‘Nobody lost, nobody’s dead, we move on’ - Crossmolina and Moy Davitts react to Mayo intermediate final stalemate

FULL-TIME whistles in county finals shower elation on the victors and utter desolation on the vanquished.

But then there’s this weird, space in between that only comes after draws. It’s a kind of purgatory, where nobody knows what to say, what to do, where to turn to, or how to feel.

It takes a brave man to make sense of a game so tricky to analyse and so difficult to weave a sexy narrative around.

There were few takers from Moy Davitts, who strolled single-file from the dressing room like a beaten team - even though they had forced a stalemate from the furnace of destruction.

‘A bit of relief’ and ‘excitement’ were The Moysiders’ overriding emotions, according to veteran attacker Brian Heneghan.

Crossmolina, meanwhile, were ‘delighted’ to still be in the championship.

“That last play we could have easily conceded and be out of the championship. We’re still there, delighted to be there,” a still-smiling Crossmolina manager Brian Benson told The Mayo News.

But surely there must be some disappointment, after being seven points up in the first half and four points up coming down the home straight?

“Of course we’re disappointed but you got to look at the positives as well. As I said there and as I said to the boys, nobody lost, nobody’s dead, we move on, we recover and hopefully pull off a performance like that next day and come out the right side,” Benson replied.

He rated his team’s performance as ‘very good, bar the last couple of minutes.’

“It became a bit frantic and maybe we made wrong choices or whatever but ultimately we’re delighted with the way we played. Unfortunately, we just didn’t, for all the supporters here, we didn’t get out the right side. We’ll be here again next week.”

Crossmolina’s good start was half the work. The only problem was that they forgot to do the other half.

“I think Crossmolina started very well. We have to give them a lot of credit,” Moy Davitts’ goalscoring hero, Brian Heneghan, told The Mayo News.

“They got a very good start and it was just about trying to stay in the game and wait for an opportunity. We wouldn’t be really happy with the way we played on the day,” said the 30-year-old. 

The key to their second half rejuvenating was ‘just probably not panicking really’ according to Heneghan.

“We had to kind of dig ourselves out of holes that were of our own making so we just drew on that. It was a really good contest, two well-matched teams. It will be a good game in a week’s time.”

If Moy Davitts have shown one thing in 2024, it’s that they are definitely not a first-half team. 

“I think we need to certainly address the start and not let ourselves fall behind,” admitted Heneghan. “But as I said, we’ll just look at the positives of that and look at the reaction to the situation that we’re in and manage to find a way to get a result. It’s something we need to look forward to. Finals are exciting, so it will be good again next week.”