Mayo ladies rue missed chances against Dublin 

LOSING by three to the All-Ireland champions is not the worst possible start for a team in perpetual transition like Mayo.

But the errors that undid a truly gallant effort in sunny Parnell Park must be eradicated if Mayo are to survive in a league with the other seven best teams in Ireland.

“Both teams, I think there was a lot of unforced errors there, a lot of silly mistakes,” former Mayo captain, Kathryn Sullivan, said after the game.

“I suppose the first National League game girls will be nervous. There’s a lot of new players there on both sides.”

Her manager, Liam McHale made similar remarks when he stopped to chat barely two minutes later.

“We made loads of mistakes and we had loads of chances there at the end,” said McHale.

“Sinéad had two looks and missed them. I’m not criticising anybody, she was unfortunate. Bree [Hession] had too good looks, Aoife [Geraghty] had a goal chance at the end where she mishandled. I thought when we gave away the free to put them three up it was done, there was only about four or five minutes left.”

Now for the positives.

“I thought for parts of the game we were on top of Dublin and we really put them under pressure. That’s a testament to the younger girls that are playing, they showed up there today,” said Sullivan.

“I thought we started off pretty well defensively, I thought our physicality was good, it matched them,” said Sullivan.

“And usually at this time of the year Dublin are heavily gymming - and that’s just true from my own experience of playing them. I thought our physicality was good in the first half, I thought our decision-making was good at time. Our fitness, our running off the shoulder, our options, our space-making throughout the first half was good.”

McHale commented: “We showed great character. Dublin made some mistakes, their kick outs started to struggle because we were pressing hard and stuff like that. I’d be very disappointed now - not by their application or by the effort they put in. We just got loads of chances to get something out of it, and we didn’t take it. That’s what happens when you have young players.”

DEBUTANTS

MAYO, in total, handed out four senior debuts on Saturday - perhaps, out of necessity rather than choice, considering the high turnover of players.

McHale was constructive in his appraisal of their contribution.

“Bree [Hession] will get those chances next Monday, the following Monday or the following Saturday and she’ll take that extra step and she’ll put them over the bar. Players come in at this level and they are inclined to rush things a little bit but the likes of herself, Kayla [Doherty], Sisi [Saoirse Delaney], they are all good players,” he said.

“We had four championship debutants today, a lot of young players coming in and acquitting themselves well but if we could just tidy up on the mistakes, our support play wasn’t good enough, our spacing wasn’t good enough, that’s why we are turning the ball over.

“The guy that’s turning the ball over, it’s not her fault, she hasn’t got options off her shoulder, she hasn’t got options up front and we have to tidy that up a little bit.

“A big strong Dublin team at home, it was always going to be a big ask,” McHale acknowledged, “but you’d probably be disappointed as a coach that we didn’t score 1-12 or 1-13 or maybe 2-10 or 2-11. If they could score more than that to beat us, so be it.”