Ray of hope for the future
Reaction
Mike Finnerty
“THE most pleasing thing about that game is that we won — and I didn’t get a heart attack,” laughed Ray Dempsey as he left the pitch at Pearse Park last Saturday and headed back to the dressing-rooms to talk to his players.
A six point victory after extra-time had left the Mayo minor manager spent, his mind and body exhausted after a match that tested him to the limit. Injuries, setbacks, poor spells, purple patches. A little bit of everything.
“You just have to give the lads credit for battling,” was his initial thought. “They showed battling qualities that sometimes are lacking but we had it today. That team just wouldn’t give in.
“We’ve won games easy and now we’ve won games very hard. The next game will be no different, we’ve picked up a few injuries. I’ve said before, teams win matches and panels win competitions. Our panel is going to be tested from now on.”
Injuries to Eoin Reilly (ankle), Kevin Keane (thumb) and Aidan O’Shea (hamstring) will be a cause for real concern as the countdown to an All-Ireland semi-final date with Kerry looms large. But Dempsey, Tom O’Grady, Kevin Beirne and Stephen Healy had other worries at half-time in Longford. Their team had owned the ball but only led by two points. Monaghan were proving dogged and worthy opponents, and Ray Dempsey admitted that he had plenty to ponder.
“I was very worried because, in all fairness, Monaghan weren’t going anywhere. This was the last-chance saloon for both teams and they worked their heart out. The breeze was a factor too. It makes a lottery of most matches and I think this could have been a massive game of football only for the breeze.
“I knew we had to keep working and they got back into the game. I think if we had gone 0-4 to 0-1 up we might have pushed on but we didn’t take an early opportunity. Then they went in front and we had to battle.”
Battling was never a problem for this particular group last weekend but scoring certainly was. Mayo only hit seven points during the regulation sixty minutes and it took them until deep into extra-time before they started to click and combine as a unit. Up until then, it was very ragged around the edges.
“In all fairness there was some huge tackling out there,” argues Dempsey. “There was so much pressure put on both sets of forwards that there was a lot of misdirected kicking. That was probably very close to senior tackling, a lad looked up and there was a player in his face. It takes a while for 17 or 18 year old lads to develop composure in that kind of situation. “
“As a result, probably a lot of the ball going into the forwardline was a bit kamikaze. Their centre-back had a massive game for them sweeping too. It’s hard, you try to force the thing with the wind and it doesn’t always work.
“You can analyse a game too much,” he added. “We’ve been in games and we’ve won them but we’ve still an awful lot to do. Even if we lost there today we still had a lot of good qualities in our play and we just have to live with that...”
Mayo have now played and won four games in this year’s minor championship and have earned a crack at Kerry and a trip to Croke Park.
“We’ll have to stick to working hard anyway in the semi-final because that got us out of jail today. Their fighting qualities pulled us through.”
