All-Ireland Final countdown: Quirke sees defence as key to Mayo’s hopes

In what has been a packed sporting summer thus far, Wimbledon travelled slightly under the radar.

One of the key moments of the couple of weeks at the All England Club that did manage to break through, though, was the return of Serena Williams to competitive singles action after four years away from the top of the sport.

One of the icons of tennis, Williams coined a famous sporting phrase that is often repeated to teams and individuals looking to build resilience.

“A champion is defined not by their wins,” Williams once said, “but by how they can recover when they fall.” I'm not sure if even the brilliant summer we’ve had so far has tempted Williams to take out a GAA Plus subscription to keep up to speed with things here, but her statement resonates quite a bit when we reflect on this year’s championship.

Consider the amount of teams that looked down and out but managed to summon the enthusiasm to find some form at the right time.

Dublin bounced back brilliantly from their Leinster final defeat to Westmeath and will argue that it is they that should be running out the Hogan Stand tunnel this Sunday instead of Kerry.

Monaghan, after such an awful league, went mightily close to reaching the All-Ireland semi-finals. Despite a trouncing at the hands of the Dubs in Leinster, Louth went on to reach a first semi-final in 69 years. You could also argue that Kerry fall into that bracket, too, having been hammered on home turf by Donegal in round one of the All-Ireland series – and that followed their mauling at the hands of the same opposition in the league final.

But no one’s transformation in such a short space of time is as impressive as Mayo’s.

It's long forgotten at this stage, but you have to cast your mind back to the wreckage of the defeat to Roscommon in April to truly appreciate how remarkable a turnaround it has been for Andy Moran’s team.

What sticks with me from that sunny afternoon in Castlebar is the feeling leaving the ground in the aftermath of a what was a humbling 10-point defeat.

There was a desolation amongst Mayo supporters that was void of anger or frustration; it was a sense of resigned sadness. What had happened to a county that was known nationwide for its ability to stand up and fight, but on that occasion succumbed so meekly in the face of a second-half Rossie onslaught?

The manner of that loss was puzzling. Don’t forget, Mayo had impressed in the National League and scored some really impressive results, with their wins over Armagh and Galway particular highlights.

Yet, in that second-half against Roscommon, it fell to pieces in spectacular fashion.

Mayo could not get their hands on primary possession at kickout time. More worryingly, Roscommon were then able to transition into attack at will and score for fun. It was all too easy.

It also led to serious questions being asked of Andy Moran, who was still just settling into the manager’s role. Such existential questions arriving so early in his tenure was hardly part of the masterplan, but it has worked out well in the long run. Of the three major competitions Mayo compete in, losing in the Connacht Senior Football Championship would probably be your pick if you had to choose when to have your off day.

Still, it tested his mettle and results since have shown he's very much cut out for the gig.

In several interviews since, Mayo players and Moran himself have referenced the period after that defeat and the All-Ireland series as key to their recovery. Clearly, leaders took hold and difficult questions were posed. Crucially, they've found the answers and now find themselves in an All-Ireland final few expected Mayo to be anywhere near.

There are several areas you can point to in order to underline Mayo's progress in recent weeks, with the full-forward line of Beirne, O’Donoghue and McDonald rightly taking many of the plaudits for their dazzling form. But the work of Mayo’s defensive unit is an equally important part of the jigsaw.

The pressure Mayo applied on the ball as a defensive unit against both Cork and Louth was highly impressive. While both of those counties will feel as though they didn’t perform in either match, Mayo’s defensive work must also take some of the credit for denying two very potent forward lines much in the way of guilt edged chances.

Against Cork, Mayo tied up their key shooters in impressive fashion. Others will point to Cork’s tally of wides, which ran to 14, but Mayo were forcing the Rebels in several instances to take on shots they didn’t quite fancy. That’s good defending.

Similarly, against Louth, the likes of Sam Mulroy and Ciaran Downey threatened at times but were never really allowed to hit their stride.

As with every All-Ireland final, there are subplots and connections aplenty and this weekend will be particularly familiar on the sideline, with both sides having someone in their camp who has coached the other team in an All-Ireland final.

Cian O’Neill, who is Jack O’Connor’s right-hand man, was with Mayo and James Horan in 2012; Paddy Tally, the Mayo coach, was part of the Kerry set-up in 2022 when the Kingdom claimed Sam at Galway’s expense.

Tally, who also had a stint with the Tribesmen during Kevin Walsh’s tenure as boss, is renowned for his work in a defensive sense and his influence was a key factor in Kerry scaling the summit four years ago.

Another member of that Kerry backroom team in 2022 was Mike Quirke, who enjoyed a successful playing career in the Green and Gold throughout the noughties.

Mike joined us on the RTÉ GAA Podcast last week and provided an interesting insight into the workings of Tally, who will hope that his efforts can help stymie the Kerry attack on Sunday.

“Paddy’s big thing was always about goals and not conceding goals,” Quirke, who was also a talented basketballer, told us last week.

“He would have been originally ‘let’s get bodies back behind the ball, let’s be very tight defensively, let’s shift across the pitch if the ball gets moved’, big on that speed from one side to the other, and closing out and then making sure that we have very good help defence and help defence principles.

“With the new rules, you can’t defend in that same way and I thought they [Mayo] struggled, I wasn’t seeing much of his imprint or impact on how they were playing.

“It’s only in the last couple of games they’re not conceding goals.” 

While Mayo’s one-on-one defending is amongst the best in the game right now – Eoin McGreal and Jack Coyne are both extremely effective on this front, as is Donnacha McHugh – Quirke feels Mayo’s work as a unit is also reaping rewards.

“Really, it’s about how quickly you’re shifting from one side to the other and I don’t mean up and down the pitch, I mean from side to side.

“When that ball is getting rotated, they’re getting out so quickly and closing out on the shooter and then when somebody gets beat, now there’s a help defender there. That wasn’t really happening in the early part of the year. Now, Mayo are defending much better collectively in a slow attack.” There’s also an element to Mayo’s play that is reminiscent of their traits under James Horan and Stephen Rochford when they were challenging the great Dublin team of the last decade. Those match-ups generally featured one-on-one duels for the ages, with Lee Keegan’s regular jousts with Diarmuid Connolly a regular highlight.

Mayo’s interest in winning turnovers was always key to the way in which they played and energised the crowd. Quirke feels those traits still permeate in the current iteration of the team, with some of Tally’s key principles also in play.

“The stuff they did against Louth was there long before Paddy Tally, this was the way Mayo played against Dublin and Kerry in All-Ireland finals for years and years, where they pushed full court up the pitch, their tackling is really aggressive, their athleticism is really high and they win turnovers up there. They got 3-12 or something from turnovers the last day.

“It’s just interesting to see how that is being married, their goals are way down in what they’re conceding and a lot of that is Paddy’s work, and the other stuff is probably still a throwback to Andy and the way they wanted to play with their full court press.” Given the star forwards that will be on display on Sunday, it’s likely that whoever comes out on top, those players will take much of the limelight.

But defence could well be the key to Mayo’s success this weekend.