{"id":300029,"date":"2026-02-15T22:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T22:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/300029\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T22:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T22:57:08","slug":"mcguinness-took-apart-mayo-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/300029\/","title":{"rendered":"McGuinness ‘took apart’ Mayo plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayo manager Andy Moran conceded a “very poor” first-half display put paid to any chance of victory over Donegal in Letterkenny.<\/p>\n

The Division 1 contest was effectively over at the break as, despite playing into the win and rain at O’Donnell Park, Jim McGuinness’ side engineered a 0-11 to 0-05 interval lead, and in truth could have been even further ahead.<\/p>\n

It took Mayo 16 minutes to register their first point of the game and while it was much-improved in the second period, the result was never in doubt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It marks a first league defeat under Moran’s watch, while Donegal boast the only remaining 100% record in Division 1 after three successful outings.<\/p>\n

Speaking to RT\u00c9 Sport after the game, the Mayo manager said the damage was done in the opening half.<\/p>\n

“It was a very poor first 20 minutes,” he said. “I thought we recovered a bit before half time.<\/p>\n

“We stuck to the plan, played really well. We only lost the second half by two points against a gale-force wind. We had four or five goal chances and really opened them up. We showed that we could play football, but the opening 25 minutes was very disappointing.<\/p>\n

“We must lick our wounds, go away and learn from this.”<\/p>\n

Moran insists there will be plenty to be gained from the loss, for both the players and backroom team, crediting his Donegal counterpart McGuinness for their approach to the conditions.<\/p>\n

“We had a plan coming out here in the first half,” he said. “Jim kind of took apart the plan and then all of a sudden you have to change.<\/p>\n

“You have to move and think. Getting players better at that is the key message. Am I happy with what I\u2019m getting in the league? Absolutely.”<\/p>\n

With wins in the bag against Dublin, Kerry and now Mayo, Donegal manager McGuinness admitted his team are “in a good spot”, before addressing shortcoming in both kickouts after the break as well as “sloppy” handpassing.<\/p>\n

\"Conor<\/p>\n

Conor McCahill – pictured above – marked his first league start with three points in a lively showing and McGuinness was quick to heap praise on the Four Masters teenager.<\/p>\n

“It was great for Conor,” he said. “That\u2019s what you want from a young fella. He kicked three scores and could have got another at the end.<\/p>\n

“His movement was good, his finishing was good. We want to try and develop young players and build depth.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayo manager Andy Moran conceded a “very poor” first-half display put paid to any chance of victory over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-300029","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}