Hard work, determination and belief along with a fair chunk of skill was what won the day for Mayo in MacHale Park on Sunday afternoon as they claimed their first Connacht senior title in six years with a stunning display against Galway. Mayo manager Frank Browne couldn’t hide the delight with the effort his side put in speaking after the game he told us “It was probably a fair result it was probably touch and go there, early in the first ten to 15 minutes in the first half it took us a while to settle, but then our power and our physicality, our tackling and our hunger took over. But you know what after being beaten four years in a row if you’re not hungry today, you’re coming to the wrong place, all the 50/50 balls all the really tight ones we won. I’d love the people to know just how good a group of people these people are, they are good honest, decent Mayo people and they just so, so wanted this. They ran their legs to stumps out there you know, we got very tired in the last ten minutes you can enjoy it.”
As for the next step for this side, he had no doubt in his mind what his charges will want to do, now they have the Connacht title in their back pocket. “We’ve got to decide now, what do we want to do, do we just want to enjoy this or do we want to drive on, but you know this group of people want to drive on and they want to win the fifth All Ireland for Mayo and that’s what we’ll focus on.”
Mayo's experienced goalkeeper, Yvonne Byrne put in a top class display pulling off a number of big saves when required at key moments in the game. She was delighted that Mayo were back in the winners enclosure when we caught up with her after full time. “We’ve been coming and going the last few years, been close some years and not the others. Today is sweet as you’re getting older you appreciate things a bit more and it was a nice win against a spirited Galway side.
“I know that they are saying a lot of older players have gone from Galway but with the underage“success they have had that team is still full of stars and you’ll see them feature in quarter-finals and semi-finals of All Ireland’s.”
After for her saves, she tried not to take too much credit despite how vital they were in the game in the long run. “I was quite for long periods of the game bar kick outs, but once or twice they snuck through, thankfully I got in the way I suppose.”
It’s all about taking it one step at a time from now on she said, adding that it’s been a good while since Mayo had even reached an All Ireland semi-final, never mind a final. “We’ll take this win today and enjoy it and regroup then and see what the next step is. A quarter-final is great and we want to try and progress as far as we can in the All Ireland series, it’s a while since we’ve even been to an All Ireland semi-final so our next step is the quarter-final and that’ll be our focus over the next few weeks.
