Mayo can go one better than my Galway in 2000
AN ALL-IRELAND football final is an event. It’s a pilgrimage for supporters all around the country and it takes over the nation in the build-up. For players, they are somewhat sheltered from all the hype and only have to concentrate on playing the match. A replay, however, is a totally different animal.
The build-up and preparation for a replay is far more functional. The focus is more on the match itself rather than everything that comes with it, and all the ceremonial stuff isn’t really there the second day. It’s a very different emotion coming into a replayed game.
The experience of our replay in 2000, when Galway drew with Kerry, came rushing back last Sunday evening come full-time. I saw many of the same emotions in the players and management that we felt back then. One of the most striking things was the silence after the final whistle.
Players were understandably exhausted, they had given everything for almost 80 minutes, but so were the supporters in the stands after all the emotions they went through in a breathless second half which really ebbed and flowed.
It brought back all those feelings I felt in 2000. A drawn All-Ireland final is the biggest anti-climax you can experience in your career, by a million miles.
The whole event is a roller-coaster. The planning that goes into a final has always been meticulous. The opposition is analysed to death and tactics are kept secret.
Even the way the game played out last Sunday mirrored my own experience in many ways. In 2000, the Galway side I was managing went 0-7 to 0-1 down in the first 20 minutes. We brought on Kevin Walsh which changed the course of the game, and eventually drew level with 12 minutes left. Unfortunately, we missed three chances to finish the job and ended up drawing the game.
The initial reaction in a scenario like that, when you have had the momentum, is that you need to twist the knife. We didn’t, so your immediate thoughts are ‘why didn’t we kick on? Why didn’t we close it out?’ After Mayo managed to get level after a great start to the second half, they must now be thinking that they had Dublin on a cliff, and didn’t push them off.
After those initial thoughts, your attention then turns to how do you react? For players, there’s three options on All-Ireland final day – win, lose or draw. Losing you simply don’t contemplate, and you don’t think about a draw for one second – everything is planned towards a win. All of a sudden, you are left having to deal with a new scenario, so your mind starts racing. It can take players a while to rearrange and get their heads around having to do it all again.
Remembering my own feeling at full-time in our drawn game in 2000, I was intrigued by the reaction of both camps come the final whistle last Sunday. It seemed as though all the Dublin players went straight down the tunnel and disappeared immediately, whereas a bunch of Mayo players stayed about and did a round of interviews.
It made me wonder if maybe that was pre-planned by Jim Gavin? His players almost seemed to get into replay-mode seconds after the final whistle, rather than hanging around thinking about what had just played out on the field.
Of course, the usual preparation will change for both sets of players. The physical work before a replay is more focused on recovery – you’re looking at injuries, trying to get the pool sessions in, and it’s more fragmented in the sense that there’s very little physical training. The players should be in peak physical shape at this stage of the season, so it’s about getting them back to 100 per cent following the hits and niggles of the first game. You may have
MAURICE DEEGAN is a good choice for the second game but he’ll have his work cut out. So much of the focus before the drawn game was on the battle that would ensue between Lee Keegan and Diarmuid Connolly. It was a shame to see them pulling and dragging out of each other and jerseys being ripped, rather that claiming all the headlines for the right reasons in the drawn match. Deegan (right) has plenty of experience dealing with those kind of situations, but it will be difficult not to consider the pair’s history if we see any further incidents between the two, which could prove costly. Hopefully, we’ll be talking about them for the right reasons next time. one light session, but effectively, the bulk of your work is about the mental and tactical side of things. The mental side takes a huge amount of your time, because a manager has to convince his team that they can win next time out.
In terms of the game itself last week, I think we know more about Mayo than we did beforehand. If we had been told last Sunday morning that Mayo would concede two early own goals, you would think that’s another All-Ireland down the tube.
Instead, I think they will take great positives from the fact that they were able to cope with that kind of crisis. They were somewhat lucky that it happened to Colm Boyle and Kevin McLoughlin, as you could see from their body language that they didn’t let it impact them.
If that had happened to a player featuring in his first final, then you might see heads go down and that can spread through a team. Those two players played exceptionally well after the own goals, so I don’t think that will affect Mayo’s mindset one bit going into the second game.
Furthermore, after not putting Dublin away when they maybe had their chance, Mayo showed huge resolve in clawing their way back into the game and getting the draw. They have unbelievable character, and the belief is obviously back. We hadn’t really seen that this year until last Sunday.
If they can work on those positives and get their minds around having to do it all again, then Mayo have every chance of finally ending all those years of hurt at the second chance.