Have you ever watched those medical drama's on television, where when a doctor has a case when someone dies but they shouldn't have. The then have to present the case to their fellow doctors in some kind of peer review of the facts. On Sunday under the Cusack stand or was it the Dravin Stand, it's tricky enough to remeber where you are when your in the belly of the Jones Road ground, the members of the fourth estate gathered to conduct their own peer review of what happend over the course of the previous seventy minutes in the media room cum lecture hall with the victorious and the vanquished, just like in one of those shows.
Peadar Gardiner and Andy Moran were wheeled out to face the press and both men still coming to terms with what had happened on the field only minutes earlier were not looking to place the blame for defeat at anyone else's doorstep but their own. “We didn't really perform to our full potential, we knew coming up that we were going to have some kind of battle on our hands against Meath. We had the capabilities to win the game there today, but it was a game we kinda left behind a bit. We had enough chances to win that game, we have no excuses. Were very disappointed within ourselves we let the game slip again and we have no excuses.” is how Gardiner put it.
The trend of not looking for excuses continued when John O'Mahony made his entrance to the room from stage left. “It's frustrating but then it's always frustrating to loose a quarter final. At the end of the day, I have no doubt that this group of players will come out on the right side of some tough and close results in the future. I know the evidence is there today that, I'm not loosing faith in those players because I know what they have done. People need to realise that how many younger players were in there today, a lot of them grew up there today and will learn lot from it in the future.”
With a number of tough calls going against Mayo which could have swung the game in their favor O'Mahony wasn't dwelling on them so soon after the game. “There was a few of those, the sideline before the penalty and a shot that Alan Dillion took that could have been behind the line. I haven't had time to see those incidents, what we have to do is deal in reality and the reality is that Meath are in the semi-final now and were out. I'd hate to think than any mistakes like that were made, but I haven't seen any replay.”
The inevitable question over his future popped it's head up again and O'Mahony made it known that he intendes to be around next year as Mayo try once again to march on the All Ireland final. “People know the situation, it was originally a three year term and then another two years was added after last years championship, what we agreed in the dressing room is that all of the players and management will come together in a few weeks time when the dust settles. Players need that space and we do as well. On an initial look at it, I feel positive about having a contribution to make as long as everyone is happy with that. I think was what hugely important for us this year was to win the Connacht championship, now it's really frustrating I would have felt we could have gone a little bit further. But the likelihood is that I would be involved, I would like to be involved, that's for another day and everyone has to have their thoughts on that.”
