Stephen Rochford: 'Mighty. Well, feck it was mighty'

Acting Mayo manager Stephen Rochford during the GAA Football All-Ireland SFC Round 2 match between Tyrone and Mayo. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

There was only one word to sum it up for Stephen Rochford and Mayo: mighty. This was a sweet seven-point win over Tyrone.

It was confirmed during the week that Rochford would take charge in the interim after Kevin McStay had to step back to deal with personal health issues.

Speaking after a defiant performance and deserved triumph, Rochford hailed Mayo’s collective resolve to bounce back from the defeat against Cavan.

“Mighty. Well, feck it was mighty,” he said.

“We were out there. We were supporting each other. We were taking the game to the opposition. We trained really well over the last two weeks. We had really good prep last night on our stayover. We were really, really confident we were going to get a performance.

“You are coming up against a top team. Was it going to be a performance that would get a win? Nothing is guaranteed in this. But we felt we were going in the right way, you talk about getting a response, we were really frustrated as a collective group by the way we played two weeks ago.

“But we really had our heads down, we were focused on what we needed to do and we went about delivering that. I think we delivered that consistently when our backs were put to the wall when Darragh Canavan scored a fabulous goal, we responded. We got the next score. We won the next kickout.

“That is the stuff that is pleasing. No matter where you go on this journey, against top teams you are going to get the belt on the front of the noise as they say, all the plans can go out the window. The lads were just super. They backed each other up.” 

The bench impact was terrific with Davitt Neary in particular making his mark.

“Fenton Kelly came in there. Really tough week with his granddad passing away. You wouldn’t have seen it in him last night. He was absolutely focused on the group. We have been talking about the strength of the group in everybody. It is also the lads who aren’t here tonight, who pushed the group hard over the last two weeks.

“But the next thing is, we got to get home in the early hours tomorrow morning, rest up, get our recovery and get ready for what is going to be massive game in two weeks’ time.” 

Meanwhile, Malachy O’Rourke was left frustrated by a flat showing by his side.

“That is probably the most disappointing thing of all. we obviously knew Mayo were coming really fresh, they had a longer break than us. 

"They were coming hurting from the last performance and in fairness to them, they wanted to put on a good performance for Kevin as well. That was very important.

“They came and hit the ground running. We were hoping to do the same thing. As you say, it was a flat performance. We didn’t get to the pitch of the game at all. 

"At half-time we were whatever, six or seven points behind. It was always an uphill task. The boys fought hard in the second half. We got back to a point, we had too many mistakes, Mayo took over and finished well.”