MAYO HAVE THE ability to surpass their stellar quarter-final performance against Donegal according to Kevin McLoughlin.
The wing forward believes that the Connacht champions have more in the tank despite handing out an impressive 16-point drubbing to the reigning All-Ireland champions.
Speaking ahead of this weekend’s All Ireland semi-final showdown with Tyrone, the wing wizard explained: “We played for about 55 minutes but personally I think we can play for 70. The day that happens, that will be our best performance.
“Donegal were probably a bit under-par that day and we got a really good start and we just drove on from there.
“We let ourselves down in the last 15 minutes. We should have pushed on a bit more and that’s something we’re working on now.”
He echoed his manager James Horan’s recent assertion that sloppy turnovers took the gloss off the performance for the Mayo men.
“Well during the full 70, although we dominated for most of it, the last 10-15 minutes I think we let in 1-5,” he said, “so that’s a big concern for us. It shows we let ourselves go for the last 10 and up until that there was a lot of sloppy hand-passes.
“I know ye probably didn’t realise it but we knew it. There were a couple of soft hand-passes, balls given away too easily. So there’s a lot of stuff to work on.”
The victory over Donegal completed a hat-trick of wins over reigning All Ireland champions following wins over Cork in 2011 and Dublin last year, but McLoughlin pointed out that it means nothing if Mayo do not go all the way and claim Sam Maguire for themselves.
“I suppose we have beaten All-Ireland champions and we’d take a bit of pride of that.
“But I don’t think we’ve focused on that. We’ve focused on our own game and that’s all we can worry about. We can’t really be worrying about anyone else.
“Winning an All-Ireland is always in the back of your mind but you can’t really think any further than the game ahead. We’re only focusing on Tyrone, we’re not focusing on anyone else.
“It’s like we don’t even know who is in the other semi. All were focusing on is Tyrone.”
Last-four opponents Tyrone have been in the eye of a media storm since their quarter-final victory over Monaghan due to what many pundits have seen as their propensity for cynical fouling but Mayo are no strangers to such controversy themselves.
In the run-up to last year’s September showdown with Donegal it was the men from the west who RTÉ analyst Joe Brolly accused of cynical fouling and McLoughlin has sympathy for Mickey Harte’s men.
“Everyone’s been talking about this cynical fouling but everyone’s forgetting all the great football they have played. It has been overshadowed a small bit.
“Maybe a bit more coverage should be done on the skilful stuff they’re doing, that’s what we’re looking at. We’re not focusing on their bad things, we’re focusing on their strengths.”
Controversy
Regarding the much-talked-about Sean Cavanagh situation, he refused to say what he would have done in such a situation.
“When you’re winning a game and you want to kill it off, that’s what he wanted to do, he [Cavanagh] didn’t want to give away an easy goal.
“You can’t blame him but the rules have let him do that, not just him but anyone. That particular incident has been blown out of proportion to be honest.”
