Jim McGuinness was impressed by how Mayo "absolutely refused to lie down" in Sunday's drawn All-Ireland semi-final.

Despite trailing by seven points with less than ten minutes of normal time remaining, the Connacht champions refused to bend the knee and battled back bravely to earn a replay.

"As Mayo began to lose sight of the game, they played with more boldness," the Donegal man writes in The Irish Times. "That is a rare quality. They forced a match that Dublin controlled tactically into becoming an essential battle of wills. It was almost like a statement to Dublin. Even after Kevin McManamon's second goal, the Mayo attitude was: "we are not going to back down here". I think that is a very powerful characteristic in a team.

"For me, it gets to the nub of a dynamic which runs through the psychology of sport. It was clear on Sunday that Dublin were playing as they had been coached to play and things were going according to plan. They might have expected McManamon's goal to have triggered a negative response from Mayo - blaming the referee or giving out to each other. But Mayo simply don't do that. Mayo may have been rattled - and they gave up three quick points after that goal - but they absolutely refused to lie down.

"Most teams can sense that moment when the opposition is about to break. The Kilkenny hurlers are the prime exponents of this. That is when teams put the knife in. But Mayo deny teams that opportunity because they don't change in attitude or demeanour. It doesn't matter to them whether they are two down or 10 down. They are going to keep on going. They don't send that signal of defeat out to the opposition.

"So the Dublin team are seven points up with less than 10 minutes to go but they are beginning to realise that the Mayo players have no intention of calling it quits. And if you are a player in that situation, you begin to think: Jeez, these boys are mentally tough here. If I was seven points down, what would I do?"

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