Dr Ed Coughlan: Champions need to learn to win ugly before they can win anything

This Mayo team have learned one critical thing that separates them from before and that is the ability to win ugly, writes Dr Ed Coughlan.

Elite sport is all about the result; at least for those involved. Spectators and pundits may have expectations of what a game should look like, or how one performance is a crystal ball to the expected quality of the next.

But none of that matters at the elite level. You have to win at all costs, stretching the limits of what the game governs as legal, to find a way. Especially if you are really only competing against one or two other teams. You need to be right for those key encounters, so long as you get through the other lesser opposition en route. Under Alex Ferguson, Manchester United became the masters of this craft. Last-minute escapes against lesser opposition and convincing wins against their true rivals defined who they were for 20 years. The history books list the winners, and if you’re lucky, the runners-up. The back story of how good, bad or indifferent a team was along the way quickly becomes yesterday’s news.