Heaney hails hard work as Mayo Minors start Connacht campaign with win over Roscommon

EVERY year with county minors is now a blank slate.

The only resemblance this Mayo Minor team bears to the Connacht champions of yesteryear is in David Hurley and Joe Forry, who had older brothers on the team.

Friday evening was the public’s first chance to see what this Mayo team, and their new managers, are about.

David Heaney, once a Mayo senior captain, now a joint manager of the county’s Minor team, believed that his side showcased the way they want to play ball on Friday.

“Our main pillar is hard work, really. I think we definitely showed that,” Heaney told The Mayo News after his first competitive win at the helm.

“We hunted in packs, I thought we tackled really hard. We struggled with the wind in the first half. I think that was more to do with nerves and Roscommon played a lot of men back, so we were just a bit reluctant on the ball in the first half.

“We want to be an offensive team, an attacking team, but you have to play to what the opposition allow you to do as well,” continued the Swinford native.

“We weren’t getting our runners though the half-way line or from the half-way line coming through quick enough and it just gets apprehensive.

“So we always say today’s game will be our worst game. I think we’ll improve as the year goes on, but we just wanted to get the first game out of the way and see how the lads reacted to it.”

The slow start was a cause for concern though.

“We started really nervously,” admitted Heaney.

“We didn’t really get going until Roscommon scored a goal and then we kind of took off. We were happy with the work rate, even in the first half and a lot of things didn’t go our way. But in general, [we’re] happy with the win, happy with the lads. They played their first proper game for Mayo so I’m delighted for them.”

Twenty-four players – the maximum permitted number – togged for Mayo against Roscommon in the opening round of the Connacht Minor Championship.

Heaney maintained that many of the 34 panel members will get a run at some point before the championship is over.

Plenty of time to get them playing their own unique brand of football.

“We want to be training the lads to be hard workers, to use their brain. We want a smart football team,” elaborated Heaney, who said Mayo ‘haven’t even thought’ about Galway yet.

“We have them fit, we have them strong, we just want to play with our heads up, play fast football. We’ve never really had a goal, we said we’d take it a game at a time.”