Another Mayo gamble backfires but they still refuse to go away

A Different View by John McIntyre

MAYO may have only beaten Kerry once in the championship – the 1996 All-Ireland semi-final – since 1951 and have also suffered some chastening defeats at the hands of the Kingdom, but those scars are not afflicting the current crop of county footballers who again went toe to toe with the Munster champions at Croke Park last Sunday.

This may be the unluckiest GAA team of all-time, having suffered some cruel and agonising defeats in semi-finals and finals over the past six years in particular, yet there is no sense of self-pity in Mayo’s ranks. These are the ultimate warriors and despite all the heartbreak, their fortitude is truly exceptional.

Lesser men would have given up the ghost by this stage in their pursuit of the Sam Maguire Cup, but Mayo have no soft centre. They don’t know how to give up or throw in the towel. The word surrender is not in their vocabulary and they are still standing in this year’s championship after eight matches.

Having lost to Galway for the second year running in the Connacht championship and struggled through the qualifiers, most observers though that Mayo were in sharp decline and a fading force. There was also a general assumption that their legs were gone – and so had their best chance of ending over 65 years without an All-Ireland title.

But the team’s unexpected landslide quarter-final replay win over Roscommon altered that narrative as Mayo looked a team revitalised. If anything, the heavy schedule was only helping to get their house in order. Looking their sharpest all summer, Keith Higgins and company ran riot, even if they were still 9/4 outsiders to take down Kerry last Sunday.

Mayo were arguably the better team despite Patrick Durcan, who surprisingly wasn’t started, having to land a 75th minute equaliser to force a replay. The team, management caused an even bigger surprise in deploying Aidan O’Shea, one of the heartbeats of the squad, to an emergency full back role in an effort to curb Kieran Donaghy.

It was a negative tactic and underlined how much Mayo were scared of the towering full forward who admittedly has caused mayhem in the past. Granted, O’Shea switch did limit Kerry’s aerial threat, but he was understandably too loose and Donaghy, who set up Stephen O’Brien first-half goal, still made a telling contribution.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.