Mayo ladies set for return to Croke Park for All-Ireland quarter-final clash

Back where they belong

Marcella Heffernan can’t wait to play at Croke Park

Mike Finnerty

NEXT Sunday it will be exactly six months to the day since the Mayo ladies hit rock bottom. Anybody who made the trip to Annascaul for that ill-fated National League match will remember it forever. The humiliation. The embarrassment. The 22-point hammering that Kerry handed out.
Frank Browne’s departure as Mayo manager had split the ladies camp, only a handful of players had returned to training, and caretaker manager Paul Jordan had difficulty rounding up fifteen ladies to travel to Tralee to fulfill the fixture.
Things were at a low ebb and we wondered if we were watching the beginning of the end for a group of ladies footballers that have been part of our lives now since 1999, the year of the breakthrough All-Ireland win.
What a difference six months makes.
With Michael Ryder from Corofin now installed as manager, and the experienced duo of Martin Connolly and Paul Jordan riding shot-gun, there is a spring in Mayo’s step again.
The business end of the championship is now upon us and Mayo hit next weekend’s quarter-finals as Connacht champions. The draw has pitted them against Kerry at Croke Park on Saturday and offers them a chance to redeem themselves.
“I played that day in February and if you’d told me after that game that we’d end up playing them again in an All-Ireland quarter-final, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Marcella Heffernan (29) told The Mayo News last weekend.
“I never thought I’d experience anything like that but, thankfully, a lot of the older girls have come back and we’re in much better shape now. But we know it’s going to be a massive challenge to try and beat Kerry.
“They’re going very well this year. They play a very fast game, they support each other, and Geraldine O’Shea is still there doing the business for them. We’re rebuilding and a lot of the young girls will be playing in Croke Park, in front of a big crowd, for the first time.”
But Mayo’s convincing victory over Sligo in the Connacht final six weeks ago was another significant staging-post in the squad’s rehabilitation.
They ran up 3-15 on their way to a fifteen point victory that saw Cora Staunton nail 2-8 and the likes of Nicola Hurst, Natasha Beegan and Caoilfhionn Connolly introduced to the first fifteen.
It was a victory that was as important as it was comprehensive. And it sent out a message.
“I thought it would be a lot tighter than it was,” admits Heffernan, who is now in her 16th year with the Mayo senior squad. “It was a good win but this is another step-up. We have to take one game at a time because we’re trying to build a new team. But we’re working hard, training is going well, and the young girls have freshened things up.”
Kerry will be worthy and formidable opponents next weekend. They have only lost two games this year (both to All-Ireland champions Cork) and went all the way to the league final back in May.
They also bounced back from their Munster final defeat to the Rebelettes last month with a hard-fought two point victory over Down in Mullingar last weekend. They are an emerging force and will ask Mayo plenty of awkward questions.
So with the eyes of the ladies football world watching once again, Mayo return to their old stomping ground at Croke Park. A few familiar faces will be missing but the likes of Byrne, Lohan, McDonagh, Egan, Heffernan and Staunton have been down this road many times before.
Such experience may prove invaluable when the chips are down.
“Cork are a long way ahead of everybody else but you never know what could happen on any given day,” says Marcella. “There’s no pressure on us this year and we’re just looking forward to getting back to Croke Park again. Hopefully we can deliver a performance.”