Happy Horan believes hard work finally paying off

James Horan hailed Mayo’s All-Ireland quarter-final win over Donegal as a day when all their hard work paid off.

He acknowledged the opposition were flat and denied hurt from last September’s final was a factor in the victory but commended his men for a thoroughly professional job.

“We’re delighted with that performance, delighted to play like that in an important game. All the stuff that we’ve worked on, our skills, our tackling, our movement and a lot of the basics of the game that we’ve put a lot of effort into this year came though today.”

Mayo are picking up a reputation for scoring goals and yesterday’s sum of four brought their total to 13 for their four Championship games.

“I think when we played Down in the quarter-final (last year), we had 3-18 as well so we do score heavily. I don’t know our average is after today, probably 3-17, 3-18 but we score well. We’re always looking to attack.”

Horan praised Aidan O’Shea for his man-of- the-match performance, the midfielder catching at least 10 clean balls on an afternoon when Mayo ruled the restarts.

“We always look to do well on kick-outs. There’s 40 or 50 kick-outs in a game of football so if you target those and look to do well on those, you’ll be getting a lot of primary possession so we looked to do that for both our kick-outs and the opposition kick-out.

“There’s no one quite like Aidan O’Shea! He was very good today and his brother beside him wasn’t half bad. We won a lot of primary possession and Aidan led the charge.”

Mayo captain Andy Moran took extra pleasure in how the attack fared considering they aren’t regarded as highly as the likes of Dublin and Kerry. “The movement was key and the movement from the half-back line… it has been written that we don’t have clinical forwards, we don’t have a clinical target-man but I’m not sure about that. Thirteen different scorers and it’s great moving forward.”

Horan and his team watched Tyrone beat Monaghan on Saturday and appreciates the test they will present on August 25.

“Tyrone have been involved in a lot of very tight games. They are a tough resilient team with an old wily manager to boot. They’ll be a real challenge for us but we look forward to any challenge that comes our way.”

Meanwhile, Horan, no fan of Joe Brolly’s after his comments about Mayo cynicism prior to last year’s All-Ireland final, criticised the Derry pundit for his remarks about Seán Cavanagh on RTÉ on Saturday. He also made reference to Martin Carney’s co-commentary that the Tyrone player should have been sent off for pulling down Conor McManus.

“Analysts, by their nature, can say stuff that is way over the top. ‘What is he on about’ I suppose is my first reaction. Even listening to the commentary, that it should have been a red card — that is not in the rules. If it was in the rules, then fair enough.

“I’m not supporting it or whatever but don’t be shouting about it that it should have been a sending off when it shouldn’t. It’s something that needs to be looked at but as regards the comments I suppose they maybe highly entertaining but maybe offensive to one of the best players in the game.”