Emotional day in Croker as Galway do it for Johnno

It’s not the first time a bouncing ball in front of Hill 16 has proven decisive, as Mayo supporters will testify.

The circumstances were very different – and even more costly – in 1996 when Colm Coyle’s kick from somewhere out near the Hill of Tara dropped out of the clouds and hopped over John Madden’s crossbar to deny Mayo the All-Ireland title. This time the drop was all of two inches.

When referee Brendan Cawley, a Kildare native of Mayo parentage, adjudged Donegal midfielder Ciaran Thompson to have touched the football on the ground barely 20 metres from his own goal, 65 minutes of Sunday’s All-Ireland SFC semi-final had been played and the game was all-square. Before Galway corner-forward Rob Finnerty, also a man of Mayo parentage, had time to kick the free however, a replay of the incident flashed up on Croke Park’s two big screens and showed there was a good two inches of fresh air between ground and ball when Thompson caught hold of the O’Neill’s.

Ryan McHugh and other Donegal players had caught glimpse of the replay and furiously implored Cawley to reverse his decision. Jim McGuinness was spitting sparks on the sideline too, exploring whether linesman David Coldrick might intervene on his side’s behalf. But it was no use.

What the replay on the big screen had not shown however, were the milliseconds later where other footage would show that it was very possible the football in Thompson’s hands did subsequently graze the turf and that Brendan Cawley was correct with his decision.

The free was taken, Finnerty converted his fourth point of the game and Donegal, who had rendered the match level for a tenth time only four minutes before that, lost their way. John Daly arrived off the bench to kick an insurance point and Galway, the team that required a stoppage-time goal to beat Sligo, and who trailed in stoppage time at home to Mayo before sneaking this year’s Connacht title, are now preparing for their second All-Ireland Final in three seasons.

Could it be that they lift Sam Maguire in the same month that they and the rest of us bade farewell to the man who masterminded their last two victories? John O’Mahony’s presence could be felt all around Croke Park, with an emotional video tribute to the Mayo native played to the 67,021 attendance immediately prior to the playing of Amhrán na bhFiann, during which the Galway players paid their own respects by making a V formation on the pitch. The V, explained Galway wing-back Dylan McHugh afterwards, was for Vanguard and chosen to immortalise O’Mahony as “a leader in the vanguard of change”.

Some things stay the same though, like how Galway’s 1-14 winning total on Sunday was exactly what Pádraic Joyce and his Galway teammates had scored when winning their first All-Ireland SFC title under O’Mahony in 1998.

“[That’s] a weird one,” conceded current Galway boss Joyce afterwards, who took time out from the victory celebrations to pay his own tribute to “a brilliant friend”.

“When the news came up to us last Sunday morning we were obviously heartbroken. We shed a tear because the man has meant so much to me personally and to the Galway players.

“Our WhatsApp group from ’98 and ’01 was hopping. Lads were just really, really heartbroken and you can’t be heartbroken unless you love someone or are in love with someone. And we loved him as a man, he was a great manager, a brilliant friend, a really good mentor as well to me over the last couple of years and I’ll miss talking to him, I’ll miss his phone calls, I’ll miss his advice. Our thoughts are with Gerardine and the kids.

“It was a tough, tough week to be honest but we had to try and separate the emotion of that and get prepared for the game, which I though we done well. And in fairness, I think he got a fantastic tribute there beforehand.” 

There’s something invigorating about being in Croke Park as a neutral, particularly for a game as big as last Sunday’s, where the absence of that stress attached to supporting your own team allows you soak up so much more of the occasion and observe from the outside the emotions of those who are totally invested in what’s happening between the white lines.

It's not to have a pop at our own Mayo supporters but one thing that resonated deeply with me on Sunday, and got me thinking about the ‘Mayo psyche’, was just how differently the Galway and Donegal fans greeted the announcements of their teams in the minutes before throw-in, in that they simply didn’t. Stadium announcer Jerry ‘The voice of Croke Park’ Grogan ran through both line-ups with not so much as an extra decibel raised among the people of Corrib and Tir Chonaill whereas whenever we contest the big days in Drumcondra, the Richter scale could register the roar after each Mayo player’s name. It’s just an observation.

Will Mayo return to Croke Park next year? 

This was only the second time in 15 seasons (2010 and 2018) that our senior football team didn’t visit HQ to play either a league or championship fixture. The Division 1 schedule should have us back up the N4 next spring but as for championship, nothing is ever certain. That’s why the hurt was so plainly etched upon the face of Jim McGuiness when the Donegal boss visited the media interview room after his side’s two points loss to the Tribesmen on Sunday.

“I’m very, very disappointed. We felt we really had a chance of getting through and going to the final.

“People talk about year one and all this, there’s no such thing. It’s this year, and this was an opportunity. We had an opportunity and we thought we were in a really good position at half-time.” 

What McGuinness was getting at is what John O’Mahony summed up best of all when demanding of his players “to never waste the opportunity of a lifetime in the lifetime of the opportunity”.

Mayo roots in junior showdown 

There was more than one Joyce aiming for a victory in Croke Park on Sunday.

The curtain-raiser saw Matthew Joyce lining out at left-half-forward for London in the All-Ireland Junior Championship Final. Matthew is the son of Louisburgh native Kieran Joyce and was part of a team of entirely London-born players who took on a team of entirely New York-born players for whom Cathal Egan, son of Mayo native Peter Egan, was among the substitutes.

In fact, it was Walsh – known for wearing his Mayo jersey to county training – who London had to thank for getting them to Croke Park in the first place, as it was his stoppage-time point in Friday night’s semi-final that earned them a 1-8 to 0-10 victory over USGAA, who draw players from all areas outside New York, namely Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

Sunday’s final was a game that went right down to the wire with New York, by the very narrowest of margins, retaining the title they won for the first time last year.

The Big Apple were leading 0-9 to 0-8 when London lost their midfielder Ryan O’Connell to a second yellow card with 20 minutes left to play, and they used their numerical advantage well to move into a 0-13 to 0-8 lead. But 14-man London roared back into contention with four points on the spin to leave just a point between them with two minutes of stoppage time still left to play. In fact, a long-range free by substitute Ryan Kearney very nearly ended up in the New York net, which would have secured the Cockney Rebels their first All-Ireland Junior crown since 1986.

Further Mayo interest in the All-Ireland Junior Championship saw Foxford native Lorcan Towey feature off the bench for Warwickshire who New York overcame 0-11 to 0-8 in Friday’s other semi-final at the GAA National Games Development Centre in Abbotstown.