“They threw comments out at us saying we had no bottle or no heart. I think today and the last day and in the Tyrone game showed that this team is different to other Mayo teams. It has got the bottle and the heart and will finish the tight games.”
Moments later it was John Maughan’s turn to give his appraisal of a deeply satisfying afternoon’s work. He wasn’t buying Mortimer’s line about previous Mayo fragilities and even went as far as admitting that with five minutes to go he thought his team was gone out of the championship. “They were a point up and we had not been playing particularly well. We got a dreadful start to the second half and didn’t appear to be threatening their goal. At that stage I would have questioned it, yeah. I certainly thought it might have been gone.”
Maughan said that they had concentrated on getting out of the blocks a lot quicker than they managed last Sunday. “It was very important not to let Fermanagh get the start they got last Sunday,” said Maughan, “because when they get their noses in front they have huge running ability because of their youth.
“We were extremely lucky last Monday, there was no question about that. We went to Knock and said all our thank yous. But in the end we probably deserved to win that game today. The last few minutes showed great resilience. Our refusal to wilt. That’s a tremendous trait in a team and they had it in abundance in the last few minutes.”
Maughan was less impressed by the performance of John Bannon as referee, and if the initial statistic of a free count of 23-9 against the now All-Ireland finalists is correct, it’s hard to disagree with him for theirs was hardly an undisciplined effort. The manager, though, said he was loath to criticise referees and instead paid a warm tribute to Fermanagh.
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“I never got luck like I got last Sunday,” he said. “We got out of jail. Fermanagh have lit up the championship. They came here not in the least bit inhibited by it. They’ve been fantastic this year. Absolutely wonderful.”
Kind words, but whether they had much impact on Charlie Mulgrew and his boys last night is doubtful.