In Pat Comer’s wonderful A Year ‘Til Sunday documentary chronicling Galway’s ultimately glorious 1998 campaign, it cuts to a team meeting in between the drawn and replayed Connacht finals against Roscommon.
John O’Mahony is letting his players have it after a lack lustre display in the drawn game. He produced the local papers and read some of the quotes from them to his charges.
“Galway Fancy Dans can’t do the simple things well”. Another one said” A nice team but haven’t the stomach for a fight”. O’Mahony was literally imploring a response from the Tribesmen. “There’s only one f*****g answer for that” the Mayo man pleaded.
He duly got the desired response, albeit after extra time. Tonight, this corner was left wondering had James Horan the daily papers with in Mayo dressing room. For those who may not know, former Dublin defender Philly McMahon wrote a fairly scathing critique of the Mayo team in Saturday’s Irish Indepent.
The gist of which basically was that the Connacht side had lost many of their clashes against the Dubs over the years before the ball was even thrown in. A rather damning assessment, but one which contains at least a few grains of truth. Be that as it may, stern criticism is never nice to hear about onesself.
If Horan did use Philly’s piece to his advantage, it certainly worked a treat. Thought given the confidence visibly coarsing through the green and red veins at present he may not have had much work to do. Right from the throw in, Diarmuid O’Connor could have netted but blazed over.
But where before the miss would’ve been clinically and rapidly met with retribution, despite Mick Fitzsimons, Brian Fenton and Ciaran Kilkenny settling the Leinster champions, their great adversaries never looked flustered.
Firstly, Matthew Ruane had what looked a brilliant goal harshly disallowed but, to their credit, the men from the west held their composure. The goals eventually did come via newcomers Jack Carney and Aiden Orme and with O’Connor and netminder Rob Hennelly putting in big shifts, Horan’s troops took a 2-06 to 0-09 lead in out of the rain with them.
While the expected Dublin retort did materialise to a point, whereas their opponents seemed to be able to advance towards the Canal End relatively unhindered, the two shades of blue struggled to breach the green and red corden. In which Lee Keegan, Michael Plunkett and Oisin Mullin were immense.
It was very much a case of Geelong’s loss was Mayo’s gain with the latter. You’d hope more players would follow Mulin’s lead now. Whatever else the athletic defender’s reasoning for staying homeward bound, it’s clear Mayo feel they are building something significant.
When being intrrviewed, their use of words like “Project” and “Momentum”. Anyway, last night, even if Dublin had managed to circumnavigate the security phalanx, there was no way they could overcome an inspired Robbie Hennelly.
The Breaffy clubman has always been a fine custodian, is also adept at doing outfield duties and a successful horse breeder to boot. However, at times during his Mayo career, his confidence has appeared to be decimated. Now though, like the hope index surrounding this Mayo unit, it appears to be on the up.
Mind you, in the blue corner, talk of ‘Crisis’ is premature and an overreaction. Yes, Dublin appear to be at their lowest ebb in more than a decade, but, just as they didn’t become all conquering and unstoppable overnight, they haven’t regressed in that manner either.
So they’ve lost three games in a row – guess what folks, they’re human. Take the calibre of player they’ve seen depart out of any team and their foundations will be shaken. A lot of the talk at present is of how the great star of the South will lead his Kingdom to glory. He may well do, but not many would bet against these two colliding again sooner rather than later. Strap yourself in and enjoy the ride.
Leave a Reply