Liam McHale: We have an advantage because we are fresh and hungry

Liam McHale didn’t leave Croke Park a winner on Sunday evening but he did head for home a relatively happy man.

Like his manager Kevin McStay, the Roscommon coach was of a mind that the All-Ireland quarter-final draw with Mayo was a result to embrace rather than rue and he offered a variety of reasons for his positive outlook ahead of the replay at HQ next Monday.

“Happy, happy with the draw. It could have gone either way. We weren’t six down, came back and got a draw against the run of play. I thought it was a great ad for football, Connacht football in particular. We made a lot of rookie mistakes at the end that I thought would hurt us. Fortunately for us it didn’t.”