'Utter mayhem' - The inside track on that 2004 Mayo-Kerry final

For quite a few of the current Mayo players, Sunday will be their first All-Ireland final. It was a similar situation for Ronan McGarrity in 2004. In fact, he had never won the county jersey before that season. No minor, no U-21, no challenge matches – never!

"Every day was a new experience for me in 2004," McGarrity tells The Mayo News. "And then, unexpectedly, getting to an All-Ireland final in my first year was quite incredible. I'd never been there before, didn't know what to expect."

McGarrity tasted his first senior football in the championship against Roscommon that year. The Ballina man was in his early twenties and by his own admission, a very confident young person at the time.

"I really didn't give it too much thought at the time. But overall, I always look back, and that team was probably one of the best teams that I've ever been on, with some fantastic leaders.

"There were players like Ciarán McDonald, Alan Dillon, Conor Mortimer or James Nallen on the Mayo team."

BELIEF

"People probably believed that we had gotten a bit further than they thought we were going to," said James Gill, another Mayo player who started that final. "We had a decent side and we had a lot of belief that we were going to win the game. Just the reality of it was that we'd come up against probably a better Kerry team, unfortunately."

Some might have said or thought back then, that the team arrived at a final ahead of schedule, especially as it was John Maughan's first year in charge.

Ultimately, The Kingdom proved a step too far too early.

However, the match started well for Mayo, thanks to an early goal by Alan Dillon. But the RTÉ match report from 2004 stated:

"Mayo, whose ability to limit teams scoring chances had been their main talent in previous games, seemed singularly unable to stop Kerry taking all too easy points in the first 15 minutes."

It was an extremely tough shift for a young Mayo team, that had reached its first final in seven years.

They were no match for a Kerry team, even without Darragh Ó Sé and Séamus Moynihan.

WAVES OF ATTACK

"They attacked and attacked and attacked. And I remember the first 20 minutes, it was just pure and utter mayhem," reflects McGarrity.

"It was just the waves. Being a young player, you were kind of looking for something else to spark, a bit of confidence in us. When we saw everybody getting the runaround, it was very difficult to look for positive light."

The game was decided early, unfortunately, from a Mayo point of view, as Gill recalls:

"They got scores very quickly and we were always chasing the game and just weren't able to get back into it. The damage was done by half-time and, trying to claw back, we were down by seven points at half-time.

"There was no coming back from this deficit. Kerry were ruthless. Lethal.

"When you get to those games, if you don't perform, that leaves a dampener on the whole experience because you're left wondering. A lot of people still say to me: 'Oh, it must have been incredible.' For me, it wasn't, because of the manner and how much we got beaten," Gill admits.

"When we flew back, I remember arriving in Knock," says McGarrity. "It sounds harsh, but you are embarrassed and you are kind of ashamed. This is only speaking for myself, you put your head down and you don't want to see anybody because you feel like you've let them down. Your world becomes very quiet.

"But the support and affection, even encouragement shown by Mayo people on that day, making the effort, showing up at the airport to greet the team, made a lasting impression on McGarrity.

"Even the smallest tokens of generosity or affection always last with somebody. It always permanently sticks with people."

UNBELIEVABLE

The team then made their way to MacHale Park for the official homecoming. Mayo people turned up in thousands to greet the team.

"There was probably 20,000 people there. It was huge. There's a few houses running along McHale Park Road, and I can remember ending up in a garden, signing autographs for people, they just swarmed you. It was unbelievable."

What happened at the homecoming of the 2004 team, was the epitome of Andy Moran's famous quote, that "we're all in this together".

McGarrity echoes these words:

"Mayo supporters are the best in the world. They are. They want to see you perform well and they're really behind you, and going through the tough times as well as the players. People were consciously thinking about the Mayo team coming home that day and consciously made the effort to go to clap them or shake their hands and when you're in such a depressed state, little things like that pick you up a small bit."

In Mayo, that final in 2004 won't be remembered for what happened on the pitch, it'll be about what happened on the day after. The county stood shoulder to shoulder. The way it has always done, when the going got tough. That's the Mayo way.