GAELIC GAMES:IT WAS Séamus McEnaney who, when manager of Monaghan and reflecting an a razor-thin defeat, made the haunting speech about how every time his county threatened to break through at national level always seemed to find "Kerry's in the road".
For Mayo that same road is as long and painful as the Via Dolorosa. Yesterday they returned, once more filled with hope for a different outcome or at least a differently structured outcome: new provincial title, new playing patterns, new work ethic, new optimism.
But for the fifth time in 15 seasons, Kerry was in the road.
Manager James Horan has had an impressive rookie year as an intercounty manager. The quarter-final defeat of All-Ireland champions Cork was Mayo’s best result in five years. Yesterday they tried all of their new tricks against the masters of August and still came up short, by a cruelly emphatic nine points.
“The score is slightly irrelevant to be honest,” was his blunt response to the suggestion that the Munster champions had been flattered by the margin. “We’d chances at the end to make it a bit closer but Kerry were on top and ran out deserved winners.
“What it boiled down to for me was that we made too many mistakes, carried the ball into tackles too often and attempted shots under too much pressure and kicked away some soft kicked passes which Kerry got and once they had the ball in their hands they retained it very well, waited for the movement inside and got some easy scores.”
The tormentor-in-chief was a familiar figure. Horan was caught between admiration and frustration at his team’s failure to make things harder for Cooper.
“Colm was good today. The goal that he got was a really soft goal from our side. The timing of it was particularly crucial after us just getting our goal. That was a killer. He got a few good scores; he’s a brilliant player but some of the scores we let him get today were very average defending.”
Having taken Mayo to a much-improved quality of life, Horan was painfully aware that there is still much room for improvement and no team is going to illuminate that space as harshly and as brightly as Kerry.
“We’re making good progress in that (cutting out mistakes) and definitely improving as a team. There’s been significant improvement in certain areas but you saw some of the gaps today and Kerry exploited some of the gaps, which we need to target for the next adventure. We need to take it on the chin, go away and improve.
“I suppose Kerry started very well in the second-half, showed great hunger and desire and that’s why they’re here so often. We found it hard to get a stranglehold in the middle of the field and that’s really, for me, why we were under so much pressure.
“I suppose one of the key traits that you’re looking for is that you keep going no matter what. There were times there today when Kerry were rampant but we stuck in and kept plugging away and ploughing away.
“We kept at it. That’s crucial. If you want to try to build a team or win anything with a team, you have to have that. That’s one of the big positives we can take from this year’s campaign.”
The road goes on.
