Seán Rice
“EVERY championship is a new journey,” said Stephen Coen before Saturday’s All-Ireland final. “We’re trying to write our own history.”
The eloquence of the Mayo captain was matched only by the elegance with which the team he led won the county’s fifth under-21 title at Ennis and carved their names forever into the memory of those who followed them.
Every quality, every trait of heart and mind you would wish to be found in a Mayo team was embodied not just in this performance but also in their sequence of victories throughout their campaign.
Since their minor success three years ago, these guys have grown into our souls. Our seniors ought to stand and watch how they have applied themselves to a winning method in every emergency, how – with a collective presence of mind – they dug themselves out of awkward situations.
None seemed more precarious than the 53rd minute of this epic final when Cork, aided by the wind, drew level, and an enormous Mayo effort looked beyond rescue.
Grimly they clung on, and with that inscrutable something that defines them, the ball was suddenly hugging the Cork net. Not for the first time had Conor Loftus split open the defence, availing of a goalkeeping error, coolly side-stepping two opponents, and tucking the ball into the roof of the onion bag with his weaker foot.
It was their fourth goal, each a magnificent effort, each a study in coolness and self-belief. Cork’s challenge wilted under the pressure, and their confidence visibly shattered when Liam Irwin delivered the coup de grâce by fisting the ball into the net in injury time.
As in all of Mayo’s wins, you feared for them at times, feared that however hard they tried, they might not overcome the physical advantage Cork held in the main sectors.
The full-forward line of Peter Kelleher, Brian Coakley, all of six feet five inches of him, and speedy Michael Hurley offered the principal threat. Against the wind in the first half, Coakley outreached everyone in the air and scored a couple of impressive points. Long ball to him in the second half presented an ominous possibility.
But the Mayo defence stood firm, never once losing their focus. Hurley, man of the match in their semi-final, not once escaped the shadow of the vigilant Eoin O’Donoghue and eventually was replaced.
In the other corner, David Kenny rendered Coakley as ineffective as his height allowed him ... enough to keep the big man in sufficient rein to prevent a goal.
At the other end, Mayo appeared weakened by an injury that forced full-forward Brian Reape out of the starting 15, and a finger injury that ought to have reduced the effectiveness of their star wing man Diarmuid O’Connor ... but didn’t. You felt uneasy when some early shots went astray and Cork, against the wind, worryingly crept ahead with only five minutes of the half remaining.
It was injury time when Shairoze Akram squeezed by a couple of challenges down the right wing, lost possession and grittily harassed Kevin Flahive to regain control of the ball. In a mesmerising flash of passes, the ball had come to O’Connor via Akram, Liam Irwin and Michael Plunkett and, in a reproduction of his goal against Dublin, O’Connor had the Cork keeper picking the ball from the back of the net.
THERE was more to come when Fergal Boland, small but persistent and resolute, won a tackle on the 45-metre line. All at once the full Mayo forward line was on the move, broadening the girth of their assault and stumping the Cork defence.
In the blink of an eye, the whole scene changed as Fionán Duffy got a crucial touch before, from an acute angle through a maze of scrambling legs, Liam Irwin managed to rifle the ball to the net with his left foot.
Within three minutes, Mayo had scored 2-1 and led by an unlikely four points at the interval, barely enough it was thought to cushion them against the wind, but a considerable improvement on how they stood five minutes earlier.
Long ball by Cork with the wind did not fully materialise; their forwards got no chance to steady themselves, hustled and harried as they were by Michael Hall’s clever defending at centre back, and the endless covering of James Kelly, Michael Plunkett and the full-back line.
At midfield, Matthew Ruane and Coen ruled gloriously, and when both teamed up with Loftus, the Crossmolina star called on all of the mental attributes he displayed as minor to wrong-foot the Cork defence and pick a spot in the net.
It put them five points ahead. More to the point, it planted doubt in Cork heads. This was not the Mayo they had expected, not the out-of-luck Mayo in Croke Park. This was a side making their own luck, focusing on their own game, as their captain had promised.
The flame of a Cork resurgence kindled briefly when full-forward Kelleher got his fist to a centre from the 45’ that got past Mattie Flanagan in the Mayo goal in the 46th minute. And when Coakley tossed over a free two minutes later, the sap seemed to rise in their play.
Seven minutes from the end they were on level terms. Tension soared, all of the 7,500-strong attendance on the edge of their seats. Mayo were slugging it out everywhere, eyeball to eyeball. Strive as Cork did to curtail his influence, Diarmuid O’Connor was irrepressible. The track of his efforts was everywhere.
And with Ruane and Coen in greater command at midfield than in any of their other games, O’Connor was able to take up strategic positions to relieve awkward situations and also to attract most attention from the Cork defence.
In the extra space created by Cork’s endeavours to subdue the Ballintubber man, the Mayo forwards flourished. And the riches were share evenly among Loftus, Boland, Plunkett, Duffy and goal-poacher Irwin on whom, together with many others, Stephen Rochford will be keeping a close eye.
Man of the match? Matthew Ruane was the preference of most and his contribution was quite magnificent. But there were 18 man-of-the-match performances. From goalkeeper Mattie Flanagan, who brought off a couple of heart-stopping saves shortly after the resumption, to subs James Carr, Barry Duffy and Morgan Lyons, each of whom was given a chance to savour the thrill of the occasion.
Tributes, too, go to the back-room team of Michael Solan, John Ginty and Joe Keane for generating that winning spirit, and to Stephen Coen for articulating the mindset of a side charting their own history.
