Lee Keegan: Cillian O'Connor good enough to be playing for Mayo

MAYO were missing a trick on Sunday having one of the best forwards in the game sitting in the stand. That's the view of former star Lee Keegan, who spoke exclusively on Pitchside, The Mayo News' Sports Show this morning.

The five-time All-Star agreed there is great disappointment in the county after Sunday's championship exit at the hands of Donegal, but the Westport man believes good days aren't as far away as people think.

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“I really do see huge scope in this (Mayo) group to do things. I think our group is good enough. I don't think the changes have to be huge - just tweak certain things. I think we can be more adaptable to the two-pointer and in that regard we have, Cillian (O'Connor) one of the best sharpshooters just playing club this year. I still think he's fit. We played against Ballintubber in the league and he looked as sharp as ever. So he could be an option, 100 per-cent.

“I think we have talent there now and I think we're going to get better. It might feel like we're a million miles away now, but when you sit down and you look at it and you look at that performance against Tyrone and you look at that performance the weekend it begins to look different. We're not a million miles away. It's just turning the dial a little bit the other way and working on certain things.

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“As I said, the two-pointer is huge. We'll always have great defenders. We'll always have physicality. We'll always have athleticism. Teams aren't as good as they once were. I think the standard isn't where football was maybe five, six years ago.

“The games are brilliant and I think they're class but I do think there's scope for multiple different All-Ireland winners in the next five or six years. And if that doesn't get you excited then I'm not sure what else can.

“If you don't have hope then there's no point. You're wasting your time. You have to have hope.”

The full Pitchside interview with Lee Keegan will be carried on mayonews.ie on Friday.