Mayo were competitive in ‘every single match’ in 2024, says McStay

IN the minutes after Saturday night’s crushing defeat to Derry it was nearly impossible to pin Kevin McStay down on one particular play, tactic or decision that brought an end to Mayo’s hopes and dreams for yet another year.

The Mayo football cognoscenti might come up with an answer in the idle weeks ahead. But in no game in 2024 did Mayo hear the final whistle without being competitive right until the end.

McStay was keen to get that message across when he summed up his immediate thoughts after Mayo’s death by 15 points and four penalties.

“I know the team are very disappointed now because their season is over and I’m fairly sure we’ve been competitive in every single match we’ve played this year,” the Mayo manager told reporters.

“In the Connacht final, the last kick of the game - Dublin with the last kick of the game, tonight it was the last penalty of the game. That’s tough, that’s the fine margins that are involved, so that’s the only sense I can make of it. We’re getting the wrong side of those fine margins too often.

“Until we are a little bit more ruthless and clinical and we stretch out our leads when we should stretch them out, we’re giving everybody a chance to catch up on us,” McStay continued, forecasting the next question - which was posed, in any case.

“Well my own sense is that it takes skill to do it [close game out]. The best teams, the best players kick those points in those clutch movements and maybe we’re not quite there yet, we don’t quite have that level but we believe we’ve the potential to get there,” he said.

“They are hugely committed to playing for Mayo and I know the effort, they practice that skill and get better, that won’t be the issue. But can we push it on will be the big question.”

McStay said there were no psychological hang-ups from failing to dump the Dubs in the Hyde six days previously. Nor was there any chance that Derry’s poor run of form or talk of trouble in Mickey Harte’s camp had any bearing on either team.

He hailed an ‘immense’ performance from Aidan O’Shea, who, he explained, was taken off because he was ‘spent.’

But why take him off, if he was playing so well?

Not for the first time, Mayo’s jovial general bristled at a question posed by The Mayo News.

Here’s how the exchange went after McStay took his head from his hands.

“You ask it in an adversarial way, there’s a different way you can ask the question. Why did we take him off? Would you take a guess why we took him off, would you?”

“That’s not for me to answer.”

“Alright, okay. Try and ask a more informed question, perhaps.”

“Did ye practice for penalties?”

“We did, we did,” came a more measured reply, “like I’m sure every elite team does and the five penalty kickers we had were top, top lads. The Derry guys have obviously practiced as well, so it was a good shootout, some of the penalties were magnificent. It comes down to the last bloody shot.”

It came down to that one kick of a ball, but McStay did concede there were ‘long periods we didn’t play well’ beforehand.

“Even at half-time we felt, reasonably, I won’t say lucky, but we were three down or two down, whatever it was. A goal can change it, and it did. We didn’t build on the goal, then, and that was. I had a sense going down the stretch once we didn’t build on the goal. The first half was not great from a Mayo perspective.”