Mitchels relieved to win after 'tough' test

THEY may have beaten Aghamore by a point to get their first win of the Mayo senior club championship last weekend, but Castlebar Mitchels were the first to admit that there was an element of ‘luck’ to the victory.
“It was tough, very tough going. In fairness to Aghamore they put in a massive shift there,” said Castlebar Mitchels captain Donal Newcombe afterwards, reflecting on one of the hardest group stage games of his stellar career.
“They got bodies back, worked it very, very well and they hit us on the counter. They got a good goal, runners, from deep, stuff like that. We found it really, really tough and we got a bit of a break with the goal, thankfully. When you get that luck, you take it.”
Sticking to their tried and tested approach, Mitchels did not subject supporters to the torpid ennui of endless lateral hand-passing to break down Aghamore’s water-tight defence.
But they were certainly not gung-ho in attack either.
“It’s a bit of balance I suppose. As long as we’re protected at the back, I suppose is the main thing,” Newcombe told The Mayo News.
“So there’s times we definitely used that ‘plus one’ to make sure we’re shored up. We try and turn the ball over as quickly as possible and times it worked well and other times it didn’t.”
Aghamore boss Paddy Finnegan was a proud but ‘absolutely gutted’ man at full-time.
“I thought the lads, in fairness, put in a massive performance. We came down here as huge underdogs against one of the teams everyone is touting for a county title and rightly so,” he told The Mayo News.
Asked if he felt their defeat was down to bad luck or Mitchels simply being a better team, Finnegan replied: “I wouldn’t say they were the better team. Not that we were much better.
“ I thought we probably created more than them. I’d say we had more shots than them and didn’t execute them. I thought we defended really well and kept them to shots from long distances and a couple of frees. So I thought we did really well.”
Mitchels will play Ballyhaunis in the third round with Aghamore up against Knockmore in a group where it’s still all to play for.