‘There’s a lot of blood on the floor’

Somehow, he keeps the face of stone and the voice of steel.

But it’s always like this with James Horan.

While the Mayo manager’s achievements may seem superhuman, he is only human and behind it all, he’s shattered. He sits down, takes a look around at the media, exhales and calls it in a word. “Torture.”

“We did well until about 50 minutes and after that they won every break and won everything in midfield,” he continues.

“We seemed to run out of juice and they were coming at us in waves and it was last-ditch defending, but we managed to keep it out. It showed great character at the end. David Clarke made a fantastic save but it’s no surprise, he is a superb keeper. He’s a big man, comes out quick, gets down well. A fantastic save.

“But we had four or five chances in the last few minutes for points that might have made it easier on everyone; it would have taken us more than a goal clear. We didn’t take those but we showed great character to come through it. Look it, of course we’re delighted but there is lots to do. ”

Behind him, he’s left a scene more like an emergency room than a dressing room. There was blood and sweat to avoid the tears that seem intertwined with Mayo football and the eight substitutes used is testament to what they went through to get this result.

“There’s a lot of blood on the floor, that’s for sure but guys came in, took up the baton and that’s the way it has to be. We were to the pin of our collar, but look it, we won the game so we are delighted with that.

“There’s always going to be ups and downs when you are playing a team of Dublin’s quality, peaks and troughs, but we just wanted to keep the scoreboard ticking over. Now we didn’t do that for that period at the end and we couldn’t get our hands on the ball. They are things for us to look at and work on.”

That will bother him. In his own playing days, technical deficiencies in the team annoyed him and cost the lot of them. It’s what the last two years were about. Yet, as Dublin came thundering down the stretch, Mayo reverted to type. Too often they lacked the courage and conviction to take the right option and by trying to play it safe, they did the opposite.

“We worked on that and it’s an area to keep working on. But when I came in, I knew the players were there, very good guys that are very committed and keen. We’ve brought in a good backroom team. We cut away a lot of stuff you don’t need around a football team and have just gotten on with it. That has gotten us here.

“But it’s still just a semi-final. And, well, the excitement in Donegal might be a bit different to the excitement in Mayo, but we’ll be okay. We’ll do what we’ve done all year. We just go and train and try and improve and keep working at it. We’ll train in our normal places at our normal times, that’s been our approach all year and it won’t change now.

“We’ll just have to score more than them and we’ll just try and do that. I’m not giving you a smart answer, of course we’ll have to look at things and they are playing good football. So are we. It’ll be interesting.”

It’s quite an understatement. But we’d expect nothing else from a master of it.