Mayo vice-captain reflects on eventful end to summer
Daniel Carey
“I’M gutted, to be honest with you,” said Mayo vice-captain Andy Moran after last Sunday’s All-Ireland SFC semi-final defeat to Kerry. “I thought we were going to win the All-Ireland final. That’s my aim, and it just didn’t happen.”
Speaking to The Mayo News, Moran said it was “hard to take positives” when defeat is your lot, but added that Mayo “played well for patches” and “showed that we have talent” in the county. “Successful year? Yeah, our aim was to win the Connacht title, be competitive in August and September, and stay up in Division 1. We did that, but tonight is a lonely place really.”
Noting that Kerry were “more clinical” than Mayo, he said ruefully: “You can’t give them opportunities to ‘Gooch’ … We made a few more mistakes than them at vital times, and that cost us. I had a few goal chances. I suppose we got a rebound off one, but the other two – that’s six points.
“Donie [Vaughan] probably had a goal chance; that’s nine points. So the chances were there to win. It just shows how far we’ve come. But we’re very disappointed tonight ... We thought we had the ammo to beat Kerry, and it ended up that they were probably just that bit better than us, and they deserved it.”
Moran felt Mayo “should have went in ahead at half time” notwithstanding Darran O’Sullivan’s two goal chances, and they were “very confident” coming out after the break. “But unfortunately, it turned out that they pulled away instead of us.
“People love to tell you there’s no footballers in Mayo, but I’ve always told you there’s footballers there,” he added. “We just need to get them playing right, and I think we’re probably 70 per cent of the way there. Unfortunately Kerry are probably 99 to 100 per cent there. That’s the difference.”
Most of the Mayo squad will be back in action with their clubs next weekend as the county championships swing back into action.