Mayo joint-manager Pat Holmes says the FBD Connacht League campaign "served a purpose".

Despite making their exit from the competition yesterday following a first defeat to Roscommon in Castlebar since 1986, the four-in-a-row Connacht champions are looking to their Allianz League opener against Kerry with a degree of optimism.

"Are we happy with the FBD League? Yea we are. Are we disappointed we didn't win today? We're disappointed that we didn't put in a much better performance than we did, but all in all the FBD has been a very useful exercise," Holmes said.

"We're now within two weeks of playing Kerry in the first round of the National League. We had seven players out there today playing their first game of the season such as Lee Keegan, Colm Boyle, Seamus O'Shea, Diarmuid O'Connor and it was important to get some football into their hands and running into their legs.

"We go out to win every game and today we didn't win. We made too many mistakes. It's a learning exercise for everyone and we learned a lot about our group of players today.

"We'll be working on things that we didn't do well and looking to improve on the things we did well and stretch them out over longer parts of the game."

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