Andy Moran issues a reminder to Mayo fans

Moran issues a timely reminder


Mayo’s man of the match focussed on the positive

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Edwin McGreal

ON a night when he turned in a man of the match display at wing-forward, Mayo’s Andy Moran insisted that quality footballers are in the county as Mayo opened their National League campaign with a resilient draw against last year’s All-Ireland finalists.
“We had trials there in January and there are footballers all over Mayo. You know, people like to tell us there’s not. Listen, we’re getting to Under 21 finals, Minor finals, League finals, if there’s not footballers there . . . I don’t know where this theory comes from.
“I think we let ourselves down last year. The competition . . . the boys know there are positions there and whoever has the 1-15 jerseys are the guys who are going to hold on to them if they play well enough,” said Moran, who also singled out debutants Cathal Hallinan, Richie Feeney and Jason Gibbons for special mention.
His manager James Horan was in positive mood too after watching his side come from seven points down in the first half and from five points behind with twenty minutes to go.
“[It was] A good performance, [we] have to be happy. It was an exciting game towards the end. We probably could have snatched it with Peadar Gardiner’s last chance but. .
“When you look back at the game and, where we were at the start, the soft goals we gave away and how Down were a confident team and started off very confidently, it took us a while to get to grips with them.
“But we stuck at it and built our way into the game and in the end we were the team dominating the game and, as I said, could have snatched it. But we’ll take a point. There’s a huge amount there for us to take away from that and to build on so I’d be very happy with the performance overall.”
Horan singled out two of his most experienced players for praise but also admitted some others have to work at their fitness levels.
“Andy Moran and Alan Dillon, when we needed them, started to win the dirty ball, the breaking ball and kicked some outrageous scores, some great scores. But everyone, overall, really dug deep and gave everything they have.
“We’ve some guys at various levels of fitness, some of our guys aren’t as fit as they could be, and on a wet pitch out there they might have struggled a little bit. But everyone kept trying, which is the main thing.”
Horan conceded that his defence has stood off Down a little in the first half but that this was corrected after a half-time debriefing.
“Really, what happened in the first-half was their half-forward line were getting on an awful lot of ball. We weren’t really going man-to-man, we were standing off maybe five or six yards and that was giving (Danny) Hughes and (Marty) Clarke too much time on the ball. “When we pushed up on those, and Ger Caff’ in the second half did a fantastic job at that, and Kevin McLoughlin also, when we pushed up, we started winning the breaks at midfield and then the momentum went with us and it sort of changed the game a little bit.”