Mayo to finally end 69-year wait for Sam

TYNAN'S TAKE: COLUMN BY STUART TYNAN

AT the start of this year, I'm sure there was many things we could have predicted about how Mayo's season would go.

Introduce some fresh blood in the league? Sure. We either retain the league or battle relegation? Of course, we never do things straightforward. Coming into March, that is exactly was how it was going. Unfortunately, poor performances in the league meant our proud Division 1 status was hanging by a thread coming into the final two league games. Then Covid-19 happened.

We all wondered what would happen next. Would the league be voided? We wouldn't have complained. Will the league make a return? Would there be an All-Ireland championship? Would there even be a club championship? Would there be anything?

Thankfully we have had all of it, although with the exception of us privileged few who attend these game as reporters, we have had to watch these games from the comfort of our homes. Club championships across the country got the limelight it fully deserved. Our own in Mayo was one of the best in a long time, and James Horan has reaped the benefits.

We saw it first hand with the new additions of Eoghan McLaughlin, Oisin Mullin, Tommy Conroy and Mark Moran, who all played their part (Moran in particular) in a demolition job of Galway in what was Mayo's first competitive game in nearly eight months.

It gave us the hope that we could pull of another great escape against Tyrone in MacHale Park. Sadly, it didn't happen, and Mayo's once proud record of never being relegated from Division 1 ended.

No time to dwell, as Mayo began their campaign to end another record, one we are definitely not proud of.

There were testing conditions in Carrick-on-Shannon for the game against Leitrim, but Mayo got the job done with a minimum amount of fuss. The expected banana peel that would be Roscommon never materialised as the lacklustre Rossies were easily dispatched of.

It was Galway once again, with a much bigger prize at stake. In typical Mayo fashion, there was plenty of tense moments in the home stretch, but the Nestor Cup was finally lifted by a Mayo man for the first time in five years.

Like we always do, we feared Tipperary might be the next tricky task. Coming in off a high of ending an 85-year wait for a Munster title. The centenary of Bloody Sunday. Was this championship going to deliver even more surprises?

The answer was an emphatic no. Mayo brutalised Tipperary while the Dubs brushed aside Cavan. So in a year full of strange and unusual circumstances, the All-Ireland final has a familiar feel to it. But will it have a familiar ending?

Mayo are being written off in every quarter and are expected to be put down by the greatest team of the all. But in a year of full of strange and unusual circumstances, not just with Covid but sport also, it will be a fitting end that Mayo end their long quest for Sam. I believe they will.

*You can read Stuart's full column every Tuesday in our print edition.