Our Boys from the County Mayo

KEEPING THE FLAGS FLYING  Mayo fans are pictured during last Sunday's All-Ireland SFC semi-final at Croke Park. Pic: Sportsfile

Comment
Edwin McGreal

AS Mayo fans made the journey west after another absorbing chapter in the odyssey that is following this remarkable group of footballers, Michael Commins was preparing to start his Sunday night Late Show on Mid West Radio at 10pm.
Before he spoke a word, he let one song play which captured so much of the day and spoke to the essence of this Mayo team: ‘The Boys from the County Mayo’.
The song was written long before any of this group of players was born and was partly a lament to the woes of emigration.
But listening to the lyrics as we wound our way home through rural Roscommon, you could not help think they perfectly fit this team.
    
So boys pull together in all kinds of weather
    
Don’t show the white feather wherever you go
    
Be like a brother and help one another
    
Like stout hearted men from the County Mayo

Mayo footballers in the past have been accused of showing the white feather. Despite some of the cheap and lazy comment and opinion pieces written gleefully by national columnists, that is not an accusation you can level at this Mayo team.
Stout and defiant to the last, together like brothers, and no matter what the day brings, Mayo pull together, again and again.
Last Sunday, they found a way to draw the All-Ireland semi-final against Kerry late on, one that they arguably deserved to win. But recall how little of a chance they were given in advance. ‘Kerry underperformed’ and ‘Mayo missed their chance’ is what we keep hearing in analysis since the final whistle.
It’s what we keep hearing after Mayo come up with big performances and results.
Too many people who are paid a lot of money to give informed analysis seem incapable of crediting Mayo in such scenarios. There appears to be too many who are almost tripping each other up to find a way to kick Mayo with cheap, trash-talk not befitting the bar in your local at throwing-out time on a Saturday night.
Often, over the last few years it’s been the Mayo players on the receiving end. This week it’s Stephen Rochford and his selectors for playing Aidan O’Shea at full-back on Kieran Donaghy.
On Monday these honourable men who made a brave decision to try to win a game of football 24-four hours earlier woke up to some outrageous insults from a columnist in the biggest selling newspaper in the country. Contemptible prose.
Unfortunately, only ultimate success will be the answer to such balderdash.
That’s the world we live in, but a lack of a Celtic Cross will not tarnish the legacy of this group of Mayo footballers in the eyes of the vast majority of their fans.
The chorus of that great song should be remembered by Mayo supporters in the coming days, and on Saturday thousands of us will rally around once again to show the players and the management that we’re with them every step of the way.
As Andy Moran famously said last year, ‘we’re Mayo and we’re in this together’.