Down manager James McCartan was making no excuses for his sides 12-point loss to Mayo, describing his charges as flat-footed following their exit from the All-Ireland SFC at Croke Park this evening.

McCartan praised Mayo for their excellent display, and failed to hold-back when launching a stinging criticism of his sides display.

"We were flat-footed," he proclaimed in the immediate after-math of the loss. 

"We were beaten for pace and their forwards led us a merry dance for large parts of that game. We couldn't get to grips with them at all.

"Three games in a row, you have plenty of time to recover, really. Trying to get the mind right maybe a bit quicker, but look, it is disappointing. They wiped the floor with us and put us away very clinically."

McCartan empathised with his players for suffering such a humiliating defeat.

"I'm just disappointed for the group of players in the dressing room, because it's obviously a disappointing way to end the year," he said.

"I couldn't have asked for any more effort from them. They've toiled well and to go out the way we went out today is disappointing for everyone involved.

"The game was drifting away from us at half-time, and there was that many players playing below par, it was difficult to know where to put the hand in the dyke.

"It wasn't just one positional switch or one defensive, we probably would have needed to slip a couple of extra defenders on unnoticed to be able to try and shore things up.

"So it's disappointing for the players, because it's a cruel way to get put out but Croke Park is the place where any frailties are exposed, and that was certainly done today." Tweet

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