“We had enough ball to win the game.” That was James Horan’s immediate reaction as he attempted to deal with the fall-out of another Croke Park nightmare for Mayo.
He conceded that this final defeat was down to their own failings rather than anything else.
“We just made too many mistakes and had too many turnovers. I think it's that straightforward. We dominated the first 15 minutes but we didn't get the score return we possibly should have. We had too many wides. It was closer at half-time than it should have been. In the second-half, when we were attacking, we just made some poor decisions at times and it eventually cost us.”
Unfortunately one of the main talking points at the final whistle was Cillian O’Connor’s decision to take a point from an injury time free when Mayo were three points adrift. Horan was clearly disappointed that referee Joe McQuillan hadn’t been clearer in his instructions to O’Connor.
“When you ask the ref how long is left, when you ask him twice, you know...he tells you there's at least 30 seconds left after the score. That's a little disappointing. But, look, that's neither here nor there. The game is over, we were beaten so, yeah, we're very disappointed.”
Mayo failed to score from play in the second period but Horan pointed out that a lot of that was due to the amount of fouls perpetrated by the Dublin team.
“We won a lot of frees in the second-half, if you look at it that way. Yeah, we didn't get the return from play that we should have. That's something that we'll look at. That game could have gone either way in the end. We just didn't get there.”
The switch at the start of the second half that saw Keith Higgins revert to the full back line was a blow Horan admitted.
“Keith was excellent up front. We needed to make a change, Tom Cunniffe was injured and we needed to get Keith's experience back there. We robbed Peter to pay Paul a bit but he was excellent. He was outstanding today.”
Cunniffe’s substitution wasn’t the only enforced change according to Horan who said that Alan Freeman “had a bad flu during the week. So he was just a bit lethargic today,” and that Seamus O'Shea was equally in trouble.
“He was tired yeah, he was playing in spurts. We just needed fresh legs out around the middle. Dublin were getting a bit of a run around the middle. So we just put in some fresh legs there.”
The optimism that came after last year’s defeat to Donegal was hard to replicate Horan said. A second successive defeat hurt.
“It's tough, two All-Ireland finals in a row is tough. Some of the mistakes we made today were disappointing. That game was there for the taking for us but we just didn't take the chances. We just have to look at it again. Like we've always told them, we'll look at it like we do after every game. We are making improvements. There's no doubt about that. But we just didn't get over the line today.”
While Mayo were ultra-competitive on the Dublin kick-outs in the opening twenty minutes Horan said that conditions played a part.
“Ah, it's hard to keep going, we were attacking so much and we weren't getting the scores. When you have a shot, and they're getting the ball out very quick, sometimes it's hard to reset. Some of their players wait out and sort of cheat a little to be an option for the kick out so it can be difficult when you're taking shots. We try to do as best we can.”
The dejection in the dressing-room was tough to take again.
“Ah, they're disappointed. But there's serious calibre in those guys. They're made of the right stuff so they'll dust themselves down and go again, there's no doubt about it.”
He refused to dicsuss his own future and said that while he agreed an extension last year he is unsure as to whether he will he will remain in charge for a fourth year.
“Ah, I haven't a clue. I haven't a clue at this moment in time. We'll go away and think about it.”
