COLUMN: Why Ryan O'Donoghue can give Mayo real All-Ireland hope

Twenty-four years ago, ‘We all Dream of a Team of Gary Breens’ was first sung by Irish football fans at the 2002 World Cup.

And to this day, it remains one of the best Irish football songs around. Breen himself is a folk hero.

His exploits at that World Cup were nothing short of heroic, especially the fact that Breen was a rather controversial inclusion in the team having just been released from Coventry City. But he went on to have a sensational tournament.

Of course, the most ironic and funny part of the chant is that no one actually dreams of a team of Gary Breens because it would more than likely be stone useless. But hey, never let the truth get in the way of a good song and Breen will always be remembered as someone who died with his boots on.

TEAM O'DONOGHUE

Listening to Ryan O'Donoghue give his man of the match interview after last Saturday's All-Ireland semi-final, after another heroic display, I couldn't help thinking that you could easily adopt that song in these borders.

However, the key difference here is that if you had a team of fifteen Ryan O'Donoghues, you’d have a team capable of giving any side in the country a rattle. In fact, they wouldn’t be too far off.

Okay, maybe that’s too greedy. I’d happily take 12 Ryan O'Donoghues, a Kobe McDonald, a Darragh Beirne and Jack Livingstone for the net, because I don’t think you’d ever keep ROD in the confines of the square.

Now that would be some team.

LETHAL COMBINATION

Saturday evening was another hugely satisfying experience watching that full forward trio showcase their ability on the grandest sod in Gaelic football.

In fairness to Mayo manager Andy Moran, he flagged earlier in the year how the likes of Kobe and Beirne are built for Croke Park and that prediction has come to fruition. Working either side of O’Donoghue, they are a lethal combination and my thoughts really went out to the Louth full-back line.

The telepathic awareness between the trio is something you would mistake for a full forward line who have played together for years and years. The reality is closer to a few months. Moran made the observation afterwards that really it only began post Connacht Championship.

Scarcely believable when you watch the way they link up.

Between them they scored 2-17 of Mayo's 3-23 on Saturday. Against Cork in the quarter-final, the inside line accounted for 19 of Mayo's 23 points. This is the full forward line Mayo have craved for years, and they are delivering it on the biggest stage of all.

When Kobe packs his bags for Australia, it will be the biggest break up of a talented trio since Destiny's Child.

THE STAR MAN

BUT as talented and promising as Kobe and Beirne are, let’s not forget the most important man in that line, and on this Mayo team.

Belmullet’s Ryan O'Donoghue is once again showing and proving that he is Mayo’s best and most important player, akin only David Clifford’s impact on the Kerry team.

The play in the final minute epitomised him. It was 30 seconds of pure Ryan O'Donoghue.

Mayo were being pressed by Louth and he went looking for possession, dropping deep inside his own 45. He picked up the ball, dropped the shoulder the way only he does, cut inside and drove 40 yards up the field. He took on a couple of men and won a free outside the arc.

As the whistle blew, Mayo players and supporters rejoiced as the hooter sounded, but O’Donoghue wasn’t going to hit the ball over the sideline and into the stand like most others would.

Referee David Coldrick had to usher some of the subs back off the pitch, and the PA announcer was probably scrambling to hit pause on The Saw Doctors too.

O’Donoghue had a chance for a two-pointer, settled himself and hit an absolute peach off the outside of the right boot. He turned and looked into the crowd like a gladiator and threw his hands in the air.

It was a brilliant moment, and a hilarious one at the time. The icing on the cake of a seriously impressive Mayo performance. But more than anything, it typified him as a player. He leaves absolutely nothing out there from the minute he crosses the white line. Total honesty, hunger and attitude.

He is the man Mayo will need the most they are going to upset the odds and do something absolutely nobody expected of them this year, including inside their own county.

When Craig Lennon went off injured in the first half with what looked a bad knee injury, O'Donoghue shook his hand and gave him a pat on the shoulder as he left the field. A classy touch, and a sign of a fella fully aware of the bigger picture.

But don't get anyone wrong. If the next ball had broken loose beside him, O'Donoghue would have gone through Lennon to win it and reversed back over him for good measure. He is all or nothing.

LET THEM GO NUTS

ANDY Moran was in great form after the game too, and rightly so.

At this stage, most will have watched his response to a question in the press conference asking if he thinks ‘the county will go crazy again’ in the build-up, or have learnt their lesson from past years. It was a pointed and silly question, and Moran reacted so.

This columnist has been in many, many post-game press conferences and very seldom you hear a manager respond to a journalist saying he asked a ‘bullshit question’. In fact, I’ve never heard anything to come close to that.

He rightly highlighted how the county has been starved of success over the last four or five years, and if supporters want to go a bit nuts, let them. If they want to enjoy it, let them enjoy it.

HALLELUJAH

This is one of the biggest issues with how Mayo are framed now. Outside the county, we are viewed through a narrow prism where any bit of excitement at all gets us accused of getting ahead of ourselves. The hype train, they call it.

Inside the county it is different. There are deep scars here from the days when maybe there was more of a hype machine and maybe we did get ahead of ourselves. People know it. They carry it.

But Mayo people are obsessed with football and, as Moran said, starved of success. If you cannot go out and celebrate and go a bit mad when there is an All-Ireland final coming, then what is the point of any of it?

It is far too easy for national journalists to throw out a lazy question about the hype train. It is even easier to throw the accusation back at Mayo when things don't go our way. The reality is we haven't won finals because we haven't been good enough on the day.

Yes, there was plenty of hype down the years. But hype doesn't kick the ball over the bar, and the absence of it doesn't either.

It is a cynical and lazy narrative. Moran's answer reflected the frustration with it, and more power to him because it has been lapped up by supporters, a rallying cry that will get everyone out of their house and behind the team.

And here is the thing. This is a great position to be back in. Nobody expects Mayo to beat Kerry and with that lack of expectation comes a great opportunity.

Hold on to your seats.