Tally: Mayo don’t have to stop now

By Niall Gartland

MAYO coach Paddy Tally hopes that their All-Ireland winning heroes maintain their appetite for success having finally got their hands on the Sam Maguire.

Sunday’s Croke Park victory over Kerry marked the county’s first All-Ireland SFC title in 75 years, but Tally thinks this current crop can ensure it doesn’t take anywhere near as long to land a fifth title to the collection.

Tally, who has now coached three different counties to the Sam Maguire, knows that they have the potential but that their future success will ultimately hinge on whether they can maintain their hunger.

“The key for them now is to learn and stick together and to develop because this can happen. A team can win one and then the key is what they do next in the future? There’s no reason why this team can’t compete for the next number of years at the highest level.

“But in saying that, we know that now it changes. For years you’re hunting and hunting and hunting. Now you’ve achieved it.

“Have they hunger and the bite and the attitude?

“Even if you think of Kerry winning the All-Ireland last year, they came back and got to the final but didn’t get over the line, so it’s very, very difficult nowadays to go back and do it again.

“So I think these fellas just enjoy this one and see where it takes them.”

Tally said that the team had mentally steeled themselves for the concession of a Kerry goal. David Clifford’s goal helped establish an early lead for Kerry, but Mayo clung on when they stared into the abyss and the rest is history.

“Seanie (O’Shea) put him in and the next thing David’s gone. Yes, it’s going to happen.

“We knew they were going to score a goal, David’s going to score today. If it happens, it happens.

“You just have to get back at it. The key was by half-time we’d got back to being a one point game and then playing with the breeze in the second half.

“So we always knew that this game was going to go down to the last straight.

“In fairness, I think the bench helped us today as well. I think the players that we brought off the bench made a big difference.

“They seemed to give us an injection of pace at the right time and energy. It worked out pretty well and it was probably as predicted in our heads.”