So how good are Mayo?

So how good are Mayo?


IT was to have been the most challenging of their Connacht campaign, the pull of a tradition of intense rivalry an enthralling national attraction.
In a climate of such expectation Galway’s slump on their hallowed home round was all the more astonishing.
We had urged caution about the dangers of a recoil to Mayo’s almost unbackable odds, a label under which they have laboured in the past. Old, bitter memories plucked at the emotions.
Back in 1970, Mayo won the National League for the tenth time, which was then a record. Having run Kerry to a single point in the previous All-Ireland semi-final, they were installed as firm favourites nationally, not only to win Connacht but to go all the way.
They reached no farther than the first round of that championship… humbled by Roscommon in a shock that resonated around the country. Nor did they win a senior provincial title for the remainder of that decade.
James Horan was not around in that dismal year, and the outcome of the experience could not, therefore, have been preying on his mind as he prepared his charges for last Sunday’s venture into a new campaign.
But neither could he have expected to meet a Galway team so devoid of the fundamentals of championship requirements. In no meeting that this writer can remember has a Galway team seemed so inadequately prepared, or so demoralised.
Watching each in their warm-up sessions, you wondered into what kind of psychological trap Mayo were heading. The difference in tempo and energy was enormous. While Mayo wove an intricate labyrinth of rapid movements, Galway in comparison looked lethargic at the other end. It was as if their workout had already been completed and Mayo were being lured into some kind of false sense of security.
It didn’t take long for the difference in conviction and attitude to emerge, as Mayo revived in their supporters the joy of irrefutable supremacy over their old enemy. Thus, what was expected to be a daunting obstacle was reduced to nothing more serious than a Sunday afternoon romp.
In the aftermath of such a let down, the collapse of Galway rather than the excellence of Mayo has occupied opinion throughout the country.
The immensity of that performance swept Mayo so far beyond what Galway paraded that no one is quite certain how good they really are. Was it exaggerated by the poor quality the Tribesmen had to offer? Would the difference between them have seemed so stark if Bradshaw and Coleman had not been dismissed?
We’ll never know. But Galway’s two key men were unable to stem the Mayo tide in the first half when the most serious damage was inflicted and a lead of 12 points built up.
The truth is that Mayo were ready for whatever Galway had to offer; but the Tribesmen on the other hand seemed to have underestimated the state of preparedness of their opponents, relying too much it seemed on the element of surprise.
This was not the Galway that Mayo are used to meeting. Not in decades of watching have I seen a Galway so devoid spirit or fight in the championship. And whatever hope they entertained in the early minutes perished in the ever widening gulf that divided their respective standards.
But football in Galway is not in the quagmire that their match with Mayo might have suggested. Underage football is stronger than in any of the other counties in the province, and when this talent is harnessed, the senior side will bloom again, and maybe sooner than many think.
In the meantime Mayo will dwell on strengthening the advances they brought to their game at Pearse Stadium. Allowing for the dearth of a testing opposition, the quality of Mayo’s tackling was like nothing they have produced in recent games. They tackled in packs and dispossessed opponents legitimately. There was thought and follow-through in their deliveries, and they scored freely from long range.
It was free-flowing stuff, but unrestricted by Galway’s inability to offer any semblance of resistance. When Roscommon take them on in a few weeks time we’ll have a better idea of the extent of Mayo’s innovativeness.
But it is going to be a Mayo without Cillian O’Connor, without the player who brought new vision to their win over Galway and new hope to their campaign. News of a recurrence of the shoulder injury that kept him out of action for several months has stunned the county. Mayo will be the poorer for his loss.

Henry Kenny – a ‘graceful colossus’
AN Taoiseach Enda Kenny was taken by surprise last week when GAA president Liam O’Neill presented him with a framed copy of the match programme from the 1936 All-Ireland football final.
In that final Mayo beat Laois to win the county’s first of three All-Ireland finals, and Enda’s late father Henry lined out at midfield.
The presentation was made after Enda officially opened the newly refurbished GAA museum at Croke Park, and the poignancy of the occasion was not lost on a man whose family is steeped in the ethos of the GAA.
Enda had not seen the light of day when his father helped bring the Sam Maguire to Mayo for the first time. Henry was regarded as one of the classiest midfielders of his day.
The elder Kenny was only 17 years of age when he first played senior football for Mayo in 1931. He was a minor again in 1932 and on the county’s senior side that year up to the All-Ireland semi-final. He was left out of the final, against Kerry, only because of his tender years.
That promise blossomed fully the following year and remained fresh and prosperous up to 1946, reaping an unrivalled harvest of six National League titles in a row, an All-Ireland senior medal and three Railway Cup medals.
His prowess and sportsmanship won plaudits from colleagues and opponents alike after his premature death in 1975. The late Brendan Nestor of Dunmore, himself a Galway player of some stature, and after whose father, JJ the Connacht trophy is named, described Kenny as the most stylish midfielder he had seen.
“As an opponent on the field and as a man with whom I worked on the Connacht Council in later years, Henry was one of nature’s gentlemen,” he said.
JP Doc Callaghan of the All-Ireland winning Roscommon side of the forties said there had never been anyone to equal Henry Kenny and the late Paddy Kennedy of Kerry as midfielders. And former Taoiseach, the late Jack Lynch, described Kenny as a ‘graceful colossus’.
In his vocation as leader of the government, Henry’s son, radiates many similar characteristics. Football glory on a similar plane may have eluded the Taoiseach, however, but then he might boast that his father never won county intermediate or junior medals with Islandeady.
The football elegance, as portrayed by his father, belonged to another son, Kieran, who lined out at midfield with Mayo in the late seventies. Unfortunately, Mayo football was then struggling to emerge from a decade of gloom, and injuries put a premature end to Kieran’s career.

Ruislip scare recalled
SLIGO’S defeat by London in the Connacht Championship quarter-final will not have come as a shock to Mayo people who recall their hair-raising experience at Ruislip two years ago.
In the confined space of the London pitch, Mayo were put to the pin of their collar to come away victorious. People watching and listening held their breath as London barricaded every path to goal.
The shock of the century was about to unfold when the great-hearted Trevor Mortimer scored the equalising point in they dying seconds to send the game into extra time and eventual victory.
Sligo should have been aware that London were lurking in the long grass.

Just a thought …
DONEGAL cast off the early doubts about their determination to retain the All-Ireland title with their defeat of close rivals Tyrone on Sunday. They are now odds-on to at least retain their Ulster title.