Stephen Rochford has laughed off the claims that Jim McGuinness was parachuted in to help Mayo with their All-Ireland SFC final preparations.

Rumours were rife that the 2012 All-Ireland winning Donegal boss gave the Connacht men a helping hand in advance of last Sunday's stalemate with Dublin.

"If somebody wants to say the Pope is training us next week, so be it!" quipped Rochford when speaking to The Irish Daily Star at last night's press night.

"It won't distract us from what the task is on Saturday week."

The subject of Joe Brolly's scathing criticism of the Mayo players - the RTE pundit labelled them as 'celebrity losers' - was also raised with the manager.

"I don't think it's necessarily fair language, but that's a choice for that pundit to make.

"It certainly didn't keep me awake."

As regards the fall-out from the tunnel incidents prior to throw-in last weekend, Rochford added: "There was no (case of) 'Dublin are coming here, let's get out' (or) 'Dublin aren't here, let's wait for them'.

"There is a lot more to be dealing with and focused on.

"I know we got a direction to be second out onto the field.

"With us being a minute or two late, I don't know why Dublin were four or five minutes late.

"That is probably a question Dublin need to answer."

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