Mayo minor manager Tony Duffy accentuates the positive

Duffy defends his players in spite of defeat


Edwin McGreal

TYRONE manager Raymond Munroe articulated what a lot of people would have been thinking. ‘Same old Mayo’. ‘What’s to be done with them?’ ‘Seven points up midway through the second half of a big game in Croke Park and they lose’. ‘Mayo, God help them’.
“Mayo, what can you say?” he wondered aloud as he faced the media under the Cusack Stand. “Great footballers and everything but I don’t know what the problem is in Mayo that they can’t seem to get over the line at these vital stages.”
Munroe was also the manager when Tyrone beat Mayo after a replay in the ‘08 final and, like many others, he has witnessed Mayo’s consistently poor record at Croke Park.
However, to lump these young footballers and Sunday’s defeat in with the collective failure seems harsh. Sure, it was another long journey home for the county’s long-suffering fans but some defensive naivety aside, this Mayo team can hold their heads high, according to manager Tony Duffy.
“I think it is harsh [Munroe’s assessment],” he told The Mayo News. “We didn’t roll over, like many other Mayo teams have. We fought as hard as we could. We don’t have a brilliant team, we never said we had, but we have a very high work ethic and we have some good forwards. We gave it everything but it wasn’t quite enough.”
Seven points up, did you feel the game was yours?
“I never felt we were there. Against Tyrone minors? No, I felt we were in with a right good chance but we had to stick to the game-plan, stay tight at the back. We didn’t keep things tight at the back, that was really, really disappointing.”
Tyrone had been raging-hot favourites going into the game but Mayo didn’t want for belief and tore into the Ulster champions in the first half.
“We had great belief in ourselves,” explained Tony Duffy. “We fully expected to win the game. We didn’t come here to make up the numbers. We prepared awfully well.
“We probably don’t have the best team in the world but we certainly have great fighting spirit and we were well-organised. We thought that would be enough to get us over the line but they got two goals in the second half that really knocked us back.”
When that second goal went in, Mayo had to dig deep, physically and mentally. They nearly grabbed an equalising goal at the end but the manager admitted that his players were tiring late on after all their efforts.
“We probably would have deserved a draw but these things happen. Look, our lads will be stronger for this.
“Yeah, fitness wouldn’t be an issue,” he replied to a question about the players tiring. “But we just worked so hard in the first half that . . it’s a big pitch, they’re young lads, so some of them ran out of steam alright. We were trying to make substitutions but it is difficult . . . they put in so much effort. We were against superior opposition and we knew that [level of] effort would be required to win the game.”
His Tyrone counterpart admitted he was very worried midway through the second half.
“Ryan Devlin went through and the ‘keeper pulled off a tremendous save from him. I turned to Cathal McAnenly and I just said, ‘It’s not going to be our day, is it?’ But the players never gave up and opportunities were created because of their hard work and endeavour.”