play”.

A case of doing what has to be done from the resulting kick out.

The Tyrone All-Ireland winner continued: “Dublin done it an All-Ireland final years ago (2017). It was stopped, it wasn’t pretty, but it was stopped. It was a crucial, crucial thing.”

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In spite of the dark arts not being deployed when needed, McGinley did accentuate the positives as Mayo pushed the All-Ireland champions all the way, adding that they are in a good place ahead of the knockout phase.

“The loss of Paddy Durcan is massive but I think they’ll take good confidence from yesterday,” he said.

“They still had strong players coming in off the bench and will be happy with where they’re at. I think they look a more solid team this year than last year. They won the league and there was a huge wave of momentum behind them around that stage and then it crashed and burned in the Connacht championship.

“They then had a huge performance against Kerry but they didn’t follow it up. They were up and down but I get that more solid sense from them this year.

“It’s a big game against Derry and they have to nail that. And then they will feel they’ll have a chance against the other four quarter-finalists, and give any of them a game.”

Watch an All-Ireland Hurling Championship double-header, Dublin v Cork (1.15pm) and Clare v Wexford (3.15pm), on Saturday from 12.45pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to commentary on Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1

Watch the Tailteann Cup semi-finals, Antrim v Laois (2pm) and Down v Sligo (4pm), on Sunday from 1.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to commentary on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1

Listen to the RTÉ GAA Podcast on the RTÉ Radio Player, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts

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