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Kevin McStay: 'They were miles ahead of us'

Stephen Rochford and Kevin McStay following the All Ireland SFC Quarter-Final replay at Croke Park.

Stephen Rochford and Kevin McStay following the All Ireland SFC Quarter-Final replay at Croke Park.

By Cian O'Connell


"One team got their stuff together and the other team fell off a cliff, I suppose," was Kevin McStay's honest assessment following a game dominated by Mayo.

Roscommon suffered throughout a disappointing afternoon against a Mayo outfit that was primed for this All Ireland SFC Quarter-Final replay.

"A young team got steamrolled by an experienced team - it was one way traffic and they were miles ahead of us," McStay accepted.

"We can have no complaints and if they continue to play like that they’ll test their next opponent."

Mayo's runners from deep repeatedly hurt Roscommon, a fact acknowledged by McStay. "Colm Boyle and Keith Higgins made huge impacts from the sweeper position, or six position.

"They’d take a gamble that they’d win the ball, run off the shoulder and we couldn't cope. They pulled us apart."

McStay expects Mayo to seriously examine Kerry at Croke Park on August 20.

"They had energy we hadn't seen from Mayo in a while and we couldn’t cope," McStay added. "They will be very competitive the next day."

Stephen Rochford was satisfied that Mayo earned a place in the last four. "We're in the All-Ireland semi-final so I'm as happy as that tends to lead any of the other managers that are there as well," Rochford remarked.

"That's a job done for today, but far from anything more than that."

Forced to start without Lee Keegan due to injury, Rochford highlighted Donal Vaughan and Tom Parsons' rich contribution.

"Obviously it was a bit documented about Lee having spent some time in hospital this week," Rochford said.

"He would have been available if needed going into the final 20 or 25 minutes. He'd made a really, really good recovery.

"It's an opportunity just to acknowledge our own medical team and the medical team in Mayo General for the good work they did with him.

"We just felt the way that Roscommon sort of had on the ball, we needed to put more pace into the game and that's what Tom and Donal afforded us. They were really good around the middle third.

"Possession is nine-tenths of the law. I thought we did really well there in getting our hands on the ball.

"Certainly we didn't turn it over half as many times as we did last week. That would have lead to a lot of frustration in the camp last week."