Carew adamant Sligo are on right path ahead of qualifiers
SLIGO manager Niall Carew had to take a somewhat different mode of transport ahead of Sunday’s Connacht quarter- final clash with Mayo as he left his son’s Communion to be at the match on time.
The Kildare man had an earlier engagement at his son Paidí’s Communion in Co Kildare and in order to rush to MacHale Park for the 2pm throw- in, he had no option but to travel by helicopter to watch his side take on Stephen Rochford’s men.
Talks going into the game were reverting to the 2015 annihilation, whereby Mayo devastated Sligo in Dr Hyde Park with a 26 point cushion.
Roll on two years and it was nine points separating the sides at the final whistle, but unlike 2015, the manager said there’s a lot more positives to take from his team’s performance last Sunday.
He told the Sligo Champion: “It was disappointing enough but I felt we put it to Mayo on the day.
“I think we had a positive performance and that was apparent early on from the way we started.
“Maybe earlier in the game we should have attacked them a little bit more,” he added.
Carew said an important aspect going into this game was that Sligo were not going to let Mayo slip away from them.
“There was still a game on with six or seven minutes to go and it wasn’t until the goal in the 65th minute that really Mayo pulled away.”
Sligo themselves were not without there own goal chances he said.
“We did have two half goal chances one involving Niall Murphy where Mark Breheny was waiting for the ball and other than that in the first half we kicked three balls into the goalkeeper’s hands and five wides when normally we are very accurate.”
The Kildare man said his team gave it their all against one of the All- Ireland contenders.
“In fairness to the lads, they left everything on the pitch and I couldn’t have asked for more from them.
“They were playing a top three team who were within a kick of the ball from winning the All- Ireland last year so that shows the calibre of this Mayo team.”
Carew said Mayo had done their homework and preparation ahead of Sunday and knew what to work on.
“I was impressed with this Mayo team even before the ball was thrown- in and sometimes they don’t get the credit for being such a hard- working team that they are.
“They had done their preparation adequately and had left no stone unturned and took the game seri- ously, they had studied us quite a bit,” he pointed out.
Factors that went against the Yeats men on the day included Pat Hughes not being fully fit, while fellow forward Kyle Cawley was battling flu all week. “We thought he was going to be okay and in fairness he is only a young lad.”
Carew credited the strong performances from midfielder Paddy O’Connor and also Brendan Egan at centre- back, who he said had an excellent game.
“I thought our backs too were good, Keelan Cawley, Neil Ewing, Eoin McHugh and in particular Charlie Harrison was excellent.”
He said upfront they were not as clinical as one would have hoped but another positive was seeing Niall Murphy making a welcome return from injury.
“We would have loved to have Niall on from the start but he’s only back.”
Whether or not the nine- point win was somewhat flattering for Mayo, Carew said it’s not about worrying about the magnitude as such.
He added that both Mayo goals were questionable.
“Diarmuid O’Connor definitely took seven or eight steps before his goal, that was plain to see and for the second one a Mayo player handled the ball on the ground so with the two Mayo goals we didn’t have any luck on our side, it’s disappointing they weren’t spotted but other than that I think the referee was fine.”
He said people shouldn’t be codding themselves and Mayo will be Connacht champions this year. “They will be in the last four and Connacht champions I think,” he added.
The manager said Sligo overall showed plenty of positives and it’s about building on these ahead of the Qualifiers.
“We know we can compete against a big team, we showed that on Sunday.
“We have a challenge game coming up now next week and it’s about preparing for the Qualifiers.”
In terms of injuries, Adrian McIntyre is still recovering from a thumb injury, while defender Eoin McHugh suffered a bad belt on his shoulder against Mayo.
Many speculated the brief two- week turnover from New York could be a negative for Sligo and Carew said an extra week would have helped his side before taking on Mayo.
“Another week would have been perfect for us but in saying that there’s no control over that. We knew about that coming into the game ,” the Kildare man said.