Kevin McStay was in a defiant mood after Mayo dre with Dublin in Dr Hyde Park.
Mayo looked destined for a famous win when Ryan O'Donoghue put them a point up deep in stoppage time but there was time for one last sting in the tail.
Stephen Cluxton went long with what was always going to be the game's last play.
Ciaran Kilkenny leapt highest and showed why he's considered as one of the game's all-time greats with an incredible fetch in midfield.
The counter-attack was in motion and with the speed of Jack McCaffrey zipping it on, the ball came to the red-hot Cormac Costello who finished the point well.
He was later named as man-of-the-match.
Costello told RTÉ that games like these are the reasons 'you play for,' and next up, Kevin McStay was just as enthused after what was a great game of Gaelic football.
RTÉ's Damien O'Meara put it to McStay about the draw feeling like a defeat given the circumstances but the Mayo man wasn't in the mood for such platitudes.
Interesting response from Kevin McStay as he discusses pride in his team, "nonsense" talk that Mayo would hold back today and getting ready for a game in one week #sundaygame pic.twitter.com/kbowAuIVAf
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) June 16, 2024
"No, it doesn't feel like a defeat Damien." he replied quick as a flash.
"At the same time, no interest in moral victories either. We got ourselves into a great position. I hope that people realise now that we were trying to win the game," he said pointedly.
He then hit out at what he described as 'nonsense talk' from people 'waffling' during the week at neither team wanting to win. Mayo wanted to go straight through to the quarter final according to McStay and that's that.
"The nonsense that people were waffling about about saving yourself for next week...we gave it our best shot but look Dublin are a terrific team.
"Very hard to see how they'd come back from that but they did it."
Ciaran Kilkenny was Dublin's hero with a brilliant late catch. Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile
"You're thinking all we need is a bounce or a break here and we're going to hold on but the Dubs are a good team and they worked a solution."
"What I want to put on record is how proud I am of our team," he added.
"We asked for a big effort and I felt we went so deep into the well and almost pulled it off. We just got clipped at the end," he added.
Mayo will be back in action next week in a home preliminary quarter final and McStay said they won't be feeling sorry for themselves about that.
They will certainly have some positives to take from this game, with the performances of Tommy Conroy and Aidan O'Shea catching the eye in particular.
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The upbeat mood of their manager will also bode well for them going forward. He definitely didn't look or sound like a man who's resigned to taking this one lying down.
"We won't be feeling sorry for ourselves," he said definitively.
"We're in this championship. We feel we're going to have a say in this championship still. We'll have a home venue next weekend. We'll see what the draw throws up tomorrow.
"We are going to readjust. We learned from last year. And we'll be ready to get to that quarter final one way or the other."
