Pick your Mayo 15 that should have won an All-Ireland Final

The response to my piece last week, on the Mayo players who deserved to win an All-Ireland, drew a great reaction and lots of comment and debate.

We had entries from players and supporters of clubs all over the country and overseas; from Kelly’s Barbers in Castlebar; from Liam Henry. We had entries form die-hard GAA supporters, and from die-hard soccer supporters too.

Mike Finnerty once told me that there was unbelievable interest in Mayo GAA. He was right. (In fact he told me more than once, and I knew it anyway.) The response to this call-out proves it, if proof were needed.

The task was simple. Select (from those who had played in an All-Ireland men’s senior football final for Mayo, since and including 1989,) a team of players who you thought should have won a Sam Maguire medal. A team that deserved to win.

Some, of course, didn’t read the piece, and just proceeded to name their team, irrespective of the limitations set out. Others, lazily named the 1951 team, while more, as was to be expected, simply contributed unoriginal, attempted jokes at Mayo’s expense.

Thankfully, however, a phenomenal number of you engaged with the piece, and send in your teams. And for that, thank you. So, who did you vote for, and who should have a Celtic cross?

Well, the good news is that you’re not done voting yet. We have narrowed the list down to three players for each position, and now we’re asking you to choose your fifteen from the shortlist.

We have a new drop-down poll with three goalkeepers for you to choose one from. We’re asking you to select two midfielders from a shortlist of six, and three each, full backs, half backs, half forwards and full forwards, from a panel of nine for each line.

Then we’re asking you to select your manager from a shortlist of three, and finally, the single player most deserving of an All-Ireland medal, from the entire playing short list. Thanks in advance for your support. While the shortlist is self-explanatory, the list of players who didn’t make it, makes interesting reading.

Donal Vaughan, Padraig O’Hora, Eoghan McLoughlin, Stephen Coen, Pat Fallon, Jordan Flynn, Conor Loftus, Jason Doherty, Noel Durkin, and James Carr, amongst many others, weren’t shortlisted. Obviously it was not possible to include everyone, and these were some of the names who just weren’t deserving enough, when you made your selection. As any politician will tell you, the ballot paper is a cruel instrument, and the public are hard taskmasters.

You could pick a good team from the ones that didn’t make the list.

Obviously, the recent teams are the closest in memory. Some of our readers weren’t born in 1989, and I was worried when putting the original article together, that the’89 team might be overlooked. You remembered that team, however, the first since 1951 to get to the final. Dermot Flanangan, Peter Ford, Michéal Collins, TJ Kilgallon, Willie Joe Padden and Kevin McStay, all of whom lined out in that three-point defeat to Cork, are all on your shortlist.

Some players across all the years, attracted huge numbers of votes, while others scraped in. Some even made the list by the narrowest of margins. Whatever way the players got there, we have narrowed it down to three for each position, and we’re now asking you to pick fifteen from a shortlist of forty-five. In next week’s paper, we will name the team that you have selected as the most deserving of an All-Ireland.

I always felt that the managers’ list would be interesting. Voting was quite close on this, and you chose James Horan, Mickey Moran and Stephen Rochford at the expense of John Maughan and John O’Mahony.

So, over to you, the GAA supporter and Mayo News reader, please get picking again, and let’s see who you think should have won an All-Ireland.

Finally, a word to the present Mayo team and management who are doing so well in the League this year. Spare yourself the agony of all this “should have” business, and just win it this year, so that we aren’t all back here again in a number of years, with a similar poll. Instead, hopefully we will be back asking you the Mayo News readers, to pick the best team from those that won the nine All-Ireland’s in a row!