GAA:THIS GAELIC football summer of fabulousness and heartbreak yesterday confirmed itself as unforgettable. Mayo, the team who supposedly could not score, manufactured a staggering 19 points to send Dublin, the reigning All-Ireland champions, out of the championship with much to ponder.
Mayo being Mayo, this latest semi-final coup was Break-On-Through-To-The-Other-Side surreal. After one dazzling series of attacks, they led the All-Ireland champions by a full 10 points with 19 minutes to go. At that point, Dublin seemed to flirt with outright humiliation only to suddenly redeem their pride with a late burst which saw them close the gap to just two points.
The city’s summer will forever spin on that chance in front of the Hill in the 67th minute: a perfectly measured ball from young Ciarán Kilkenny to the waiting arms of Bernard Brogan, who turned to face Mayo goalkeeper David Clarke. The snap shot was quick and clean; the save brilliant.
In that second, the full house of 81,364 was in disbelief because the inevitable hadn’t happened. Brogan had not scored. The Hill had not erupted. And crucially, Mayo had stayed in front. On it rumbled: chaotic and magnificent entertainment.
“It was torture, to be honest,” Mayo boss James Horan said of those closing minutes. But it was exquisite torture for the Westerners and it ended 0-19 to 0-16.
The final whistle, after six minutes of injury-time, cleared the deck of the last of the establishment counties to confirm that this is a new time.
Mayo will face Donegal in what will be the first Ulster-Connacht All-Ireland final since 1948. These are heady days indeed for the former members of the old Congested Districts Board.
“They are playing good football,” Horan, the victorious manager, said of Donegal in his delightfully understated way.
“I suppose so are we. It will be interesting. Two different styles. Donegal have beaten all before them. As have we.”
For the second summer in a row under Horan, Mayo have methodically bucked the odds and the All-Ireland champions and now they are back in their first All-Ireland final since 2006 and their sixth September showdown since their last bonfire year of 1951.
But there is something about Mayo under Horan.
Yes, they played some pretty football yesterday, with Jason Doherty, Kevin McLoughlin and Alan Dillon landing gorgeous scores during the period when Dublin looked like a pale imitation of last year’s outfit. But it is their temperament – the bit of flint and cussedness – that has set them apart. Mayo have become a team that refuses to lose. They didn’t accept the injury to Andy Moran as an excuse and after Lee Keegan (broken finger) and Chris Barrett (busted nose) and Kevin McLoughlin (busted head) all left the field, they refused to let that weigh them down either.
“You can’t win it if you are not in it,” said Michael Conroy, who Horan brought back from a five-year exile. “We had nothing to lose. Andy Moran was gone. Nobody gave us a chance. We wanted to play right to the bitter end. One down or five up, it doesn’t matter. You keep going and that is something James Horan has instilled in us. You just keep going. We have knocked out the All-Ireland champions for the last two years and haven’t won the All-Ireland. So there is no good knocking them out unless you win it .”
Dublin will be slightly stunned this morning. If they rode their luck a little in winning last year’s title, this was a day of hard knocks. By lunchtime yesterday, even the dogs on the street had heard Alan Brogan wouldn’t start. When he was introduced at half-time, it was clear he couldn’t chase after Keith Higgins, who won the first ball they jumped for.
Two minutes later, he found his brother Bernard with a perfect ball to offer a tantalising glimpse of that clairvoyant understanding of theirs.
But the elder Brogan wasn’t fit. He ended up leaving the field again, a demoralising sight for a Hill crowd that had fallen into a blue silence early in the second half.
“During the warm up he felt that it wasn’t right,” Pat Gilroy explained of Brogan’s appearance.
“He didn’t have the full power. We had a plan that Ciarán [Kilkenny] would come in if that was the case because we knew that he would only give it a good try in the warm up. He took a painkiller and he felt he was good enough to go but he couldn’t run when he tried it. It was a gamble. It backfired. But in fairness, when you have a player like him it is one of those things you want to try.”
If it was desperate, then it reflected Dublin’s mindset. After they fell into that 10-point hole, they seemed set on doing the most complete disappearing act since Jimmy Hoffa. Only the terrific Michael Dara Macauley, Paul Flynn and Rory O’Carroll showed the intensity and belief that had radiated from Dublin a year ago.
They responded with that late burst for salvation but it occurred when Mayo looked both wrecked and possibly startled to find themselves a full 10 points clear. A rush of blood and emotion from the Hill and a series of frees made a late victory possible but it was frantic rather than heroic.
“The way they finished is some sort of consolation,” said Gilroy. “We all have things to think about and understand and learn why we got 10 points behind but that is for another day.”
It is for another year. 2012 has delivered a novel final. Donegal are still high on the wine of life after the team’s thrilling display against Cork. Now Mayo, a county never slow to get excitable about All-Ireland promise, will join them. James Horan faces the same task as Jim McGuinness: to keep his players level-headed. But Horan has been brilliant at dismissing the old voodoo and mythology which has followed so many Mayo teams down the years.
“We will be okay,” promised Horan. “As we have done all year, we go and train and try and improve and keep working on it. We won’t change anything – we will train at our normal time and at the normal places.”
But will be no such thing as the old familiar places for the next while. All the old certainties have been blown away.
