Experience proves an effective teacher for Mayo ladies

Experience proves an effective teacher


Mayo’s know-how proved crucial again

OVERVIEW
Denise Horan

PHYSICALLY, it was a triumph over both elements and adversaries. Psychologically, it was a partial exorcism.
The ghosts of the All-Ireland Final annihilation of eleven months ago have lingered, prodded and pricked at the players who were there all through this season, but on Saturday last those same players kept them at bay. Only victory in the All-Ireland Final next month will banish them completely, but for now at least the path to redemption remains open.
Mayo’s experience is the feature that’s pointed to perenially when explaining their rise from the ashes of a disastrous league or a skin-of-their-teeth run through the championship – and that was what got them over the line in this quarter-final too.
Mayo’s form in the league was at best inconsistent, Sligo offered no real test in the Connacht Final and even their challenge matches throughout the summer months have thrown up mixed results and performances.
So the frame of mind going in to Saturday’s match could not have been entirely as management would have wished it to be ahead of a do-or-die game in such an imposing venue. Indeed, their own last-minute recruitment of three past stalwarts – Michelle McGing, Diane O’Hora and Ciara McDermott – to shore up the panel could easily have backfired by destroying the brittle confidence of those who had been training hard through the ups and downs of the last six months. As it happened, the opposite seemed to be the case: it drove the others on.
The line between bravery and folly is, indeed, a pencil-thin one and the side on which decisions are adjudged to fall ultimately depends on the result.
But back to Mayo’s experienced hands, and the part they played in this victory. Helena Lohan and Cora Staunton, veterans of each and every one of Mayo’s Croke Park performances since 1999, were the stars. Staunton racked up 1-7 (her goal among the best she has scored in Croke Park), in spite of not being at her best, while the imperious Lohan, whose reading of the game never fails to impress, held Geraldine O’Shea – who starred in Kerry’s last All-Ireland victory in 1993 – to just one score from play, a fine individually-crafted goal in injury time.
Marcella Heffernan and Claire Egan – two more old hands and stars of six All-Ireland finals –  chipped in too when their side needed a lift, Heffernan hitting a particularly sweet point to close out the first half (making her one of six Mayo players to score on the day, a major positive from the game). The performances of Martha Carter and Denise McDonagh were also marked by tenacity and a determination to see Mayo through no matter how much running all over the field each had to do.
But the most encouraging aspect of a game Mayo never looked like losing, in spite of the tight finish, was the performances of some of the younger veterans of last year’s cruel Croke Park experience. Fiona McHale, Lisa Cafferkey and Aoife Herbert all showed not only the benefit of having played in headquarters before, but also a strong desire not to be beaten there again. The physical strength and confidence of each has improved immeasurably since that final, but so too – and much more importantly – has their maturity. They know what heartbreak on a football field is, but they have used it to better themselves as players.
For all their experience, of course, Mayo didn’t put Kerry away sufficiently well; that will be a cause of concern for management. Kathryn Sullivan’s goal – Mayo’s second – was a bizarre gift from a mixed-up Kerry defence; had it not come the closing ten minutes would have been a lot more tense. Ahead of the semi-final, Mayo have plenty to work on, but that’s what winning quarter-finals is about: giving teams the opportunity to raise the bar a little more.