Cometh the hour, cometh Westport’s Shane Scott

IN FULL FLIGHT Westport midfielder Shane Scott is pictured during the Mayo Intermediate Football Championship Final in McHale Park last October. Pic: Michael Donnelly

Shane Scott’s fingerprints have been all over some seminal moments in Westport’s season

Edwin McGreal

HE reckons it was the guts of a decade ago when he last took a penalty.
So just how did the Westport midfielder from Aughagower end up taking arguably the biggest kick in his club’s history when they trailed by three points with four minutes to go against Kenmare last month?
Their regular penalty-taker, Liam Staunton, had been substituted and some other candidates were backing from it. Scott had been fouled for the penalty and seized the moment.
“Someone had to take it, the ball wasn’t going to sit there all day,” he tells us, matter-of-factly.
Nervous much?
“I hadn’t too much time to think about it,” he recalls. “I just wanted to put it in the net as quickly as I could and get out the field to try to win the ball for a winner.”
So while many of their supporters could barely look, Scott powerfully dispatched the kick (despite the best efforts of the Kenmare goalkeeper) and Westport took the game to extra-time.
During those extra 20 minutes it was the Mayo champions’ superior fitness that stood to them along with, arguably, their experience of tighter games than a Kenmare team who had swotted away so many teams with ease.
Deep in the second half of extra-time in Ennis came the crucial scores.
Team captain Brian McDermott kicked an equaliser from out near Clarecastle.
Shane Scott had participated in our light-hearted Quickfire Questions last October. His answers were laced with humour but one sticks out. ‘What makes you nervous?’
“Brian McDermott shooting for the posts” he had written.
So how nervous was he when McDermott was ‘shooting for the posts’ from long range with his team a point down late in extra time of an All-Ireland semi-final?
Scott is more diplomatic this time around.
“I dunno,” he laughs. “Back then (October) he was not as pinpoint as he was in the All-Ireland semi-final. Fair play to him. When you need men to stand up, when you need your captain to stand up, that’s the time to do it, a point down and to come with a monster kick. It was serious going.”
Ironically, minutes later it was Scott who stepped up to land a heroic lead point before Colm Geraghty made it safe late on.

Player-driven
THE 25 year-old is in no doubt that an improved attitude from the players was vital for their success in Mayo and beyond this season.
They targeted the Mayo Intermediate Championship from the outset and set up ‘player groups’ with four or five in each, to push each other on and make sure the work was being done at training, in the gym, and for running programmes.
“It helps to keep an eye on lads and make sure everyone is doing their own bit,” he explains.
“If you’re on shift work for training times, you can go for your run on Tuesday or Wednesday morning, or go kicking down the pitch, and put up a pic on Whatsapp. Then all the lads can see you’re putting it in.
“In previous years we might have lads in college and lads working midweek and only six or seven at training and it was easy for people to be skiving. Now everyone pushes everyone. I missed one or two sessions and I wasn’t long being called out. You want people driving you.
“These things have to be player-driven,” he continues.
“The management said that to us and we know that, it’s true. Ultimately it’s us that go onto the field so we have to take responsibility.”
The group have forged a strong bond as well, socialising together after big games.  
“We’ve great camaraderie and that’s important. I could ring anyone in the squad now and say ‘are you going for a pint?’ or ‘are you going to the gym?’ whereas a few years ago there would be only a small few you could ring like that.”
Playing in Croke Park  will be ‘a dream come through’ admits Scott, but he’s adamant the venue will not overawe them.
“You can get caught up in the venue rather than the game but Kevin (Keane) and Leeroy (Keegan) have played there loads of times and they won’t let that happen.
“We’re walking around the pitch on Saturday evening. I don’t think Croke Park will faze us. The lads are very level headed. The lads who are 18 or 19, you’d swear they were 29 or 30.”
And a man who volunteered to kick his first penalty since his underage days in the All-Ireland semi-final ought to have no issues with the occasion either.

FACTFILE
Name: Shane Scott
Age: 25
Occupation: Multi Packaging Solutions (Berry’s) employee
From: Aughagower
Position: Midfield
Did you know? Shane and team-mate Thady Gavin are first cousins.

Shane Scott on. . .

Missing a free to win the Mayo semi-final
“I missed a free right in front of the posts with the last kick of the game to win it,” he said. We tell him it was reported in The Mayo News as ‘a tricky angle’.  
“Oh it was! It was near the corner flag and into a bad wind!” he laughs.

Scoring a vital goal to turn the replay tide
“THE goal was a big turning point. In the replay we were five points down and it wasn’t looking good. I followed the move up the field and got the ball and struck it sweetly. We ended up leading by two at half-time.”

Playing a county final three days later
“WE were fairly wrecked after the replay. The following morning (Thursday) we went out to Rosmoney and spent half an hour in the tide recovering. We did nothing on the field before the final. Just recovery and ice baths and a few lads went over to Andy Moran’s cyrotherapy chamber in Castlebar.
“Apart from Kevin (Keane) Leeroy (Keegan) and Davy Horan, for the majority of the group it was the first county final. In that situation you want to make an impression even if your legs are aching. It was adrenaline more than anything which carried us.”