Mayo Minor manager ‘extremely proud’ of team despite heart-breaking Connacht final defeat to Galway

FOR everything that went wrong in the first half, you couldn’t but be proud of what this fine Mayo Minor produced in the second half.

Unsurprisingly, the word ‘proud’ is the first adjective that team manager, Brian McLoughlin, used when asked to sum up his thoughts after the final whistle.

Too shells-hocked to speak immediately after the full-time whistle, The Mayo News caught up with the Burrishoole clubman on the phone later on Saturday evening.

“It showed the character to come back. Because we were 14 points down in the second half, after a first-half where we just did not perform,” began McLoughlin.

“To be honest with you, Galway, out-fought us, out-worked us and out-played us and we had no answers to them in the first half. I'm extremely proud we put in the second half we did and got back into the position we did. We just ran out of time to finish the job.”

_{Kayla Doherty in possession for Mayo during the Connacht LGFA Minor A final (Pic: The Mayo News)}

Overturning a gut-punch of an early second half goal and a 14-point deficit took enormous character.

But it also took lots of ingenuity and reconfiguration.

“We decided to, rather than playing four forwards and using two workers on the wings, we went five forwards and three midfielders and said we’d press and have a go and just run at them,” explained McLoughlin.

“They won the throw-in and got the goal. But seconds after that, we reeled off 2-10 without reply. We just went all-out attack, we said we were as well to lose by 20 as lose by one. So we threw the kitchen sink at them, we said ‘No, we’re going to go for it’ and we said we’d set ourselves up as if we’re an attacking unit.”

In the end heart, soul, determination, and a kitchen sink weren’t enough to stop Galway spoiling the party.

“We were two points up with five minutes to go, but just bad composure or whatever, we didn’t see it out. We could have pushed on but in all fairness Galway had that sting in the tail and they had the players to do it. It’s not they didn’t deserve to win. Galway deserved to win today because they did enough in the first half and we didn’t. That’s the bottom line.”