Hand of history and law of averages sometimes steer finals away from conventional wisdom
Mayo are seeking first All-Ireland title for66 years while Dublin are bidding for their first treble in 94 years
FOR a county that hasn’t won any of its last 10 All-Ireland finals and which goes into tomorrow’s game as 3/1 outsiders, Mayo must be surprised to see a growing number of pundits predicting that the 66-year wait for glory is about to end.
Jim McGuinness has a “nagging feeling” that Mayo will win, their case hardened by a hunger which has burned for decades.
‘Bomber’ Liston stated in this paper on Thursday that “if Mayo show a physical edge, blended with composure and patience when in possession, then there is nothing stopping them from finishing what they started in the last two years”.
Dublin might take issue with the ‘nothing stopping them’ line but ‘Bomber’ expanded his argument into a specific way that Mayo can win.
Describing Stephen Cluxton, Cian O’Sullivan and Ciarán Kilkenny as Dublin’s ‘Big 3’, he believes that if Stephen Rochford devises a successful means of ‘ruffling their feathers’, Sam Maguire will be Mayo-bound.
In yesterday’s paper, Peter Canavan backed Mayo on the basis that “it feels like their name is on the cup”.
So there are three experienced observers who have chosen to ignore obvious logic and go with a hunch that Mayo’s time has come.
Just as there are those who believe that this Mayo team will always find some opposition too good for them, others are convinced that the longer they keep knocking on the door, the more likely it is to open.
Even those who fancy Dublin to win don’t believe that Mayo’s bad experiences in recent years will in any way hinder them.
“Not at all. Players look at every game as a one-off. What happened before counts to nothing. Dublin lads won’t be thinking, ‘We’re going for three-in-a-row’, no more than Mayo players will be thinking, ‘We’re trying to win the All-Ireland for the first time since 1951’. It doesn’t work like that,” said Mick O’Dwyer.
There are some similarities between tomorrow’s game and the 1982 All-Ireland final when O’Dwyer’s Kerry team were bidding for a place in history by winning the title for a fifth successive year.
Granted, Dublin’s ambition is a more modest three-in-a-row but since nobody has achieved it since Kerry in 1984-’85-’86, it will be a mighty achievement if they deliver it.
Besides, it’s 94 years since Dublin last completed the treble so the hand of history is very definitely on the squad’s shoulders. Where it leads them is another matter.
Kerry did their best to ignore the historical dimension in 1982 but they couldn’t.
PRESSURE
And while that added pressure was never put forward as an excuse when they lost to Offaly, it may well have been a factor.
Mikey Sheehy recalled many years later how he never felt right during the game.
“My legs were like rubber. I felt stiff and couldn’t get any movement going, Maybe it was the occasion but, for whatever reason, I didn’t get into the game,” he said in 2004.
Why did that happen to a player who was usually so calm and assured? Was it the five-in-a-row pressure?
And did it run through the whole team, especially when Offaly refused to be shaken off in the second half.
Dublin aren’t dwelling on the three-in-row factor but there’s a real possibility that it will make their task that bit harder.
After all, with the exception of Kerry in 1978-’80 and 1984-’86, no county has won the All-Ireland three-in-a-row since Galway in 1964-’66.
Kerry (1971), Offaly (1973), Dublin (1978), Meath (1989), Cork (1991) and Kerry (2008) all failed in their treble quest.
In fact, only Dublin in 1978 and Kerry in 2008 reached the All-Ireland final in their treble-chasing year.
There’s another similarity between tomorrow’s final and 1982. Just as Mayo have been coming close for the past few years, Offaly were tracking Kerry in the early eighties.
Kerry beat them in the 1980 semi-final and 1981 final, both by margins that suggested Offaly couldn’t close the gap in 1982.
However, they cleverly harnessed the perceived sense that they would be mere facilitators in the great Kerry adventure.
“The public regarded Offaly as being in ‘the lambs to the slaughter’ category.’ However, the players were in a totally different frame of mind as they realised that the pressure was in the Kerry dressing-room
“The stakes were infinitely higher for them because they were attempting something that had never been done before,” wrote Offaly manager Eugene McGee in his autobiography.
Jim Gavin will have tried to cover every angle in his usual meticulous manner but there’s still no way of knowing how his players are reacting to the threein-a-row pressures.
COMPLACENCY
Carlow, Westmeath, Kildare and Tyrone didn’t ask them a single hard question but Mayo will be an altogether different proposition.
They have talked Dublin up at every opportunity, no doubt hoping to create the tiniest opening in Gavin’s anti-complacency defences.
He will have worked hard at keeping them secure but with the mood in the city and county so overwhelmingly locked in a mindset which believes Dublin cannot be beaten, there’s always a risk that players begin to believe the hype.
Bookies are already offering odds (13/8) on Dublin completing an All-Ireland four-timer next year, followed by the five-in-a-row (9/2) in 2019.
That has nothing to do with the Dublin camp but they can’t remain immune to what’s happening outside their tight circle.
And then there’s the law of averages.
After losing eight and drawing two of their last ten All-Ireland finals, Mayo will feel that a break is well overdue.
That won’t win tomorrow’s game for them but it does feed into the sense that it might be their year. They have, after all, survived four drawn games (two went to extra-time, two to replays), underlining both their resolve and their capacity to remain calm under the most intense pressure, a requirement which will be vital tomorrow.
“All-Ireland finals are different. They can sometimes take on a life of their own. You think you have every angle covered and then something else comes up. Players have to be able to react when that happens,” said O’Dwyer.
There are so many angles to tomorrow’s game that it’s impossible for Gavin and Rochford to have covered them all.
Question is – who has covered more? And whose players will figure the others out best as they go along? The answer could decide the outcome.