He looks as if he could still do a job for Mayo but Ciarán McDonald is happy to reminisce about the crazy 2006 semi-final, writes GAVIN CUMMISKEY
THERE ARE some interviewees that get even the most seasoned journalist giddy with excitement. Ciarán McDonald is such a man. Mainly because it’s so rare he talks on the record.
He did yesterday and it took place in Flannery’s pub on Camden Street (not a lock in, mind, but a cleverly concocted Vodafone lunchtime gathering).
We didn’t even know what he would sound like. Sure enough, the Mayo brogue came seeping out. Now we have a voice to go with all those magical moments McDonald gifted the GAA as Mayo’s brightest championship lantern for so many seasons. Yet not near enough.
High water mark? Crossmolina’s 2001 All-Ireland club title but equally those miserable September defeats to Kerry in 1997, 2004 and 2006.
With the week that’s in it we focus on the semi-final culling of Dublin in ’06 when Mayo ate into a seven-point deficit before McDonald’s beautiful, instinctive stroke curled through the Hill uprights – silencing the metropolitan masses in a single, wondrous twirl.
He is 37 now and as misleading, yet captivating in appearance as ever. The game has not passed him by just yet: 0-9 was kicked from play for Crossmolina in May. He’s still cut from granite with intricate tattoos adorning his arms and other parts of a body bronzed by a life outdoors.
One ink mark reads: “The Answer.” Mirroring Allen Iverson for the Philadelphia 76ers, McDonald was so nearly just that for Mayo football.
The shape he’s in got us thinking he could yet be the difference. Mick O’Dwyer told us last Wednesday that he played for Kerry until he was 38. What with Conor Mortimer in exile, and captain Andy Moran cruciated, would Mayo’s most naturally gifted footballer consider coming out of retirement?
Actually, hang on, did he ever retire in the first place? It is widely believed John O’Mahony extinguished the light that was McDonald’s intercounty career in 2008. “Did I ever retire? Every team has a manager, as you well know. It is the manager’s tough decisions to pick his panel. Did I retire from intercounty football? The manager at the time made his decision. But did I officially retire from inter county football? No.”
So, there was enough in him to go on? “Everybody believes that they can go on forever. At the time, yeah, I thought there were a few more years left in me. I was still playing good football. Still training hard. Still managing the injury. I was alright, you know? That’s in the past.”
But Ciarán, we gushed, you continue to sparkle at club level – how about an Indian summer? “Touch wood, I am playing okay football. Our club, which I love to bits, is in the semi-final. A group of young fellas training hard, pushing hard. Was I expecting a phone call? No, of course I wasn’t. James Horan has a strong young panel that he is building.”
Doing our bit for what would be the most exciting comeback since Stephen O’Neill in 2008, we keep probing.
“Would I like to play for Mayo again? Of course I would, yeah. Realistically, you can’t be bringing in fellas halfway through a season or two-thirds of the way through a season. It is not the way it is done.
“As I said, James Horan is a great manager. Proved it with Ballintubber, is proving it with Mayo. With God’s help let’s hope they win on Sunday.”
Even without Andy Moran?
“The loss for Mayo is massive. He is the go to man. If a wing back looks up and there are two fellas coming around him I guarantee you, you can ask all of them, the first fella they’ll probably see is Andy Moran.
“And that’s the bit people don’t see. He stops turnovers. He’s constantly moving. Constantly bringing fellas into play. Whoever they bring in I wish them a great game but you still can’t replace Andy Moran. You can’t replace a lad who is not happy with one run to get on a ball, he’ll make 20 runs to get on a ball to make it easier for somebody else not to get turned over.
“Everything has to click for Mayo. They have to get goals, they have to start well. Do they have the belief to win? Yes, I believe they do. Does James Horan have the plan? I believe he does. I believe they’ll beat Dublin.”
We can’t leave 2006 alone. The calamity of both teams warming up underneath a seething Hill 16. Balls fired like bullets. A female physio felled. Pillar battering into John Morrison. Madness. McDonald swears it wasn’t a preordained plan. But it worked.
“We got down there and they said, ‘There is going to be holy hell, you better move.’
“I remember three or four of the senior lads came over and said, ‘What’ll we do?’ I said, ‘We’ve got to stay now. You can’t go up the field 150 yards like a shower of pups!’ So we stayed.
“It wasn’t good to anybody but I don’t think it affected us as much as Dublin. Players prepare for games differently. You either come into the dressingroom, lie down on the bench and shut your eyes or you go round and bang a table shouting. I think a lot of the Dublin panel would have preferred to come out and go right instead of going left.
“It heaped pressure on them. We couldn’t turn and go back up. It would be like showing the white flag again. Especially after not performing in ’04. We just couldn’t do it.”
Some craic seeing the Dublin phalanx charging towards ye? “There was a lot of bumping. It was an All-Ireland semi-final and you are all your life getting there. We invaded their territory and they were right to come down and say, ‘Get the hell out of here’. But we couldn’t walk up the other end of the field with 82,000 people laughing at you – not before the game.”
