IMMACULATE REDEMPTION
The joke going around the Mayo camp was that I must be pregnant because I hadn’t been seen for nine months, says Castlebar’s Barry Moran
MAYO may have been reminded of the dangers of rumour-mongering this past week after false claims over Lee Keegan’s health but if their footballers do return to the All-Ireland final next year, no doubt their supporters will partake in a tradition as time-honoured as the desperate 11th-hour search for tickets.
In the hours before throw-in, the pubs around Croke Park fizzle with rumour and counter-rumour as supporters repeat what they have just been told – who has been struck down by injury, what unheralded player will start. Even if secondguessing Stephen Rochford has proved to be a futile task, it goes on every September.
Two months ago, Barry Moran’s name was being whispered among the heaving masses in Drumcondra and Dorset Street. The towering midfielder hadn’t been seen all summer as he struggled with an Achilles tendon injury. But the word was that he was going well in training and Rochford had devised a role for him against the Dubs.
The speculation had no basis. Moran admits that the manager was trying out a few different scenarios to have something in his back pocket for the final but he knew his role – if he got on the pitch at all – would be limited. He simply wasn’t fit enough. He had only been back training a few weeks after almost a year on the sidelines.
‘The joke in the Mayo panel was that I was pregnant. Because they hadn’t seen me for nine months, the lads were saying that I must have been away having a baby,’ Moran chortles.
He can laugh now but it was far from amusing at the time. There was a point earlier this year where the Castlebar native wondered if he would ever kick a ball again. So debilitating was the tendonitis in his Achilles, he was contemplating hanging up his boots at the relatively young age of 31.
For months, he was forced to sleep with his foot in a splint at a 90 degree angle. He had been told it might sort the issue. But every morning, he got out of bed and by his second or third step, the pain in his Achilles would be so unbearable that he could barely walk. The pain would ease over the course of the day. However, it would happen all over again the following morning.
‘It was like someone was getting a large needle and stabbing my Achilles with it. After a while, you are thinking “will I ever get over this?” I saw a few specialists, three here in Ireland, made no headway. Saw another one in London and made no headway. In fairness to Stephen Rochford, he didn’t give up on me and pulled out all stops to get me sorted.’
Through a connection made by Mayo doctor Seán Moffatt, Moran got an appointment with Professor Hakan Alfredson, known as ‘the godfather of tendons’ who has worked with the likes of Owen Hargreaves and Craig Gordon. The Swedish doctor had a clinic once a month in Canary Wharf, London and Moran went over, pinning all his hopes on him. ‘Basically, he discovered that the Achilles itself was fine but the sheathing around it was all inflamed and damaged. So, he went in there and gave me an injection into the sheathing, rather than the tendon, that basically peeled off the sheathing. And all the problems and issues are now gone. ‘It’s amazing. I have gone from not being able to walk on it in the morning, from literally not putting any weight on it after two steps, to having absolutely no pain in it now. Stephen rang me last week, asking was there any issue. And I was able to tell him that it was completely fine.’ During their conversation last week, Moran informed Rochford that he wants to give it another year with Mayo. Given the westerners are so close to reaching the promised land, he believes he has something to contribute.
‘I had originally thought that I was going to sit back and go, but now I think if Stephen wants me back and I am able to play, I am going to give it one last shot,’ Moran says.
‘You have to think you will offer something to the group, too. I wouldn’t come back unless I thought that, because it is a fairly competitive environment. You don’t want lads coming back, just for the sake of it, hoping that they will get their All-Ireland medal. But I hope to have a long season with the club first, then I will think about the county.’
Castlebar Mitchels’ run to today’s AIB Connacht Club final against Corofin means that Moran is now making up for all that football he missed during the summer. ‘I didn’t get the games earlier in the year but the club is now giving me an opportunity to get the games and get football back into the legs again.’
As the two powerhouses of the western club game, Castlebar and Corofin have developed a pretty healthy rivalry over the past four years.
‘They have won two Connacht titles and we have won two. The rivalry is growing because we have faced each other so often. And it’s funny, we have beaten them twice in Tuam and last year, they beat us in Castlebar, which goes to show that home advantage means very little,’ adds Moran.
Moran pinpoints the 2013 Connacht semi-final win as a turning point for the Mayo side. ‘It was the year after they had won the All-Ireland and we went up to Tuam and managed to win. It was a great day for the club, to announce ourselves on the provincial stage because up to that, we hadn’t.’
It was a red-letter day for a club that had been trapped inside Mayo for 20 years. And while in recent years, they have ruled the county in a manner that befits the club from its biggest town (as well as getting to two All-Ireland finals), Moran remembers the bad days, including his debut which came when the club wasn’t even in the senior grade.
‘The 2000s were the only decade when Castlebar failed to win a
I’ve gone from not being able to walk to being pain-free
county senior title. The club were in the doldrums. We went down intermediate for a while, I started my career at that grade. It was a big shock for everyone in the club to go down to intermediate. It was the first time that it happened in the history of the club,’ Moran recalls.
‘What happened is that younger lads came in a year or two after we went down to that grade. It took us about three or four years to get back into senior. I will never forget our first year back up. We thought that we were the up-and-coming club, we got out of the group stages, beating a good Ballina side.
‘Then we played Crossmolina in Ballina and they beat us by 12 or 13 points playing in second gear. That was a rude awakening to senior football.
‘But we took it on board, learnt from it and now we have won four out of five county titles and three-ina-row.’
It was Castlebar’s first three-in-arow in over 60 years and Moran played his part, kicking three points in the county final win over Ballintubber, showing no ill-effects of having to play three matches in seven days (the semi-final against Garrymore went to a replay which was played on the Wednesday before the final).
Moran, who works in Allergen in Westport but has gone back to college one day a week to do an MBA, is the oldest player in the squad. ‘I was told that at the start of the year and I couldn’t believe it. I am 31 and have to deal with being an old veteran.
‘I think I’m young at heart, I still think I’m 21 but I’m not! The next oldest is 28, so it is a fairly young team, which is great for the club although I do find myself alone sometimes, crying in the corner of the dressing-room!’ he laughs.
If his club do make it back to Croke Park next March, for a third attempt at winning the big prize, Moran will be expected to play a key role – and not just by those who think they are in the know.