Kevin McStay shuns blame game after Connacht final defeat to Galway

IF you came to read about Kevin McStay blaming championship structures, refereeing decisions and injuries for Mayo losing the Connacht final then please turn the page.

The Mayo manager offered words of regret and optimism after his second Connacht championship defeat as Mayo manager.

But blame, excuses and finger-pointing were nowhere to be seen, though the scribes from the print media did their best to probe.

“We thought we nearly had it. We  were three up but couldn’t get to four. The game was always alive. We had no sense on the sideline that we’d it won or anything. We thought we’d get it over the line,” began McStay.

“You have to commend Galway, they were staring down defeat too. They were able to work it up the field and get a few frees and keep themselves in contention. And once there was only a point or two in it the game was always there to be one.

“It's just disappointing. We were mad to win it.”

A newspaper columnist for many years, McStay once again tried to get ahead of the next, most obvious question that all of Mayo was asking last Tuesday.

“I hope yee all understand now there was nobody lining up easy groups or difficult groups when you see the sort of stuff that was going on there. Both teams were fully committed to winning the Nestor Cup and unfortunately it has alluded us now.”

Talk of championship groups, McStay later revealed, was banned altogether in the days leading up to the showdown in Salthill.

That didn’t stop one reporter from asking whether he felt the championship draw should be delayed until after the provincial finals.

“Paradoxically, we were one of the counties that got caught on the logistics side of it (last year) because we couldn’t get hotels because the draw is being made on Monday. We certainly asked them to tweak that,” McStay revealed.

“Then what came out of it was, we didn’t know who we were playing anyway, or what day we were playing or what time we were playing. The draw was made, but what we wanted was the fixtures, and we didn’t get the fixtures because there’s matches to be played yet and we didn’t want to do an ‘either-or’, which could be done. That’s for them to figure out into the future.

“I feel a little bit sorry for the Connacht championship, because the draw was made.”

There are those who would blame David Gough’s refereeing in the latter stages for Mayo’s demise.

Not Kevin McStay.

“A free at the beginning is worth a point as well so we all zone in on the last two ones,” he said, when asked specifically about the frees won by John Maher and conceded by Conor Loftus.

“David Gough is the best referee in the country by a mile. There was two teams out there driving into each other. It was really hard, physical stuff, a very difficult match to referee because both teams just so badly wanted to win the cup. So we have no issues. He has reffed us many times in the past, good days and bad days and it was a difficult game to ref. I wouldn’t have liked to have refereed it.”

The eternal optimist said that Mayo won’t have any easy game in the championship but insisted that Mayo are not as far off as some would now believe.

“Losing by a point, it’s not nice, but it’s not a million miles away from winning by a point. I know that sounds crazy, but we still are a decent team. We still are able to go toe-to-toe with Galway. So we know we are going to be competitive in this round robin no matter what we’re doing,” he said.

McStay, who passionately called for ‘Mayo Inc’ to summon ‘The Mayo Roar’ after the Connacht semi-final, took three hesitant seconds to respond when asked about his new message to his disheartened disciples.

“See you at the next match in Castlebar.”

That’s it!