Mayo's Kevin McLoughlin: We’ve found our hunger

All-Ireland semi-finals have become the norm for Kevin McLoughlin. 

A maths and science teacher in Rice College, he strikes you as the calculating type that would never take seven consecutive years of All-Ireland semi-final appearances, nine games in total, for granted. Not when Mayo have won only three of their previous eight matches at this stage.

Even for a team as fortified as Mayo, this latest journey to the last four looked fearful after losing to Galway for the second successive season in Connacht, but the players again dusted themselves off. In the knowledge of Stephen Rochford, a panel meeting was arranged and some home truths were mentioned.