Freedom is the fuel of Green and Red’s progress

Andy Moran said the goal for he and his players at the start of the year was to get Mayo fans back supporting the team. It’s a test his group has passed with flying colours.

The Green and Red produced their most complete performance of the season last Saturday evening to dismantle Louth and book their spot in the All-Ireland final. It’s something that looked an unlikely prospect at the start of the season (and much more recently too) with players like Cian McHale tied to University of Limerick, who he helped win the Sigerson Cup, and Kobe McDonald and Darragh Beirne committed to the Mayo U20s, and then a near-impossible task after the crushing loss to Roscommon in the Connacht semi-final.

“We struggled at the start of the year,” admitted Moran. “I was probably too kind to the Sigerson, a tiny bit with Cian and then the under-20s happened with Kobe and Darragh. So we never really got them together before the Connacht championship.

“Those five weeks between the Roscommon and Monaghan game were huge for us. I remember we played a challenge match with Kildare and the three boys were just.... that was the first time we really saw the connection. So we’re hoping to just kind of keep pushing on from there.” 

Moran credited leaders like Ryan O’Donoghue for the way Mayo’s new kids on the block have freely express themselves at Croke Park to date. Mayo are not the ‘finished article’ by any means according to the manager, but all signs are pointing in the right direction.

“They’re young, they’ve a great leader in Ryan up there who’s kind of teaching them the way, but they’re talented boys and it’s just great to see it. It’s great to see the Mayo crowd back in Croke Park supporting the team. That’s just the most important thing.

“They give you a chance to go and win the big prize in any competition, county championships, Connacht championships and All-Ireland championships. But for us, we had an aim at the start of the year, can we get Mayo back supporting the team? And I think that was answered today.

“I feel we have really good one-to-one defenders who are absolutely addicted to playing football and they just want to learn. Does that sometimes take time and does it take energy and months of training? Of course it does. But we are not the finished article.

“Let’s be honest here. When the likes of young [Eoin[ McGreal and these boys can play 55 [minutes] at 19 years of age in Croke Park, it makes a big difference. Again, I think Ryan up front, the likes of [Enda[ Hession, Donnacha [McHugh), Jack Coyne, [David[ McBrien at the back, they are great leaders to have around the place.” 

None of Mayo’s newest stars encapsulate that freedom more than the ‘generational talent’ of Kobe McDonald. The 18-year-old may have had a quiet outing by his own high standards so far, but he still kicked four points, caught kickouts with some brilliant high fielding in the second-half and had the Mayo supporters in the palm of his hand.

“I suppose I was very close to the last one (his Ballaghaderreen clubmate Pearse Hanley who went to AFL in 2007 after just one season with Mayo). Oisín [Mullin] is a tiny bit different – he’s a defender and he’d take you out of the game and he has that burst going forward,” said Moran.

“The two that I’ve seen like that are Pearce Hanley and Kobe. Let’s be honest, they’re generational talents.

“You’re going to watch a guy tomorrow, Ciarán Kilkenny, playing for Dublin, who went over for a month or two and came back a couple of months later after playing against us in 2012 in an All-Ireland semi-final.

“Of course these boys bring something different. The Aussies aren’t after them because they’re average players. They’re after them because they’re the best.

“[Kobe] went through on goal in the last minute against Cork. I tried to tell him to hit it over the bar, but there was no chance. He's just his own guy. Stevie [Coen] would tell you there, you wouldn’t even know he’s around the place until he puts on the pink boots and starts playing a bit of football.

“I swear to God, he’s quiet isn’t he, Stevie? He’s just quite a humble young man. He plays with that kind of 18-year-old freedom.

“We have a few of them. Eoin [McGreal] would have the same sort of quietness, but when he plays he plays differently. He’d play a bit like Keith Higgins and these guys. So when these guys come along, they absolutely elevate everyone around the place.” 

For Louth boss Gavin Devlin, it was a day to forget as his side were swept up in the Mayo tsunami. He acknowledged Louth were a distant second on the day and that the final scoreline could have been more emphatic were it not for some excellent goalkeeping by Niall McDonnell.

“It just seemed to one of those games today that whatever could go wrong, went wrong,” said Devlin.

“When we were coming out with the ball we were getting turned back. That’s the first thing I felt. All year we’ve been able to break lines and make impacts. Today we were getting turned back. You can see that visibly early on in the game. There was a gap, physically and speed-wise, and we’ve got to close that gap.

“We spoke before we went out when we knew we were playing with the breeze. We said ‘let’s be controlled, let’s not rush this.’ But it looked like our attacks were so rushed. Things that we hadn’t been doing all year, they appeared.” 

Devlin added: “Defensively in the first-half, we seemed that we were always defending and scrambling. It’s no way to defend, you're chasing your own goals and you're constantly scrambling. You've got to be prepared to scramble, but it seemed as if every time we were defending there was a scramble coming from our first turnover.

“Let’s give Mayo some credit, massive credit. Their defending today was immense and I thought it was immense as well in the previous game.

“It's no way to defend when you're chasing back to your own goals constantly and yeah, they had a serious period in the game.

“They could’ve had four or five more goals today, moving that ball through the foot. To get to the next level you've got to be prepared to do that. You can’t constantly run the ball.

“You want to score majors (goals). Whatever about the three points, it’s the momentum that gives the stadium. That place out there, it was rocking.”