Daniel Carey
WILL Galway bate Mayo? Not, it seems, if they have Cora Staunton. Manager Frank Browne praised Mayo’s never-say-die attitude in Sunday’s astonishing Connacht final, and hailed yet another match-turning display from his star attacker. The Carnacon player finished with a remarkable 2-13 to her name in a game that will hardly be bettered for drama all year.
“Cora is a unique talent,” Browne told The Mayo News on Monday. “I don’t think we’ll ever see her likes again, being honest with you. As I was saying to some people on Sunday, in the last minute of any game, who would you like to be taking the crucial free? Man or woman in any sport, it’d be Cora. She just has that whole way [about her]. Even after missing two simple enough ones, she just stood up and stuck it away. She was amazing from frees at the end.”
However, Browne added that not all the credit should go to the mercurial forward, and paid tribute to his side’s unstinting will to win. In a game that produced 37 scores, the Wexford native pointed to his side’s preparation and attention to detail as the difference between the sides.
“We we were so conscientious about how we were going to train and how we were going to eat and how we were going to look after ourselves and get ourselves ready. It comes down to little things when you’ve that number of scores in a game, and I think that’s probably what got us through in the end. And hunger, of course, in the end. There was no way we were going to lie down and die. I’d say the coolest people in Tuam [on Sunday] were probably the players and the mentors, because we knew from when we got a score back, we had the work done. I don’t think anyone within the circle of people stopped livin’ the dream at any stage.”
Few outside that circle still believed after Mayo had Martha Carter sin-binned and went nine points down during the second half of normal time. But from the moment Mayo landed a point and then a freakish long-range goal from Staunton, it was suddenly ‘game on’ once more.
“At half time we said to each other: ‘Whatever we do, we’ll leave out on the pitch, and we’ll look each other in the eye when we come in and we’ll say: we gave everything. And if that’s enough to win, brilliant, and if it’s not, well, we can put our hands on our hearts and said we did everything we could’. In some ways, I suppose Galway were a little bit naïve with 10 or 12 minutes to go. We were on the ropes and one more punch might have been the knockout. But they sat back and let us come back into the game at ’em.”
Indeed, Mayo might have snatched victory in normal time were it not for the last-minute intervention of Ann-Marie McDonagh. Eventually, it took extra time, by which time many players were out on their feet. Ciara McDermott was among those to suffer cramp as physio Lorcan Galvin sprinted from one knock to another, but there were no serious injuries to report.
“We enjoyed last night (Sunday), but it’ll be back to hard work on Wednesday evening,” Browne concluded. “We’re playing again on July 21. But Sunday was just another step and there are six steps left. A lot of people in this group are not going to relax until 5pm on September 23 when we’ve won the All-Ireland. That’s where I’ve been driving to since the beginning, and this is another step along that journey.”
But what a step.
MAYO face Waterford in the first of their pool matches after the draw for the next round of the championship was made in Croke Park last night. The Connacht champions will meet the Munster runners-up on July 21. They have also been paired with Kerry and Dublin in a very tough group.
