Mayo people are cautious but it can be done

Seán Rice has been tracking the fortunes of Mayo footballers for decades and believes that for the first time in the modern era there is finally some justification to the sniff of expectation about All-Ireland glory around the county

WE are wary about calling it. Too often we have trudged home from Croke Park convinced that underachievement was and must ever be the ordained course of Mayo football.

Sunday’s is their seventh senior final since 1989, but the All-Ireland shadow stretches back farther, back through the mists of time . . . all the way to 1951. Cautious? Who could be otherwise?

In many of those finals expectation in Mayo rose higher than good sense would have it. Outside the county the team had convinced few that an All-Ireland was within reach. With an unprecedented record of failure against the likes of Kerry, Cork and Meath high hopes were not tenable.

In 1997 the hype went viral. Having lost the final to Meath by a point in a replay the previous year, Mayo were back in the final, confident of beating Kerry. This was it, the bugle call to victory, the day everyone was waiting for. But the worst Kerry team ever to win an All-Ireland elbowed them out by three points.

Midfield star Darragh O’Shea would later write: “We sensed glory, because Mayo were too hyped up, and it was really set up for us to knock them off their perch.”

We dreamed on regardless, unmindful that Mayo relied too heavily on their best few players to win. Followers expected miracles when the truth is the physical and mental strength of the team did not measure up.

Come the next final and the bounce was back in their step, hope hinging more on the belief that the misery had to end sometime, than on any notable change in style or conviction.

It never did end. Kerry won in 2004, and again in 2006, and each time thoughts and hopes and beliefs were flung back into disarray. The horizon seemed farther away than ever.

Since his advent in 2011, manager James Horan has wrought serious change and for the first time the candyfloss image has begun to disappear. He led his team to the semi-final in his first year, to the final against champions Donegal last year, and now to their seventh final since 1989. Once again there is a sniff of expectation in the air . . . subdued, but with some justification at last.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.