Mayo manager Andy Moran credited his players “amazing desire and fitness levels” to get over the line against Cork in yesterday’s All-Ireland SFC quarter-final.

The Westerners took their place in the last four of the Sam Maguire Cup race for the first time in half a decade thanks to a 0-23 to 0-18 win at Croke Park, where the victors’ full-forward line combined for 0-19 over the 70 minutes.

Speaking to RTE Sport afterwards, Moran said he felt as though the venue would suit his players.

"Everyone kept saying to us that our aim was to win Connacht and all this, but it was never our aim, if I'm being honest,” said the former Mayo forward.

"Our aim was to get players through [the year] and to see are these players good enough. Even today, coming up to Croke Park, I always thought this pitch would suit us.

"But like I said to everyone that asked me, we'll know at 6.30pm on Saturday evening if it suits us. We knew coming here today, when you have seven new players that have never played in Croke Park before, they're going to get hammerings, they're going to get beatings. That's happened to all of us, all of us throughout our career.

"You have bad days, you have good days, you have all these sorts of things. So today was just one of those good days and I'm just delighted for the lads. We were very, very happy to be where we were [before the game].

"We were very happy to be here today and we knew this was a huge opportunity, as did Cork. And luckily, we just got those couple of scores to get us over the line and the lads showed amazing desire and fitness levels to get us there."

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