It's taken a long time but Pat Spillane finally has point on Mayo GAA
by Caoimhín Rowland
You’d have to wonder if rock bottom for Mayo GAA fans looks something like not only agreeing with Pat Spillane but actually being thankful, he’s sticking up for you, fighting your corner against the big, bad bullies in the national press. Lord, how did we even get here?
The former Kerry great and, also former thorn in the side of Mayo supporters as an RTÉ pundit, was always quick with a jibe at our expense.
But buried beneath the barbs was respect. Our friends up north might disagree, especially when he reached for that “puke football” label, but his critiques were rarely personal. They were often fair.
Famously, he dismissed the Connacht provincial championship as "junk status" in 2011, borrowing the term from Moody’s credit rating of Ireland during the last economic downturn.
If Connacht was junk then, one wonders what Munster would be rated now and whether he regrets that as his son dons the maternal black and white of Sligo.
But credit where it’s due, Spillane called out, with unusual clarity, the lazy comparisons being peddled by the Leinster rugby press and former Ireland international Tony Ward in particular, a self-congratulatory media circle reluctant to address serious questions about a sport whose best-funded team consistently fails to fulfil its potential.
It’s been a bruising week for Leinster rugby. Caelan Doris, the Mayo man once tipped to captain the Lions in Australia, is out from Andy Farrell’s exclusion, the Wigan born manager sympathetic to the Lacken man’s pain.
Doris has had his Lions hopes dashed by a shoulder injury sustained last weekend. Word is, it’ll be a six-month layoff.
He’ll miss Ireland’s summer fixtures against Georgia and Portugal too, but it’s the Lions pain that will pain him, the dangle of a Mayo captain of the Lions Tour dashed. Doris had been one of Leinster’s few bright spots in their painful semi-final loss to Northampton, scoring a late try that gave hope, false hope, in the end.
As another talented Mayo man falls short on the big stage, you’d be forgiven for thinking this script was written in Castlebar and not in south county Dublin. But Doris is where the comparisons between Leinster and Mayo should begin and end.
Leinster have now failed to win the Champions Cup since 2018. In that time, they've lost four finals, two semi-finals, and a quarter-final.
Compare that to Mayo GAA, who between 2012 and 2021 lost six All-Ireland finals and three semi-finals. It’s the kind of stat that leads people - often Munster fans - to call Leinster ‘the Mayo of rugby’. But it’s also a label Pat Spillane finds deeply unfair.
On the Indo Sport podcast this week, Spillane, ostensibly on duty to review the provincial football finals, took a detour, unloading on Leinster in a rant that lit up social media.
He wasn’t buying the comparison. Not even close.
“I have great affection for Mayo,” he said. “Mayo people, Mayo as a county, and Mayo footballers down through the years. They’re warriors. They’d die with their boots on.
“I saw all the jokes: ‘Leinster are the Mayo of rugby.’ That’s unfair.
"The most highly-paid, professional team in the British Isles added two world-class players - Snyman and Jordie Barrett - and they failed again. And they’re professionals! They’re paid to do a job. When they fail, they should be criticised.
"I look at rugby analysis, and it's a cosy little setup, an old boys’ network, a school network. They're all pally-wally with each other. There's no serious criticism.
“The Irish rugby team has never gone past the World Cup quarter-finals. There are only eight serious rugby nations. Yet we glorify failure. Moral victories. Blame the ref.
“It was the same with Leinster last week. I didn’t see the criticism. It was all ex-players. Leinster deserve to be criticised, they failed again.
“To compare them with Mayo is wrong. These Leinster players are the darlings of the media and corporate Ireland. Life goes on for them. They get paid, their contracts go up, they get new sponsors. The Mayo lads? Back to work Monday morning. They do it for the love of the county, for the green and red.”
Hard to argue with that. Mayo folk may not always agree with Pat Spillane, but this time he’s said what many were thinking.
Because while Leinster’s collapse against Northampton was shocking, it wasn’t surprising.
Adding Barrett and Snyman was meant to push them over the line. Instead, they took a step backwards. Instead of questioning the management of Leo Cullen, it was put down as another close miss.
In Mayo, after such nearly moments, the entire nation took time to dissect the psyche of each of the starting 15 amateurs.
With all the resources in the country, the Leinster juggernaut still can’t make it work.
By contrast, Mayo’s latest setback, defeat to Galway in the Connacht final, was different. Disappointing, yes, but expectations have shifted. This isn’t the side that stormed Croke Park year after year.
The golden generation is stepping away. There’s a realism now. But still, something stirring as the first clash against Cavan awaits today, followed by a trip to Tyrone and a daunting neutral task against the Ulster champions.
But even when falling short in the past, Mayo earned the country’s respect for the way they fought Dublin during the Jim Gavin years. They came up short, again and again, but they didn’t wilt.
And crucially, they weren’t paid to be there.
Leinster are different. This is a professional outfit with world-class talent, elite facilities, and an industrial-scale pipeline of schools rugby feeding into their system.
They don’t have the excuse of amateurism or plucky underdog status. They have the money. They have the players. They just don’t have the medals.
And when someone like Spillane, a man never shy with a Mayo dig, calls out those comparisons, maybe we should listen.