O’Mahony committed to Mayo despite pain of defeat
The Fine Gael TD’s initial three-year term came to an end with yesterday’s disappointing defeat to Meath but a further two years was added to his remit during the last off-season.
O’Mahony talked in laboured, deliberate tones during yesterday’s post-match press conference, the disappointment evident every time he ran his hand across a tired-looking face.
“What we agreed in the dressing room there is that all of the players and management will come together in a few weeks time when everything settles. The players certainly need that space and I suppose we (the management) do as well.
“Certainly, on an initial look at it, I’d feel positive about having a contribution to make. Provided everyone is happy, I’ve no problem. The likelihood is that I would probably be involved. I would like to be involved, but that’s for another day and everyone has to have their thoughts on that.”
Meath’s blistering finish was the main difference between the sides but Mayo will be entitled to look back at a pair of pivotal incidents that seemed to suggest that this just wasn’t going to be their day. Again.
Multiple viewings failed to show whether Paddy O’Rourke carried Alan Dillon’s 29th minute shot over his goal line but there is no doubt but that the sideline that led to Meath’s second goal should have gone to Mayo and not the eventual winners.
On such small matters do big games turn but neither O’Mahony nor his players were willing to lunge for such an easy get-out clause afterwards.
“I was a good distance from it but we should still have dealt with the high ball in,” said Andy Moran. “Even before the sideline we had a lot of chances to stop it. We went four points up there and it could have been eight or nine at half-time.
“We should be driving home but we didn’t do it. Maybe it was a bit of inexperience but there was plenty of experienced guys there to move on and we didn’t so it. A little petty sideline ball doesn’t make any difference.”
The post mortem will inevitably spill over the 70 minutes played yesterday and alight on to a broader spectrum of contributing factors, not least the contrasting paths the sides took towards yesterday’s meeting.
Meath were steeled by a succession of qualifier fixtures, not all of them taxing, but it was still a better platform than Mayo’s which had seen them waltz past New York and Roscommon prior to their one test against Galway. Significant?
“I don’t think so,” said Peadar Gardiner. “The first ten minutes of the game we did well but we let them back into it in the last two-thirds of the first-half. We were losing by a point at half-time but we were comfortable. We knew we had a big second-half in us.
“I don’t know what we went ahead by when Aidan (O’Shea) got the goal, four points or something, and we should be driving on from there. Give credit to Meath, they bombarded us with a lot of high ball and got a goal at a critical time. I’m not sure what the incident was with the penalty but they took it well.
“We are a very fit team, we pride ourselves on that. We trained very hard since the Connacht final so I wouldn’t use the layoff as an excuse at all. It was poor play by ourselves. We didn’t close the game out ourselves when we had the chance. It’s very disappointing, very similar to this time last year against Tyrone. We had them on the rack as well but we didn’t finish them off.”
And so another awkward winter of introspection looms in the west. Their psyche had already been dismissed as inherently flawed prior to this quarter-final and nothing that happened yesterday will change anyone’s opinion.
“People can say that but at the end of the day I have no doubt that this group of players will come out on the right side of some tough, close results,” said O’Mahony. “I know the evidence is there otherwise today but I’m certainly not losing faith in those players because I know what they’ve done.
“People need to realise how many younger players are in there. A lot of them grew up there today and I’m sure will learn from that in the future.”
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