“Messy chaos” - why everyone’s happy with another chance

WHAT a cruel day for the remnants of Hurricane Charley to come crashing down on Dublin.

This was supposed to be a mouth-watering game for the purists between two teams that have brightened our horizons all summer.

That it was as gripping as it was is testament to two sides who had to put aside the fancy footwork and don the overalls instead.

Not the kind of game we nor was it the type of match Mayo’s David Heaney had played out in his mind all week.

“It was very tough out there,” the full-back agreed. “I got a few knocks but that’s just pure awkwardness on my part. We expected a tough challenge from Fermanagh but maybe not like that. We expected a physical game but we imagined we were bigger than them.

“Maybe conditions were part of the reason. It was the same for both teams and it didn’t suit them either. Both teams were playing high balls in on their forwards and that made for a messy game.”

Three points was the sum total of Mayo’s scoring in the second half and yet it’s impossible not to be impressed with their refusal to give in on a day when they were clearly the inferior team.

“At the end it was organised panic, organised chaos,” Heaney laughed. “We’re just delighted to have another chance and we know we’ll have to rectify a few things for the next day. We didn’t play well and they deserved to win. They hit a lot of wides and we lost James Gill, but we have another go at it now anyway.”

If Heaney was surprised at the physicality of the Fermanagh team then his forward colleague Conor Mortimer certainly didn’t see anything from the Ulster side to catch him on the hop.

All summer Charlie Mulgrew’s side has been taken lightly by people, but Mayo were never going to fall into that trap, said the Shrule attacker.

“Fermanagh are no bad side, we knew that. Northern teams are never easy to play against and Fermanagh were no different. They’ve beaten a lot of good teams to get this far and we were well aware of that coming up to the game.

“We’re not surprised by how they played or how they put it up to us. I hear Barry Owens got man of the match and maybe that’s because he was under every high ball that we were sending down towards him.

“It’s a good result for us though.”

Mayo seemed to be on the brink of hitting fifth gear for a spell in the first half when they knocked over six points in a row. But he was at a loss to explain why that momentum could not be maintained.

“Yeah, we were starting to come into our own at that stage alright but you’ll always get that sort of spell of dominance in any game and we were happy to capitalise on it like we did. The pitch was quite hard though and the ball was moving so quickly it was hard to get scores all day.”

With five points to his credit, the younger of the Mortimer brothers was the highest scorer on view in yesterday’s semi-final but he was central to the action in other ways too.

Mortimer had a bird’s eye view of both James Gill’s sending off and his brother Trevor’s second-half penalty appeal.

“Ah, it was a terrible decision to send James Gill off. I should know, I was standing right beside them when it happened. To be fair to Stephen Maguire, he said ‘I got up straight away’ and he did. Trevor’s was a penalty too. I was close to that when it happened as well.”

Mortimer is a worry for John Maughan after picking up an ankle injury that left him hobbling out of Croke Park yesterday.

“It’ll be the same again next week,” he claimed. “We know that. We’re prepared for it. We’ll rest up for a few games now. We’ll take stock and treat a few injuries and hope that we can play that bit better the next day. “We’ll have to and we know that.”