Mayo football picks up the pieces and gets ready to go again

Just over five weeks on from the agony of losing the replay of a third All-Ireland final in five years, Mayo football has been picking itself up and pushing on.

The weekend just past saw a milestone, with Lee Keegan becoming the first player from the county to win the Footballer of the Year award at this year’s All Stars, whereas county champions Castlebar Mitchels took further steps in pursuit of their latest attempt at the All-Ireland club title.

In a few days they’ll be facing Corofin in a rerun of last year’s Connacht final in which they deposed the then All-Ireland champions.

RTÉ pundit, former Mayo All-Ireland panellist and Castlebar clubman Martin Carney has been following the fallout since broadcasting at the replay defeat by Dublin.

He feels that the public mood settled quite quickly in the county, which has become stoically used to processing such setbacks.

“What happened is past and people have let it sit,” he said.

“They’re used to this scenario; if it was something the county wasn’t used to there might have been more talk, but the fact that this has happened a number of times has inured people to the disappointment.”

There was an obvious pride in how new manager Stephen Rochford and his players had battled back to the final and how ferociously they competed with Dublin, but the mood had initially been more volatile after the change of goalkeeper before the replay – which had gone terribly wrong for replacement Rob Hennelly.

In an echo of the controversy the player replaced, David Clarke, won the goalkeeping All Star at the weekend but Carney says that the county has put all of that behind and largely regained equilibrium.

New dimension

“There’s been hardly any recrimination. Robbie Hennelly took a huge amount of flak initially but the county in general rallied around him – and correctly. The county has been very supportive of the players.

“I think the real close scrutiny will come next year during the National League when the team I feel will have to find a new dimension, a slightly different way of playing up front. But there’s still a huge amount of goodwill towards the team even after the All-Ireland defeat.”

Last season’s league was a difficult challenge for the new management.

The team was beset by injuries and the absence of the Castlebar players, who were tied up in the club campaign. Ultimately Rochford was happy to retain the county’s top-flight status. A more concerted drive to develop new options is likely in the new year.

“There’s a remarkable resilience,” said Carney “a will to try to go out again, to start from base camp and go all the way to the top. My daughter rang me to say that Andy Moran had announced that he was going to go on. David Clarke is thinking about it but he’s been playing since 2001. There’s a huge bond between the lads and collectively they’ve made up their minds to go again and see where it takes them.”

Castlebar are already busy trying to improve on last season when they lost a second All-Ireland club final in three years, losing heavily despite being favourites to beat Dublin champions Ballyboden.

They managed to retain the county title for the first time since the late 1960s and go into the Corofin semi-final after a whirlwind few weeks.

“Everything in Mayo has been shoe-horned into the last six weeks,” according to Carney.

“The weekend was Castlebar’s fifth week in a row playing. Looking at them against Tourlestrane I thought maybe there was a slight drop in the energy levels from what they’d had in the county final.”

Experienced players

They have lost their three most experienced players, Alan and Richie Feeney and Tom Cunniffe, but All Star nominee Patrick Durcan is expected to be available after a hamstring injury.

Carney also paid tribute to Lee Keegan, who has been busy since the All-Ireland final, as evidenced by a couple of days that saw him pick up a fourth All Star, the biggest individual award and pilot his club to a provincial final.

“I watched him [on Sunday] playing for Westport against Monivea-Abbey in the intermediate [Connacht] semi-final. He went straight from the All-Ireland into leading Westport to a county title for the first time in a long time.

“They’re a very young group of lads and on Sunday he played very steadily in a very physical game of football so he knew he was on the pitch!

“He was as enthusiastic as ever. Very laid back, he just takes it in his stride. I wouldn’t think getting Footballer of the Year bothered him a huge amount.”

Finally, two former Roscommon captains, Geoffrey Claffey and Niall Carty, have retired from inter-county football. Carty was on the minor All-Ireland winning team of 2006 and led the county to divisional league titles in 2014 and ’15 whereas Claffey won a Connacht medal in 2010 and captained the county two years later.  In a statement today Roscommon manager Kevin McStay thanked both players for their service: “Like all Roscommon people I wish both men well, they made significant contributions to two of the greatest days in recent Roscommon history; Niall in the All Ireland minor final victory in 2006 and Geoffrey in the Connacht final victory of 2010.”