‘Frustrated’ Mayo look to move on from Oscar Traynor Cup setback

The Mayo News got the thoughts of Mayo manager Joe Kelly and players Kevin Kitterick after their 2-1 Oscar Traynor Cup defeat to Roscommon & District League in Lecarrow:

Joe Kelly, Mayo manager

I wasn’t that concerned about the result. The main thing is that we are through. We overplayed at times, we spoke about getting space in behind them in the second half and we still didn’t do it. We tried to play to feet all day long and the surface and the length of the grass, we needed to be popping the ball in behind them all day. When we did do it, we got the penalty and we go the goal from it too. We said at half time that we needed to stop the predictability and we needed to mix it up and when they pushed up, as we knew they would, with the wind in the second half, that there would be space in behind, and yet we only did it a couple of times. We just overplayed it and when we did, we got caught on the counter. We were without really important players today and its always going to be a challenge in those circumstances. We had some good performances today. It was a good opportunity to give game time to some of the lads who aren’t regular starters.”

Kevin Kitterick

WE’RE frustrated. We played well in the first half, but we didn’t take our chances. We were punished for that, then in the second half, when they took their chances. We’re disappointed. We’ve had a tricky time with training coming up to this, we haven’t had a lot of training, but that’s no excuse. We needed to score goals today and we didn’t. On another day we would have had three or four. We needed a bit more sharpness. We have to put this behind us now and prepare well for the quarter-final.

Darren Browne

WE weren’t great from the start. We weren’t pushing on to the second ball, we couldn’t get a foothold on the game at all. If I scored the penalty it would have put is one up and potentially changed the game. But we’re still in it.