A Fan’s View: Unfulfilled and underwhelming

IT’S the final Fan’s View column of 2024, and this fan feels a small bit cheated. How spoiled have we been for the past 13 years that we take these annual trips to Croke Park at the business end of the championship for granted? Alas, it is left to our fellow Connacht teams to fly the flag for the west this season.

Incidentally, I met no fewer than three Rossies around Ballina on Sunday morning, chests out, beaming from ear to ear. Who knew there were so many of them about the place? You got the sense they were all out for the day, keen to remind the natives of their place with no small helping of glee. Without a leg to stand on, it appears that if you give it, you must be prepared to take it, and so I choked out a few good-luck wishes. It would be quite the achievement for the Rossies to reach a semi-final. I’d almost consider shouting for them. I didn’t meet any Galway people. One must thank the universe for small mercies.

Anyway, back to the Saturday night post-mortem. Myself and the sister, (she’s still awaiting a visa to return to Oz), made our way to Castlebar, armed with a fine bag each of Ballina’s finest ‘jujus’ from Ballina’s finest shop, Timmy McGrath’s. The sugar boost was welcome, because we were in for a long evening. It was cold, grey and a bit miserable, the kind of evening you’d anticipate a greasy surface and a slippy ball, though neither emerged as talking points.

I finally discovered who the MacHale Park DJ is, which satisfied a nosiness going back several years now. And the biggest pre-game excitement was not the warm-up nor the cheer after the anthem, but the realisation that finally – finally! – the clock on the media tower had been brought back into operation. More tiny gratitudes.

The surge of energy experienced by supporters in Dr Hyde Park six days previously didn’t translate to bums on seats in Castlebar, with a measly enough attendance of under 14,000. The Derry fans had lost faith too, it appears, and travelled in smaller numbers than would befit league champions. I messaged a friend from Derry during the warm-up to see if he was down. His response was telling. “I’m not,” he said. “I’ve 100 acres of silage to put in this weekend and I couldn’t face an eight-hour round trip knowing what we’d produce.” I had a strange, foreboding feeling that he might regret it.

And so it proved.

It is not unusual for teams who are out of form or poorer teams than us to somehow save their biggest games for Mayo. Kildare did it, Cork have done it several times, and Derry put their apparent internal strife to one side to come out fighting on Saturday night. It was not pretty. The first half was dour, rancid, turgid fare, and gave Mayo fans nothing to shout about. My feeling of foreboding increased when the Derry supporters gave their team a standing ovation at half-time, a gesture which spoke volumes both about how they felt this game was going and how low their expectations have fallen in a matter of weeks.

On Saturday night, the absence of leadership was keenly felt when it mattered most, except for two players. Aidan O’Shea, is one of our all-time greats. His withdrawal in the final minutes of normal time was frankly unfathomable. The sands of time are sinking, and as he was - unfathomably - withdrawn from the action on Saturday to a standing ovation, we couldn’t have been the only ones wondering whether it might be the last time we see him in a Mayo jersey. His record and temperament speak for themselves and he owes us nothing, but deserves a far more glorious departure. And Jordan Flynn, who kicked two monster points, the second practically on one leg, when we needed someone to stand up and fight. Warriors both.

We all know how the game turned out. We all know that players and management are hurting at the minute, which is understandable. This year has just felt like a series of dropped balls and missed opportunities. We could and should have beaten Galway, then Dublin, then Derry. There’s not a lot more to say. File it all under U for Unfulfilled and Underwhelming. Move on. Next year will be better.

Losing on penalties is cruel, but we knew the terms of engagement well in advance. The championship structure is an unholy shambles, but we knew that too. Winners will win. Losers will lick their wounds and go again. But Mayo fans are uneasy and frustrated, and always, always, impatient.

Knee-jerk calls for the heads of management are inevitable, and barely worth dignifying, but some of the same old questions remain about game management, decisions – or indeed a perceived lack of decisiveness - on the sideline and our approach to forward play, which despite hints here and there, remains a gaping deficiency if we are to challenge. Next year, I hope Kevin McStay retains his refreshing openness in his post-match interviews and gives players more opportunity to speak. They deserve it and have earned it, and fans deserve it too.

I hadn’t felt this invested in a game, nor so heartsore after a result since 2021, and I surprised myself – unpleasantly - by the depth of emotion and the level of desperation I felt to win. Because with that strength of emotion comes a deeper, more crushing disappointment, even if you anticipate it. By the time the final penalty was kicked, I was physically spent, and left the ground in a daze. I didn’t think it mattered so much anymore, but it appears I was wrong.

In the cold light of day, balance returns. Gains have been made. The transition continues apace. The whole damn thing will be over in a month, then club is king. And then, we’ll go again. As ever. We’ll go again.