Too big, too strong, too everything

All-Ireland SFC Final/Losers' reaction: There is only one feeling inside the dressing-room of the beaten All-Ireland finalists: hurt. It doesn't matter if you've fallen gallantly or fallen without even the chance to fight.

"True, I don't think it matters how you lose," said Mayo selector Liam McHale. "You're beaten and that's it. It's a very disappointing situation. We just weren't physically able for that Kerry team. But we said all along that if we were going to be beaten this year, then we'd be beaten by a team that was better than us. There's no question that was the case today."

McHale has done much to help improve Mayo's tactics this season, but on days like this tactics mean little. This was a game that went beyond tactics, and into the hearts of a team pounding with three years of disappointment.

"I don't think we're just not as good as Kerry," McHale contended. "I believe this Kerry team has just turned into a machine, just like Armagh and Tyrone did in the last few years. They're big, strong, physical and athletic men and they were just way too powerful for us. It was like a good under-21 team against a good senior team.

"But I know from talking to some Kerry people that their players have lived in the gym on the off-season for the past two or three years, and I suppose they were preparing themselves for Tyrone and Armagh and the likes. So they just blew us out of the water.

"They were way too strong for us around the middle of the field, and must have won something like 85 per cent of the possession. I mean after 15 minutes we couldn't blink, because we were getting completely overpowered in the middle of the field.

"On other days we might have scored enough to win the match, but they were so much better than us. I think as they game wore on we got more disillusioned - but then we just didn't ask any questions of Kerry at all."

McHale has had his share of disappointing days in Croke Park, but even he must wonder how John Maughan must feel. Still, he's not letting that get the better of him.

"Well, they still haven't dug that hole yet that I can jump into. But we're all involved with this because we want to see Mayo win an All-Ireland title. I haven't seen it in my lifetime, and guys just won't walk away from that. Some guys just persevere and try to do it.

"Quite clearly we were the ones that underperformed, and never made a contest out of it. I can't explain, and if I could have I wouldn't be standing here. We're just very, very disappointed.

"But Kerry were just the superior team in 14 or 15 positions. Probably all 15. When that happens and the game opens up there was nothing we could do about it."

The obvious question is asked: could anyone have beaten them on this day?

"When they're allowed to play that brand of football, I just don't know. But their range of skills and their fielding and their kicking was just exquisite. They played a style of football I don't think we've seen in recent times. And when a Kerry team gets a momentum going like that it is very difficult to do anything about it.

"Kerry's strategy was to kick long ball into the square. We could see that from the very off, and in normal circumstances we should have been able to deal with that quite comfortably. We've a big full back line, but we just got caught with that today."

Even at the half-way point - when Mayo trailed 1-12 to 1-4 - Maughan sensed the inevitable.

"We had to be realistic," he admitted. "Anyone could see that Kerry were the team that were going to win the All-Ireland final. I could have come in and told a lie, but they were the only team playing the football, and at that stage for us it was about damage limitation to a certain extent, trying to maintain a bit of pride in the jersey."

Hunched on a dressing-room bench, defender Peadar Gardiner attempts to explain that feeling of hopelessness.

"You can't turn the clock back now unfortunately. But it was such a long road to get here, and who knows, we might never get here again. But we knew we needed goals. And we never got going in the way we needed to get them. We just didn't respond to them lamping in the high ball, and the likes of Johnny Crowley was there for a reason today. They got great ball down to Colm Cooper, and their overall game was so intense I suppose they deserved to beat us off the field.

"I mean they really upped their level today. Maybe they weren't as good as they should have been the last couple of games, but they really came out of the traps today. We felt we could still do something at half- time, but we knew we needed a goal. They just came out of the blocks again, and that's very disheartening. I don't think we threw in the white flag because we all tried our hearts out."

Maughan's immediate future rests with the Mayo under-21s, who contest the All-Ireland final against Armagh next Saturday.