Light is dying on the ladies as the game gets left behind

Light is dying on our ladies as the game gets left behind


Mayo’s semi-final defeat exposed flaws off the field

Overview
Denise Horan

AT last, it seems, there is a team to test the might of Cork. We hoped it would be Mayo last year, but the dawn of new pretenders proved a false one. On Saturday, we hoped they’d qualify for a second chance and show the Rebels why, with four All-Irelands of their own in the last decade, they were equal to their challenge.
But neither past glory nor sentiment works as currency on the All-Ireland stage. And a late-starting season, which included a public airing of divisions between players and county board, a last-gasp managerial appointment, staggered appointments of selectors and mid-season recruitment of players is simply not good enough to even make it to that stage.
All-Irelands aren’t handed out to teams that don’t prepare properly; it may be an unwritten rule, but by god it’s a binding one. That’s not to be cruel to the senior players – or their management team. They did all they could in the last few months, but those few months were too short.
Michael Ryder, Paul Jordan and Martin Connolly did not know the players they were working with prior to this year. Forced to rely on their instincts, the advice of people close to the team and the hope that good fortune might come their way, they did a pretty good job. Overcoming Kerry in such appalling conditions in the quarter-final – and with conviction in spite of the tight finishing scoreline – was no mean feat.
Last Saturday they met their match. Inevitably. And better it was in a semi-final in dreary Navan than in the hope-filled cauldron of Croke Park on All-Ireland Final day.
From the outset, Monaghan looked both accomplished and stylish. They knew what they wanted and they knew what their game plan was for achieving it. They were well-prepared, focused and professional in everything they did on the pitch.
Mayo did well to match them for as long as they did, effectively staying in the hunt until Niamh Kindlon’s inspirational point with 12 minutes remaining, which pushed the Ulster side six points clear. Apart from their excellent inter-play and the mesmerising skill of their forwards, Niamh Kindlon epitomised the other factor that appears to have turned Monaghan around this year – leadership. She is everything you could want in a captain: talented, hard-working, non-theatrical and, above all, supportive of all her colleagues. One can almost imagine being part of that Monaghan team and wanting to win an All-Ireland for no other reason than Niamh Kindlon deserves it.
Mayo had no such figure last Saturday; there was no rallying crier, no encouraging arm on the shoulder of someone who made a mistake, no one to inspire through leadership qualities as much as skill. It’s not that Mayo don’t have players with that potential, it’s that such qualities haven’t been cultivated. The luxury of time for cultivating anything wasn’t there this year.
The reality is the Mayo ladies senior football team is dying a slow and painful death, not because it is lacking in talent, but because it is bereft of leadership at a higher level. There are lionhearted players within that team who do not deserve the thousand cuts that have been inflicted on them, but they’ve battled bravely against the dying of the light because they know the unparalleled jubilation and joy that light brings. Once you’ve been there, it’s hard to let it go.
Whether or not those players choose to stop raging after this latest championship ending is a matter for them as individuals; every team player must decide for him or herself when the time is right to bow out. It’s not a referendum matter.
What does require a collective decision, however, is what the future holds for ladies’ football in Mayo. While some players have iron will and fierce determination, the game itself is not mature enough to have acquired resilience. It cannot stand much more indifference, ineptitude and lack of vision. The senior team has been its oxygen for almost ten years; either it gets a new source of air or it suffocates.
In ladies football many people seem to believe a lottery system determines the All-Ireland champions. They believe it because they don’t really analyse or think about the game, or, worse still, because they don’t see it as a serious sport in the first place.
Right now, it’s not a serious sport in Mayo. Again, that’s not to take from the efforts of the many who are putting in long hours trying to make things happen at school, club or county level. But it’s a reality that must be acknowledged in order for some kind of rehabilitative process to begin.
When Mayo were winning All-Irelands from 1999 to 2003, ladies football was a serious sport in this county. As an unaccomplished athlete who endured the physical pain of a tough training regime, and a young woman who made the personal sacrifices that being part of a top sports team brings, I know how seriously it was taken. And I know the rewards made it all worthwhile.
There are plenty of young girls still willing to make those sacrifices, but the academy-like structure that exists in Cork isn’t here to bring them through. And even if they do get through, it’s to a flagship team that’s flagging badly.
Whether it’s from the bottom up or the top down, ladies’ football in Mayo needs work. Or else we become happy losers, content to simply admire the Corks and Monaghans.