‘I like when people tell you that you can’t do something. I think it’s a Mayo thing’
ANDY MORAN knows it’s about time he considered life after football. The only problem is that all he can see is a life of football.
Moran will be close to 36 by the time the next All-Ireland final is played, meaning 2019 may well be his Alamo. The great irony of getting older is that it increases the desire while all the time chipping away at the ability. Still, he’s happy to rage against the dying of the light.
“When you’re younger the issue is I love playing and I love doing it. And now when you’re older you’re thinking I’m going to be long enough finished.
“I love the game. I love playing. I love competing and going into training. That’s part of it. The other part is I have really good support network in terms of my wife. We have two young kids and the young fella is being particularly hard because he doesn’t sleep and it’s been tough. But without her being there and allowing me to go back playing, there’d be none of it either.
Desire
“But my drive has always been there in terms of I love proving people wrong, in terms of football, people saying, ‘Mayo can’t do this, Mayo can’t do that, you’re not good enough’. I like that side of it as well where you have your back to the wall.”
So no change to his desire but life has changed. Two young kids, a business to run with a second one on the way, all demand his attention. But with time slipping away like sand through the hour glass, football is still at the forefront of his mind. This weekend he’ll play for Ballaghaderreen in the Mayo SFC quarter-final. No matter what happens, he’ll keep training. Taking a break just isn’t an option.
“When you get older it’s harder to shake off knocks but it’s also harder to get fitter. If I let myself go to a level, I’m going to struggle to get myself back to where I need to be so I keep myself to a six or seven out of ten so you can get back to that level.
“If I let myself go to the fitness levels I used to during the winter a couple of years ago, there’s no way back really.”
So he’ll roll on into 2019 where once more he’ll try to solve the Rubik’s Cube that is Mayo football’s pursuit of Sam Maguire. Given their performances over the past few seasons, it seems all the parts are there, it’s just a matter of getting it all right at the precise moment. Making himself valuable to the set-up is the most important thing now.
“Do I see a lot of retirements? No. Do I see a manager coming in, whoever that may be, and letting a few of us go? Most certainly. I think that’s going to be the general cycle. We don’t know who it will be but if a manager comes in a says it’s going to be a three-year cycle and these U-20s are the fellas I’m going to bring through then that’s fine.
“It might take a year or two to get to where we are trying to get to. But this is all for Mayo football and whatever is best for Mayo football all those Mayo footballers will do and the new manager will do as well.”
Mayo will return to the same issues they have faced in other years – the claim that it’s the front six that are holding Mayo back. “I like when people tell you you can’t do something. I think it’s a Mayo thing, and you’ll keep going and trying to do it. The Cillian (O’Connor) thing is just nonsense really because in the first game in 2016 he kicks the score to equalise it. The game in 2017 he kicks the score to bring us level and Dublin kick a point before he missed the free. So it’s huge.
“Paper doesn’t refuse ink. I think we have had three to four All-Star forwards in the last five to six years and then we have Jason Doherty and Kevin McLoughlin on top of that and Diarmuid O’Connor. All outstanding forwards.
“Am I the sort of player who can do what Colm Cooper can do, come around the corner and curl one over with the right and left? No, I’m not. But can I do different stuff that is really valuable to the team? Of course I can. There’s stuff that people like looking at in terms of visuals. I’m probably not that player but do I take insult from it? No. I work best with what I have and use it to the best of my ability.”
Wherever that ability brings him next year, he’ll be able to make his peace with it. His role in football will change but his desire to be a part of it won’t. When he’s finished playing for Mayo, he’ll set about the journey of one day managing them.
“I was listening to David Gillick and Donnacha O’Callaghan the last couple
‘I’ll need to be ready for it. Life after football is going to be very weird for me’
of days at the men’s shed event and they were talking about retirement and that.
“And it is something that is very emotive for me in particular. And it’s something I’m going to have difficulty with when it does come around and it will come around soon and I’ll need to be ready.
“Life after football is going to be weird for me. I fully intend to be immersed in it for as long as I can, in terms of playing, but I already do some coaching with the club and that’s the route I would like to take. I love coaching senior players ... hopefully some day I’ll get the chance to coach Mayo.
“That’s what I’d love to do... When you go into coaching, you go into it and you immerse yourself in it and you could all of a sudden not being good at it.
“I like to imagine myself as a field coach but I might be no good at it so I might need to reassess it and go somewhere else.
“But if I wasn’t involved in football in 20 years’ time, I’d be very surprised.”