'There's no way of getting into the psychology of it' - Mayo manager Stephen Rochford
Declan Bogue Reports from Healy Park
WE GIVE UP.
We really do. You can spend your time weighing up the pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses, variables and measurables.
You can examine how a manager having to step away for health reasons might unsettle a camp. And how a loss to a side that would be have been seen as the banker in the group could see confidence plummet to record lows.
And then you see a side that left the Ulster semi final, having played poorly and yet having it in their hands to beat the reigning All-Ireland champions.
Getting some time to put the head down, iron out the kinks, change the oil, go up to Ballybofey and break all sorts of records against Donegal. You have it sussed. You know the score. You know who wins. It’s only a matter of heading to the bookies and taking what is rightfully yours.
And then you realise you are dealing with Mayo here.
No serious manager of the last fourteen years has ever said, ‘Lads, it’s Mayo.’
So how did they turn everything around from that defeat against Cavan in Castlebar, to coming up to Omagh and putting manners on Tyrone?
“We had trained really well over the last two weeks,” said Stephen Rochford, standing in as Mayo manager now in the absence of Kevin McStay.
Mayo came up the road the night before and stayed close to the venue. If they were going to be knocked out, well at least they were giving it their all.
“We felt that, you know, you talk about getting a response and all that. We were really frustrated (with defeat against Cavan).
“I mean, as a collective group about the way we played two weeks ago, but, you know, we really had our heads down.
“We were really focused on what we needed to do and we went about delivering that and I think we delivered that consistently when our backs were put against the wall.”
In the other corner, Tyrone manager Malachy O’Rourke is a little bit frustrated. Not narky or anything, but sleep might have been hard to come by on Saturday night.
“It is hard to know,” he says of the downturn in performance in his own players and the upturn in the opposition.
“Sometimes when you get a bad performance, the next one there is a lot of soul searching in between and boys come back with a point to prove.
“Having said that, we were just looking for consistency. We got a good performance last week. We knew you had to go out and earn the next day. We just didn’t do that. Overall we were disappointed with our play.”
What’s more is sometimes, managers see this sort of thing coming. A little bit of complacency around the camp. A corner cut here and there. But there wasn’t an inkling with Tyrone.
“It is probably difficult, it has been shown time and time again, it is difficult to follow a big performance with another one. Especially a team coming in really up for the game.
“Not making excuses in any way, if you want to compete for things, you want to be a top team, you have to be able to do that. We are just disappointed. We are disappointed with our own performance. We would like to think we are better than that, particularly the first half performance. Mayo deserved their victory and we have to go back and see what we can correct for the next day.”
Back to Rochford. He’s less inclined to talk about all the good stuff against Tyrone, and leaning towards the horror show against Cavan. You’d suspect that Cavan will take a long time to get out of their system.
“We’re trying to do a lot of things well, but we’re just, when you’re just a bit off on the team coming against you, you know, you look to be really mediocre, and I think we’re better than being a mediocre team,” he said.
“But you just, you just can’t be at that. There’s no way of getting into the psychology of it.
“We just backed each other up today and we supported each other and we got scores and we also left scores behind.
“That was not anywhere near a complete performance either, right?
“And we will go after that because we know we need to be better next week when we go to play Donegal, and that’s what the group are about.”
He added, “I’m talking about being frustrated. They were the most frustrated group and disappointed with themselves the last day, but fair play to Cavan on that, you know, they came.
“Cavan were deserving winners on that day, but you know, we needed to come up here, we put in that performance, but we move on to the next day.”
Group 1 is blown open. It’s a great system after. A pity it has to go.
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