GAA: No Connacht county will win the All-Ireland title this year and, in fact, they don't look anyway close to winning one. That's what makes their provincial championship so valuable, writes DARRAGH Ó SÉ
IN THIS era of teams aiming for September and going by the mantra that the championship only begins on the August Bank Holiday, there’s still one provincial championship that holds a bit of sway for players. When Mayo play Galway in Castlebar on Sunday, everything will be on the line. Whichever team wins will have a shot at a good but young Roscommon team in the final and will fancy their chances if they get there. A Connacht medal is still something to strive for.
That’s not necessarily the case in the other provinces. Kerry and Cork will still go all guns blazing in the Munster final on Sunday week but when it’s over, they’ll shake hands and move on towards Croke Park. They know their year won’t be remembered for winning or losing a Munster final.
Same with Dublin in Leinster or Tyrone above in Ulster. But a Connacht title will be a big deal for whoever wins it, including Mayo and Galway.
Maybe it’s just a reflection of where the counties in the west find themselves at the minute. If you’re being straight-up and clinical about it, you’d have to say none of them will win the All-Ireland this year and, in fact, they don’t look anyway close to winning one. That’s what makes their provincial championship so valuable. It really is the case that on any given day, any one of three or four teams can beat the other and still go out the next day and get beaten themselves.
It makes for the most interesting provincial championship of them all. Four different counties have won the last four Connacht titles. In each of the other three provinces, two teams have shared the last four titles between them.
There’s very little separating the sides and that gives each of them hope at the start of the year. Leitrim even got in on the act this year by beating Sligo, before going out again a couple of weeks ago and getting wiped by Roscommon. Anything can happen.
Even though Mayo and Galway have always been the big guns, you always know that every few years one of the other teams will bubble up. When I was growing up in the 1980s, Roscommon were the best they had and they’re probably the pick of the bunch again now. Sligo’s Connacht title back in 2007 brought them huge joy and they got great value out of it. It gave them belief and, although realistically they were never going to turn it into an All-Ireland title, they made huge strides on the back of it.
They definitely should have beaten Kerry in Tralee in 2009. No question.
People talk about how we just scraped through against Longford that year but I always felt we had a bit in hand over Longford and that we’d come through in the end. But against Sligo, I was certain we were gone. They got a penalty with two minutes to go and, as they were getting ready to take it, the only thought going through my head was, ‘Where am I going to hide for the next week?’
By the time David Kelly started his run up, I had decided there was only one place I could go. Sligo! If you can’t beat them, join them. At least all I’d get there would be slagging. Compared to the hosing I’d get if I stayed around Kerry, a bit of slagging was nothing. Thanks be to God, Diarmuid Murphy saved the penalty kick and we survived.
Sligo were well pumped-up and tuned-in back around then. But teams like that will come and go and there wasn’t much sign of them when Leitrim put it up to them last month. They must have been a bit shocked by how easy it was for Roscommon to beat Leitrim then the next day out.
Roscommon are the coming team in the west. Donie Shine and Senan Kilbride are classy footballers whose time has come in a way. It’s one of the joys of Gaelic football to see young fellas grow and mature and develop. You’re wondering how good they are, will they be able to handle the bigger games.
Roscommon have done that at underage and have a provincial title under their belt. Whether they’ll put two back-to-back will depend on either Mayo or Galway.
Mayo have the sad misfortune of being the only county that I ever scored a goal against in intercounty football. It was the All Ireland quarter-final in 2005 and I was having a very poor game. Mayo had Shane Fitzmaurice marking me and he was big and strong and awkward. He was playing me out of the game, banging off me, following me everywhere I went, making my life a misery. I was looking for help from the patron saint of lost causes because that’s what I was when we went in at half-time that day.
I remember thinking I had to get myself into the game somehow and early in the second half, Colm Cooper ran out to the wing to go after a ball under the Hogan Stand. Now, big strong runs into the box wouldn’t have been my style over the years but I decided I needed to try something different so I made a break for the middle. Gooch put the ball across and into the box where the defender went up to catch it but made a hames of it, the ball dropping right on to my shin and bouncing into the net.
My only goal for Kerry and I got neither hand nor foot to it! I hardly ever took a shot at goal before or since that day. I remember doing it once in a Munster final alright, where I was put straight through on goal but dragged the shot wide. I was cream-crackered after making the run but all I could think about on the way back to midfield was that if I didn’t win the kick-out straight away, I was going to get an awful slagging afterwards.
I got the slagging anyway – but I made sure I was able to come back with, ‘Yeah, but I won the kick-out’.
We beat Mayo well in two All-Ireland finals but, even so, I never felt truly comfortable going in against them. Both days, I remember we came away going, ‘Well, that turned out a lot easier than we expected’. The passion their people have for football is incredible and I think that always left you feeling uneasy about your chances against them. They’re football-mad and you always got the feeling that if they could harness it, you’d be in trouble.
When we played league matches up there, you’d even feel it at Mass on the morning of the game. Mass was something myself and a good number of the Kerry team would always have gone to wherever we were playing. I found it very interesting and a good way to get a feel for a place – especially in the North.
But Mayo was the only county you’d go to Mass in where they’d nearly be marking you in the communion line. You’d be walking up the aisle and somebody’d be pulling on your elbow, asking what sort of a team would be lining out. You’d get the full 20 questions. Is Séamus Moynihan playing? Is the Gooch? Are ye going well?
The pleasure we took out of winning those two All-Ireland finals was more a pleasure of winning the thing than beating them. No Kerry player that had been on the pitch for the beating Meath gave us in the 2001 All Ireland semi-final could really take any pleasure in beating Mayo that easily in ’04 and ’06. Croke Park is the worst place in Ireland to take a hosing because it’s so big and there’s nowhere to hide.
That Meath defeat stuck with me and a lot of the lads I played with all the way through our time with Kerry. You’re just so disgusted with yourself afterwards, you’re filled with doubt and confusion as to how it could all have gone so wrong. You question yourself and each other all the way home and for days and weeks afterwards. You’re embarrassed and you don’t want to be with anybody but your own group because you’re vulnerable and a bit unsure of yourself. You’d nudge the fella beside you and go, ‘You didn’t play bad – how do you think I played?’
Eventually, the piss-taking starts because it has to. You have to laugh as a form of release. You’re in for 48 hours of pure torture and everyone wanting to get your opinion on it anyway so you try to enjoy the time you have together.
There’s always one player in every group who ends up being the butt of the jokes and, even though you know it’s probably wrong, you’ll all pile in on him to make yourself feel better. It’s a cruel sport that way.
But it knits a good team together too.
That hammering against Meath opened our eyes the hard way and we were better for it in the years that followed. Mayo haven’t really managed to get back to those heights yet but that was maybe because they didn’t just have the same age-profile as we had in 2001. A lot of fellas retired and new players have had to be found. But Mayo will always find players because the passion is there in the county. I’d love to see them win an All- Ireland one day because I think it would melt the place down altogether.
Unfortunately, it won’t be this year.
They’re in transition and found even London a tricky hurdle. I fancy Galway to take them on Sunday, even allowing for the fact that the game is in Castlebar. Galway had a rocky time in the league but they’ll be stronger for it and with their under-21 All-Ireland title in the bag, they must know that there are good things to come down the road. So I’ll give Galway the nod. But this is Connacht football.
Anything can happen.
