McLoughlin: more misses will cost Mayo

Edwin McGreal

IF Mayo miss chances like they did in the third quarter of Sunday’s drawn All-Ireland semi-final, they will be facing defeat in Saturday’s replay.

That was the view of Mayo half-forward Kevin McLoughlin when he spoke to The Mayo News in the aftermath of last Sunday’s match.

The Knockmore attacker was off target with one of the six missed scoring opportunities that Mayo had in that third quarter as they sought to overturn a three point half-time deficit.

“We must have had two or three in a row, if not more, between [balls going into] the ‘keeper’s hands and wides.

“But I suppose it just shows we were making plenty of chances in that second half, and that’s a positive in itself. But it is something we really need to work on. Maybe the next day it mightn’t be good enough,” McLoughlin explained.

After those aforementioned misses, Dublin went up and scored 1-4 to Mayo’s solitary 0-1 in reply. It looked like Mayo were going to pay a heavy price for their profligacy.

Staring at a seven point deficit, what was McLoughlin’s take on things at that juncture?

“It was tough going. I suppose we could have easily just lay down coming near the end; we were a good few points down. But I suppose we just said to ourselves ‘Look, we’re still in it, even a few points down. We just had to keep going.’

“I suppose I was just thinking to myself: ‘Is there any way back?’“ he continued.

“In my head, I was like, ‘There IS a way back’, and I suppose everyone … it was a group effort. We all thought to ourselves: ‘We can get back from this’.

And as I said, we got the penalty, which was just at the perfect moment, and then we tacked on a few scores. And I suppose a small bit of luck along the way,” said McLoughlin who works as a teacher at Rice College, Westport.

McLoughlin conceded that Mayo were ‘very much’ off their best in the first half before their improved third quarter and storming finish.

Conventional wisdom is that the team who has comeback has the advantage heading into the second day. He isn’s so sure.

“Ah, it’s hard to say that. I suppose we had the momentum at the very end, but there’s no guarantee we’ll have the momentum straight into the next game. It’s back to square one again, really.”

The Mayo number twelve appeared to be pulled back on a number of occasions off the ball, and Noel Connelly said afterwards that Mayo’s management brought the off-the-ball situations to the attention of the linesman.

The Mayo joint manager also said that McLoughlin ‘got a tough time’.

Did the player find it frustrating himself?

“It was at times. I suppose the linesmen were doing their best to try to look at it. I didn’t get much frees for it, maybe the next day I might get a few more frees for it.”