Mayo minors must do better, says manager Duffy

Mayo must do better, says Duffy


REACTION
Daniel Carey

HAPPY with the result, unhappy with the performance. That sums up Tony Duffy’s feeling on last Saturday’s All-Ireland minor football quarter-final victory over Offaly.
Turning his attention to Mayo’s pending trip to GAA Headquarters and a meeting with Tyrone, the Ballintubber man (pictured) said: “We fully expect to improve. We’ll have a lot of analysing of the DVD to do now to try and get ourselves right. But it’s great to be going to Croke Park. We don’t know how the lads will react in Croke Park. Hopefully they’ll express themselves much better than they did today, and we’ll kick on and we’ll give Tyrone a right good game.”
Expressing himself “very disappointed” with his side’s display, the Mayo manager suggested that they “didn’t get out of the blocks” and “didn’t play to our potential for any stretch” of the game. But it wasn’t all bad – they “dug deep”, “showed a bit of resilience” when things weren’t going well, “defended stoutly” in the last ten minutes, and – most importantly – “got the result” they were looking for.
Duffy also praised his side for retaining possession in the closing stages, and maintaining their discipline despite having what he called “a few awful harsh frees” awarded against them. And, of course, there was Cillian O’Connor’s “superb kick” from 60 metres, which “dug us out of a hole”, as Duffy put it.

SO what of that monster free? The man himself was asked if he ever pointed one from further out, and reckons the answer is no.
“When I was walking out to take it, I thought it was a small bit closer, and it was only when I turned around to take it that I realised it was so far out!” O’Connor said with a rueful smile. “I started having second thoughts at that stage, but I knew Danny Kirby had gone in, so I said if it drops short, it might look like a pass to him! I just let fly and the wind took it, and it went over, thank God.”
More generally, the team captain was singing from the same hymn-sheet as his manager. Getting to Croke Park was, he said, “a huge incentive” ahead of Saturday’s match, but a repeat performance on August 22 won’t do.
“We know we’ve an awful lot of work to do if we’re going to have any chance in the semi-final,” said O’Connor. “Today probably wasn’t good enough, and we just got out of jail, I think … We know we didn’t play well, but we’re just delighted to get the win, and that’s all that counts, really.”
The Ballintubber corner forward insisted there was no question of under-estimating Offaly – “We knew it’d be a challenge. But for whatever reason, we didn’t kick on as much as we wanted in the first half, and we were flat in the first 20 minutes.”
Playing into the breeze, Mayo “tried to be careful when we were selecting our shots and not shoot from stupid angles,” he added. “We knew with the breeze at our backs, it was going to be a small bit easier. We got good ball into the forwards in the second half, and we had a bit more confidence shooting because the wind helped us.”
Having got their noses in front, Mayo were determined to stay there against an Offaly side that were tricky to shake off. “When we took the lead, we just tried to protect it and stay composed. And we tried to hold onto possession, because … they weren’t having many wides. So we knew we had to hold onto the ball, and thankfully the backs were brilliant in the last ten minutes, and we were composed enough to see it out.”