Mayo 'broke the back' of a quarter-final spot with victory over Louth

Kevin McStay was delighted that his Mayo players kept top spot in their own hands as they held on to see off Louth in their All-Ireland SFC group clash at Castlebar.

The Green and Red started their campaign in the best possible fashion, seeing off defending champions Kerry on their own patch last month.

The challenge was to back it up and, despite Conall McKeever's well taken late goal for the Wee County, they achieved their objective.

Speaking on RTÉ's Sunday Sport, McStay suggested that some careless play nearly cost them.

"The two points was key, that's what was on offer - not a whole lot else - and we got them," he said

"I thought we got ourselves into a great position with 10 minutes to go but didn't manage it quite the way we wanted to. It was a massive effort by Louth to take the game from us, but we're very pleased with the points.

"We did feel that we were in control of the game but a late goal in injury time takes a lot of that control away from you. I'm very happy our boys stayed at it but what hurt our rhythm was that we fumbled a few balls [and] missed a few chances that we might have tidied up better.

"We've work to do now but we're still in the position we wanted to be coming out of the bank holiday."

Looking ahead to the final group game against Cork, a draw would be enough to guarantee Mayo first place and the direct route to the quarter final that goes with it.

"It's another two points until we get out of the round robin, but today we broke the back of it to a large extent; we're in a really good position.

"We're tipping away nicely. We're in a cluster of seven or eight teams that have their eyes on the prize and we're no different to anyone else.

"We're ambitious for the group so let's see where that takes us."

Fo