Liam McHale spoke yesterday at the official lunch for the All-Ireland finalists about the difficulty he had playing full forward in Sunday's final. The belief that McHale and team manager John Maughan have been at cross purposes on the question of the best position for the Ballina Stephenites star is shared among Mayo fans.

"I don't think what I am going to say about this will upset John Maughan, but everybody knows I love to play midfield. I would have loved to start at midfield against Kerry. I hadn't played at midfield for two months. It was a difficult transition for me to go out there yesterday, I had been practising playing full forward for two months," said McHale.

He added: "We lost a couple of players that we did not anticipate to lose, so in a situation like that, you have to make use of what you've got. That's the way it goes."

McHale has no doubts that the squad will regroup. "We would not have deserved to win. We played poorly, a tired team. Maurice Fitzgerald was the man. He put on a clinic there yesterday. That was the worst performance by us in two years. "You can analyse it all you want, but we didn't play well, we played like a tired team. We tried our best to get back into the game in the second half, but we were labouring all the time. "It's hard to have lost two All-Irelands in 12 months, that's my third All-Ireland."

Kieran McDonald confirmed that the full Mayo squad will be regrouping next Tuesday night to start preparations for the National League.

He believes that he was wrongly denied a point at the Railway end in the first half. "That threw me off a small bit and made me more nervous taking the penalty. It was my first penalty for Mayo. James Horan's two points after the goal were excellent scores, you'll never see better again. I felt that if we drew level, we would beat Kerry. We've had our critics, but having put in 230 training sessions since January, a team deserves something." Sunday's referee, Brian White from Wexford, will be in charge of the National League match between Kerry and Cavan in New York next month, a game that commemorates the All-Ireland final played there between the counties in 1947. It is interesting to note that another Wexford man, the late Martin O'Neill, refereed the match between the counties 50 years ago.

Included in Kerry's luggage for the trip will be the All-Ireland and National League trophies.

Mike Houlihan has been ruled out of the Limerick team for next Sunday's National Hurling League final against Galway in Ennis. Houlihan has not trained with the panel for the last six weeks because of a leg injury. Gary Kirby received a leg injury in training last Sunday and is rated extremely doubtful by manager Tom Ryan, while the Moran brothers, Ollie and James, have flu. The selectors will announce their team after Thursday's training session.