Andy Moran praised the fearlessness of youth after Mayo’s full-forward line reignited one of the oldest quests in Irish sport by beating Louth to progress to the All-Ireland senior football final.It will be Mayo’s first appearance in the decider since 2021 and their fifth since 2016 (sixth if you include replays), with their opponents to be determined on Sunday when Kerry face Dublin in the second semi-final.At 27, Ryan O’Donoghue is very much the general of Mayo’s top attacking line but teenagers Darragh Beirne (19) and Kobe McDonald (18) have lit up the summer in their debut championship campaigns.The trio combined for a haul of 2-17 against Louth on Saturday – O’Donoghue with 1-11, Beirne with 1-2 and McDonald with 0-4.“They’re young, they’ve a great leader in Ryan up there who’s kind of teaching them the way, but they’re talented boys and it’s just great to see it,” said Moran.Cian McHale, who was involved with UL in the Sigerson Cup earlier in the season, came off the bench and chipped in with 0-2 in his 20-minute cameo.“I was probably too kind to the Sigerson a tiny bit with Cian and then the under-20s happened with Kobe and Darragh, so we never really got them together before the Connacht championship.“So that five weeks between Roscommon and the Monaghan game was huge for us. I remember we played a challenge match with Kildare and the three boys were just, that was the first time we really seen the connection, so we’re hoping to just kind of keep pushing on from there.”A view of Mayo fans celebrating at Croke Park for the match against Louth. Photograph: James Lawlor/Inpho Moran was also keen to acknowledge the huge Mayo support at a sold-out Croke Park.“It’s great to see the Mayo crowd back in Croke Park supporting the team, that’s just the most important thing.“The whole thing in a semi-final, it’s for winning. You can dress it up any way you want. Semis are to give yourself a chance to go and win the big prize in any competition, county championships, Connacht championships and All-Ireland championships.“But for us, we had an aim at the start of the year, can we get the Mayo back supporting the team? And I think that was answered today.”Moran felt Mayo’s ability to get their hands on possession in the middle third was crucial to the victory.“Looking at Louth against Monaghan, they were absolutely excellent. I remember being at the game and when they went down to 14, I thought they were in trouble.“But they could just kick over Monaghan’s press all the time. Monaghan lost a lot of midfielders over the last couple of years, right from Darren Hughes to Gary Mohan and Karl Gallagher. Louth just dominated them in the kickouts.“So we just thought, we knew [Dara] McDonnell would still win a lot of kickouts, we knew Louth would still win a lot of kickouts, but we just thought we could get to 50-50 there with them and we did and it made a big difference.”Louth manager Gavin Devlin was disappointed his side didn’t perform to their capabilities in what was the county’s first All-Ireland SFC semi-final appearance since 1957.“This journey that we’ve been on this year has been absolutely magical. The scenes the last two weeks in Louth, sometimes it’s just bigger than the team,” said Devlin.“What our young people experienced this week and our clubs and the local area, it’s been amazing. The performance today was disappointing and the result was bitterly disappointing.“It just seemed to be one of those games today that whatever could go wrong went wrong.“We spoke before we went out when we knew we were playing with the breeze in the first half, we said let’s be controlled, let’s not rush this. But it looked like our attacks were so rushed. Things that we hadn’t been doing all year, they appeared.“So really disappointing. But honestly our boys this year have been absolutely amazing.”Devlin feels there are still some major developmental steps Louth need to make if they are to be competing regularly at the business end of the championship.“I just spoke to them [the players] there inside and it’s disappointing but it’s not a day to drop your shoulders. It’s a day to get your shoulders up. What they did for Louth is amazing.“If there’s a bump in the road we’ve hit it, that’s for sure. And if there’s another bump in the road, I keep saying this, that we keep going again.“There was a gap out there today. There was a gap physically, speed-wise. When we were coming out with the ball we were getting turned back. That’s the first thing I felt, all year we’ve been able to break lines and make impacts.“Today we were getting turned back. You can see that visibly early on in the game. We’ve got to close that gap.”