Higgins in position to fire Mayo on to the Holy Grail
KEITH HIGGINS turns 34 later this month. Sitting in Healy Park last Sunday, it was worth reminding yourself of that. On a wet and miserable day in Omagh, the Ballyhaunis native played with the vigour of someone ten years younger, time and again leaving flailing Tyrone defenders for dead as he surged to join the Mayo attack.
On an afternoon that the likes of Fionn McDonagh and Michael Plunkett announced themselves to the wider world, Mayo’s old guard, epitomised by Higgins and Andy Moran, were also outstanding. James Horan claimed that the infusion of youthful talent has enthused the veterans. And it seemed that way last weekend.
Difficult to believe now but just 12 months ago, the whole of Mayo was fretting over the future of one of their greatest-ever players. The sense was that Higgins, who had lost five All-Ireland finals stretching back to 2006, had enough of the heartache.
Higgins spent last spring playing his first love, hurling. He needed a break from football. But as the League campaign progressed, and Mayo flirted with relegation, the fear was that the break might become permanent. By the time they engaged Galway in their annual summer war, Higgins had returned.
It is believed that Higgins had initially wanted to spend this spring with Mayo hurlers again, but Horan coaxed him into committing to the footballers for the League campaign, a sign perhaps of how seriously the manager is taking the competition in the early days of his second coming.
And the way Higgins has played suggests that the battle-hardened veterans have been energised by the return of their old manager. Against Tyrone, the defender rotated between being his team’s spare man/sweeper and playing corner-back.
However, it was when he was used as Mayo’s spare man in Omagh that the possibilities of what the summer may hold became clear. It was during one of his spells as a sweeper that he galloped up the field to score his outstanding goal. Had you to develop a prototype for a footballer to play the sweeping role, Higgins would be the perfect model.
Even though he is heading for his mid-thirties, Higgins still possesses electrifying pace. Like all great defenders, he is blessed with a sense of anticipation to know where danger is before it appears. And he is intelligent in his use of the ball. So dynamic is Higgins that during his first tenure as manager, Horan even utilised him as a centre-forward.
It’s Higgins’ preferred position on the hurling field, but he hadn’t played in attack on a football team since his schooldays. Yet for the 2013 Connacht final against London, Horan experimented with him as the pivot of his team’s attack.
‘I played in the forwards once before in football, at Under 16. Not since then,’ Higgins remembered that summer. ‘In fairness, James mentioned it shortly after the semi-final so it wasn’t like it was sprung on me. I prepared more as a forward, trained more as a forward than a back. To be honest, it was something new to me and I had to get used to it.’
He slotted seamlessly into the position, so much so that he caused the Dublin defence some worrying moments in the firsthalf of that year’s All-Ireland final. In the second-half of that match, he had to revert back to his more familiar defensive role, as Mayo needed a fire-fighter, and their attacking threat was blunted.
Since bursting on the scene as an All-Ireland winning U21 captain in 2006, Higgins has been one of the most celebrated defenders in the game — his epic tussle with James O’Donoghue in the Gaelic Grounds back in 2014 remains one of the outstanding duels of this decade. He has won his four All-Stars in defence and his consistent excellence this decade means he rivals Lee Keegan as Mayo’s best player in this quixotic (thus far, at least) quest to land Sam Maguire.
But there is a school of thought that Mayo could have done with two Keith Higgins over the past decade, one to play in defence and one to play further up the field. His brief stint at centreforward showed what his ball-carrying ability and his confidence to take a score brings to the team. And having watched how he tortured the Tyrone backs last Sunday, Horan must be considering if his team will be better served by Higgins playing a more advanced role this summer.
He is Mayo’s renaissance man, a passionate hurler in a county where Gaelic football is the heartbeat, so skilled and talented an operator that he could play almost anywhere. And the thing is, such is Mayo’s depth in defence now that Higgins is not needed in the full-back line.
Stephen Coen deputised brilliantly in Omagh while Brendan Harrison looks like the solution to the issue on the edge of the square. Eoin O’Donoghue, Ger Cafferkey, Chris Barrett, James McCormack and Donal Vaughan can all play in the last outfield line, too. Having the assured presence of Higgins back there might bring a calmness to the fullback line, but he is probably the most adaptable player in the game. Any role that Horan devises for him, Higgins will be able for. Come the summer, he may better serve Mayo’s needs as a sweeper between midfield and the half-back line. Wherever James Horan decides to play him, it looks like the passionate and charismatic Ballyhaunis man will have a major role to play if Mayo can finally find a way to the Holy Grail.
34 34 next month, Keith Higgins is in the form of his life for Mayo at the moment