All the trauma and demons are lifted, the pain and shame is no more

By Dr. Richard Martin

It’s hard to know where to start. I’ll start with the lead-up to the big game.

Normally, Kerry kill us with kindness. Talk us up. Of course, it was always a fiction, they never respected us, but then again why should they?

They’d given us a few good hidings over the years. 2004 and 2006 were memorable massacres. 1997, 2005 and 2011 were fair old trimmings. Respect is earned.

But when I saw and heard some of the noise coming out of the Kingdom in the week prior to the final I was stunned. The poster outside Kilgarvan depicting Mayo as eternal Bridesmaids, the derisory article by Darragh O’Sé in The Irish Times on the Tuesday which was totally dismissive of Mayo’s chances, and the soft guff from others about joining in on the celebrations if we won. Talk about patronising.

Everyone reads Darragh O’Sé’s opinion pieces. He is without question the foremost commentator on the game. It’s earned. In my opinion, he’s the greatest player ever to do it. He knows the power he has and he’s not afraid to use it.

In his view the game was just a formality and only a matter of Kerry stepping it up a gear or two and Mayo would eventually be blown away.

The closing line ‘I just don’t see Mayo being up to it’ said it all.

They weren’t even pretending anymore. We were irrelevant. For them it wasn’t a football match.

It was a coronation. The elusive 40th All-Ireland win.

I can only speak for myself, but the daily mocking, sneering commentary in the lead-up filled me with what I can only describe as primal rage.

And by Friday of that week I’d had enough. The game isn’t a game. It’s tribal. Full stop. It’s part of our cultural expression and DNA.

Along with the anger which was simmering in my marrow all week was the conjoint vast ocean of fear. I’ll be honest. I had a ticket and I was filled with trepidation about making the journey. I was deliberating all week about giving it to a friend.

I wouldn’t even describe the litany of All-Ireland defeats over the decades as bad days or memories. Trekking down the road after another defeat would leave me in the doldrums for a few months.

In the end I resolved to go, because that’s what we do. We keep coming back.

On the Sunday, I arrived in the stadium early. I stood at the back of the Hill, and watched the stadium fill. After a while the anger and fear subsided somewhat. I was watching the lower Cusack fill up in front of me. It was all Mayo. There must have been 50,000 Mayo people in the stadium, maybe more. Kerry were outnumbered in a big way.

I felt something different. Hope. A flicker of hope rippled through me. I just thought if this game is a contest the crowd will react and respond and push them for home.

TV doesn’t and can’t capture what it’s like to be in that stadium when Mayo supporters are in full flight.

I felt all week that if we brought Kerry into deep water we had a fighting chance. Armagh, Tyrone and Dublin have proved in the past that if you stay with them, they can blink. The trick is to bring war.

We were tentative and nervous in the first quarter. Shots dropped short and went wide. By the 15th minute we were 1-5 to 0-1 in arrears. It looked like the bad old days but I wasn’t convinced looking on.

Jack Carney and Ryan O’Donoghue kicked two two-pointers in the 16th and 24th minute. Carney was immense in the middle of the park.

The real turning point in the game was in the 24th minute. Conroy came on for Towey. He makes an immediate impact and wins a free. Beirne converts a difficult free and the place lifts.

We press on the next kickout and in the 26th minute Ryan O’Donoghue turned Dylan Casey over on their 21.

He celebrated like a man possessed. He won a free. The crowd roared. He clipped his point. Finally. Finally we had brought war.

Watching on in the Hill, hope turned into belief. Deep down I knew we had them. It’s game on. They were not mentally ready for this type of combat. Not from us.

It reminded me of when Leonard and Duran met in their classic Brawl in Montreal in 1980. Duran lands early in the second round with a right cross and for first time in Leonard’s life he’s hurt. His legs buckle as he scrambles for the safety of the ropes and he’s clambering and struggling to survive.

The momentum of the contest shifted straight away. The rules of engagement changed instantly. This was no longer a football match. It was a fight to the death and it was being fought on our terms.

By putting manic pressure on their full-backs, it may not automatically lead to a turnover on their 21 but the chances of a turnover on their 45 are considerably enhanced. By turning Kerry over in their half it means you have possession in the scoring zone or a kickable free. It’s high risk high reward.

It takes a special player to do what O’Donoghue did. The trick is to swarm, shadow, harry and harass and eventually stand the opposing player up. Once they’re standing other players swarm and invariably a free is given.

The opposing player has to bounce or solo after four or five steps, then at that precise moment you pounce. A legacy of his days as an elite boxer is his nimble feet and incredible footwork. It takes massive internal discipline and concentration not to foul. It all falls apart if you’re lazy and concede soft frees.

O’Donoghue nearly turned Paul Murphy over on two occasions in the 20 minutes. Murphy had to use every ounce of guile and craft to get himself out of the hornet’s nest. I thought his performance in the first half was incredible given the pressure he was under.

To sustain a high tempo press you need players with extraordinary aerobic capacity and speed. O’Donoghue’s two partners, Kobe and Beirne, are teenagers and weigh between 60-70 kg each. They chased and chased like stinging bees. They can run all day.

You won’t turn over every ball, but eventually with sustained pressure someone will crack. By playing at this tempo, it wore them down. The bottom line is Mayo were fitter. The S&C coach, Barry Solan, was crucial and indispensable in this respect. Over the course of the game we wore them down physically and mentally.

It also meant that when Kerry got the ball in the middle of the park the pressure on their kickers overwhelmed them.

Mayo teams of old could never do that. You cannot let players with real quality glide up the field and kick silky foot passes into their inside line.

Of course, all of this isn’t new. Tyrone did this to perfection in the 2003 semi-final against Kerry.

Who was the architect of that famous victory? Paddy Tally. Our coach. It was a shrewd move by Andy Moran to bring him west. Probably the most important decision in his sporting life.

Tally was the Kerry coach for their All-Ireland triumph in 2022. The first ever outsider to coach a Kerry team. He had the inside track on all their players. For all their famed cutery, it was not a wise decision to bring him into their camp. Not long term.

Kobe kicked a 45 in the 38th minute. For the first time we were in the lead. In times past that 45 would have sailed wide. He kicked it with style and grace.

Then O’Donoghue grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck and drove us for home. The solo run in the 39th minute was reminiscent of Donnellan in ‘98. He took possession of the ball on his own 45 and jinked and weaved his way past three Kerry players and released it to McBrien on their 45. That’s a 55 metre solo run. McBrien, who originally turned the ball, came like a steam train and cleverly flicked it to Beirne who finished with aplomb.

He did everything you shouldn’t do. In today’s game, you’re not supposed to bring the ball into contact. Especially not in your own half.

I’ve heard some people opine in the aftermath that other Mayo teams were better. They’re deluded. No Mayo team has ever performed like that in the clutch. Not with that intensity and focus. O’Donoghue’s performance was a performance for the ages. He’s cut from the same cloth as players like Fallon, Joyce, Linden, Sheehy, Brogan, Murphy and Fitzgerald.

To be classed as a true great you must perform on the day of days. An All-Ireland final is a specialist game. Too often in the past Mayo players wilted under the pressure.

The man from Erris didn’t flinch. He is the spiritual leader of that team and inspired all around him.

Kerry came back at us. The Cliffords are players for the ages. All told Paudie had 54 possessions over the course of the game. The most of any player on the day.

He had 76 in the final last year. 54 was a significant decrease. You can’t give a player of that class time and space on the ball.

David kicked 1-6, Paudie kicked 0-3. Kerry finished with 1-17 on the board. The Clifford brothers kicked 60% of Kerry’s final tally. Like all great players, Paudie roared into the game in the second half. Thankfully, we were able to hold on.

It’s not possible to mark the two brothers completely off the game, but if they can be curtailed somewhat, Mayo’s chances of victory were always going to be enhanced.

Mark O’Sé and David Clifford missed two 2-point efforts in the closing minutes. Kobe sealed the deal in the final minute. He got possession and waited that extra split second as all the Kerry defenders converged and then released it to Conroy for the insurance score. Only players with real class could execute that move.

I was surrounded by Swinford people in the Hill. We were all the one. When the hooter went we spontaneously hugged. A lot of people wept.

It was like a collective exorcism. The stadium erupted. We were transported into a new dimension. A place we’d never been before. Champions. Victors. I didn’t weep. I was beyond tears. I was in a state of shock.

Finally. Finally it was over. All the trauma and demons were lifted. The pain and shame was no more. We could hold our heads high. We played the best and beat the best.

Kevin Heffernan said after the Dublin victory of’ 76 that beating Kerry in a final was a double All-Ireland. We did it on the side line. We did it on the pitch and we did it on the scoreboard.

They won’t like it down there. It won’t be 75 years before we win another one. I’ve attended any amount of underage games around the county over the last two years. There’s special players yet to come on stream. Ben Holmes in Westport. Joyce and Forry in the Mitchels. Hoban and Burton in Ballintubber. Coghill and Neary in Breaffy. Trust me. You’ve seen nothing yet.

Just one final word of mention for the Mitchels lads. Five were involved. Donnacha, Bob, Paddy, John and Sean. Donnacha, Bob and Paddy all played. What this is going to do for our club and town in the years ahead can’t be quantified.

To see Paddy Durcan and Diarmuid O’Connor finally get over the line is something special. Men of quality and substance. Comhghairdeas libh.