MAYO ARE CRIPPLED BY A MAJOR FLAW... THEIR LACK OF BELIEF

IWILL let you into a little secret as to why my juices flowed so freely when we played Mayo back in the 2014 All-Ireland semi-final replay in Limerick.

I was hurting anyway after being dropped, but there was also a clumsy effort by one member of the Mayo backroom team to get under my skin.

In the drawn game, as I kept tabs on Andy Moran, Mayo’s unofficial ‘runner’ came onto the pitch a couple of times for my benefit more than his team’s.

‘He is an old man, Andy, go at him. His legs are gone, he is f**ked and he knows it,’ he would jaw at me as he ran past.

I am presuming that his aim was to reduce me to a gibbering wreck, but you don’t get a stubborn mule to back down by pulling his ears.

Anyway, when I came on in the replay – a game I reckon was the most intense and satisfying I ever played in – he was still prodding me with verbals any time he could get close.

I am not sure what response he was seeking, but I had one of those evenings where my game was in sync and my focus was absolute.

I must not have been the only one he sought to taunt, because the last I saw of my failed tormentor was when he ran on during that melee at the end of the game, where I saw him being pulled by the ears out of a ruck by Anthony Maher, who had a smile plastered across his face.

It is only a small thing, but it set me thinking about Mayo.

What did that individual seek to gain from seeking to prod a hardened, experienced team with playground taunts, when surely an instructive message in the ear of one his own players would have been more useful.

Don’t get me wrong here, I have nothing but time for Mayo football, they have always produced good, natural footballers who play it the right way.

But there is a flaw there which has repeatedly stopped them getting over the line.

The big question that will always be asked of them is do they truly believe that they have it in them to win an All-Ireland? That’s an almost impossible question to answer.

The thing about belief is that you can only measure its presence when you lose.

Every time I faced Mayo, I believed 100 per cent that we would beat them and you can argue that the results bear witness to that.

The thing is I also believed with every fibre of my being that we would beat Dublin each time we played them this decade but that didn’t turn out quite so well.

That’s real belief. It is easy to throw out the soundbite after winning a game that you ‘believed’ you would win, but the test is being able to say that after losing, repeatedly.

You are reduced to amateur psychology when deciding, on the basis of a string of bad results, that it is fair game to make a diagnosis that a team ‘does not have it mentally’.

But, and this goes back to my mouthy friend in Limerick, what stands out is how many times they have paid for doing the wrong thing, at the wrong time and when it mattered most.

This has been a constant. You can go back as far as the 1997 All-Ireland final when, in the opening minutes, they changed every line on the field in replacing the hamstrung Dermot Flanagan at corner-back.

IN 2004, they started the aerially challenged Dermot Geraghty on Colm Cooper. Two years ago they brought David Brady in at full-back in a switch with David Heaney, after Kieran Donaghy had long bolted. It was the same story in 2014, when twice they looked at Donaghy in that drawn and replayed semifinal without deciding to go and put a spoiler on him.

And that’s just against us. The 2012 All-Ireland final was over after 10 minutes when Kevin Keane was left to suffer at the hands of Michael Murphy and then last year, there was that head-scrambling decision to replace David Clarke with Rob Hennelly.

That was never going to work out because of the pressure it heaped on the latter, with Dublin aware that if they turned up the heat on his restarts, they could profit.

There is a pattern there that should disturb and it won’t be addressed until their game smarts is a match for their desire.

And now they are fast approaching the end. They are looking at one summer – two at a real stretch – to get this done.

When they lose guys like Keith Higgins – the best defender they have ever produced – Colm Boyle, Donal Vaughan, Seamie O’Shea, Alan Dillon and Andy Moran, they will simply not be replaced.

They have the best backs in the game, while a Tom Parsons/Seamie O’Shea midfield is as good as what is out there, but they need to find a way to make that attack click.

It is a challenge but it is not unsurmountable. The key is in sticking with Aidan O’Shea at full-forward – his impact is diluted out the field and they have in Diarmuid O’Connor a perfect leader for the half-forward line.

They need their full-forward line to sting, which means O’Shea has to become the focal point and Cillian O’Connor has to play off him – Andy Moran was one of the toughest I ever marked but he can’t be expected to lead the line at this stage of his career.

If they get that chemistry right, they have a real shot here.

True, today against Donegal is about League survival and they won’t want to be relegated, but this group can only now be defined by what they do this summer.

For them, it is now or never. They need to play this one smart.