{"id":360754,"date":"2026-03-23T10:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T10:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/360754\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T10:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T10:49:09","slug":"moran-insists-mayo-werent-too-stressed-by-kerry-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/360754\/","title":{"rendered":"Moran insists Mayo weren’t ‘too stressed’ by Kerry loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayo manager Andy Moran said he wasn’t “too stressed” about the manner of their loss to Kerry last weekend and admitted it was probably better from a preparation perspective that his team missed out on a league final.<\/p>\n

Moran made a host of changes from the team that was hammered in Tralee but his side were easy winners over a very experimental Roscommon team<\/a> in Castlebar.<\/p>\n

Jack Carney, Aidan O’Shea, Paul Towey and Ryan O’Donoghue all hit goals in a 21-point victory. While it was a relatively low-stakes encounter, it appeared late on that Mayo might end up in a league final after all, with Armagh and Kerry involved in a ding-dong tussle<\/a> in the Athletic Grounds.<\/p>\n

In the end, Kerry prevented Armagh from finding a winner in the final play and the draw was enough for them to grab a league final spot ahead of Mayo.<\/p>\n

“It was a weird one there coming down the stretch,” Moran told RT\u00c9 Sport afterwards.<\/p>\n

“Because if you have a three-week run in here to your first round of the championship, it’s good because you can give the lads a couple of days off and then get your normal two-week [lead-in].<\/p>\n

“But if you go into a league final and you have to give them a week off, you’ve only eight days until the London game.<\/p>\n

“You wouldn’t mind being in there [a league final]. You’d like to be in there.<\/p>\n

“But in terms of planning and strategy, it’s probably better that we’re not there.”<\/p>\n

Mayo’s generally positive league campaign – in which Kobe McDonald announced himself as a breakout star – was badly soured by their 16-point hammering at the hands of a rampant Kerry in the penultimate round, which was assumed to have put a dampener on the county’s status as contenders.<\/p>\n

\"22
\nRyan O’Donoghue celebrates after slipping home a penalty<\/p>\n

Moran, however, suggests there was something of an over-reaction to the result.<\/p>\n

“We weren’t too stressed about last weekend if I’m being perfectly straight with you. We got to eight points, we made six changes last week going down to Kerry.<\/p>\n

“We knew it was experimental and if Kerry get a run on you, you’ve no chance. I think other people got more excited than we did if I’m being honest.” <\/p>\n

Mayo made a suite of changes for the Roscommon game, even if they were ultimately outdone in that respect by their opponents. More than the one-sided victory, Moran was pleased to hand starts to a number of debutants.<\/p>\n

“We made eight changes today. I think we got five more debutants which was great and we’ll just move on from here,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We threw Jack [Livingstone] into goals, Hugh O’Loughlin in at wing back. Big Seamus Howard there in the middle of the field. Then we got John McMonigle in, a guy who we have great hopes for in the future. And we got Kuba Callaghan in, who’s a bit older. <\/p>\n

“We always kind of earmarked this game for Tommy Conroy to come back. It was great for him to get in there and get a few points as well.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayo manager Andy Moran said he wasn’t “too stressed” about the manner of their loss to Kerry last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-360754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360754","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=360754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}