McStay: Not right time to toast league victory, all focus on MacHale Park

 McStay is excited about facing his old team Roscommon next week, as taxing as as their schedule has been. 

Mayo manager Kevin McStay congratulates Paul Towey of Mayo. Pic: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

Kevin McStay says Mayo can’t celebrate their 13th Division 1 title because of next Sunday’s Connacht opener against Roscommon.

While clearly delighted by the victory, McStay maintained it wouldn’t be right to toast the win with the clash in Castlebar in such proximity.

“I’d lead it myself if I got a chance, but no, we can’t, just can’t. The optics would be wrong. The message would be all wrong. It would be mixed.

“Paddy (Durcan) did great in receiving the cup and framing where we want to go this week. We will see them all down in MacHale Park next Sunday when we will need every piece of energy we can get because that was a tough game of football out there.” 

Had the game be played on Saturday as requested by Mayo, it would only have allowed for an extra day to recover, not an opportunity to celebrate a second Division 1 title in four years, McStay said.

However, he wasn’t in the mood to complain about the county’s intense schedule. 

“We just react to what’s put in front of us. It would have been nice of course it would, but we have known this so there is no point wringing our hands now. We have known this for a long time.” 

 McStay is excited about facing his old team Roscommon next week, as taxing as it has been. 

“It’s just the psychology of putting a lot into a big match like today, which was added to by the fact of who our opponents were and then jumping straight back to a game where there will be a lot of expectation. But I’m really looking forward to that challenge now, of our team playing with added expectation now that we’ve won the National League.” 

Pádraic Joyce criticised Brendan Cawley’s decision to just book Colm Reape for his late challenge on Johnny Heaney after the Galway forward kicked the ball narrowly wide. 

The Galway manager felt it should have been a penalty and a black card for the Mayo goalkeeper as he felt a goalscoring chance was prevented, although Heaney was still able to get his shot away.

Asked about Heaney’s injury from the collision which saw him replaced before the end of the first half, Joyce responded: “Look, he’s very sore but it was a poor call, I thought. The rule nowadays is if you deny a clear goalscoring chance it supposed to be a penalty but obviously it wasn’t the rule today.

“A rule is a rule. David Gough gave one last week for Monaghan against Mayo when a fella got pulled down on the 21 and this was given as a free-in for a tackle so what was the free for? Obviously hurting the man. Either implement the rules or not. That’s not sour grapes. It’s one of these things that would have made a difference in the game but at the end of the day we didn’t kick enough over the bar and Mayo did and they won the game.” 

Joyce also took issue with some calls in the second half but didn’t want to take away from Mayo’s victory and insisted the better team won. 

“I thought overall we played okay but never set the world on fire out there at the same time. I think we scored six times out of 16 chances in the second half, which tells its own tale and Mayo had 10 scores between frees and two marks and their goalkeeper gets man of the match so look it’s frustrating, definitely.” 

He continued: “We’re not down in the dumps. There is the fact that we’ve lost three finals in 12 months, which isn’t ideal, but we’ve come from Division 2 to an All-Ireland final to a league final. At least we’re competing at the level but we just need to get that little bit extra to get over the line.”