Mayo are masters of their own universe

Deliverance at last.

Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster The Odyssey is tipped to be one of the biggest movies of all time, grossing over $1 billion. That Greek classic has nothing on our own 75-year saga.

Columnists usually have to cast an objective, cold, analytical gaze over matches when trying to summarise and synopsise events. Feck that for a game of cards. This is going to be the most subjective piece you will ever read about a wonderful group of Mayo men who made our dreams come true. Heroes, one and all.

It’s Race Week in Galway but it's been Space Week in Mayo as we all headed to the moon! The celebrations have been and will be for the ages.

At full-time, Croke Park shook with a visceral explosion. I was shaking, and still am shook. I can only compare the experience to the birth of my little girl Rosie over two years ago. An almost out-of-body sensation. Is this real life? Is this fantasy?

It took me about a year to come to grips with fatherhood and I reckon it will take me just as long to grasp the enormity and reality of last Sunday’s lifequake.

We wanted a performance similar to Louth to see if we could give Kerry a rattle, and boy did we rattle them to their core. Ryan O’Donoghue was rattler-in-chief. He may be smallish in stature, but pound for pound he is Mayo’s greatest ever player. Never has a player’s personality and drive rubbed off on his teammates more than ROD’s insatiable, almost maniacal will to win.

Paul Murphy must have tried to steal his girlfriend or something because he seemed to have a personal vendetta against the Rathmore man. Anytime Murphy tried to carry the ball out of defence, O’Donoghue called his buddies Kobe and Darragh over to harass and hound the poor Kerry defender of possession. It was like the schoolyard bully and his cronies looking for lunch money.

ROD and Kobe forcing Dylan Casey to be pulled for overcarrying towards the end of the first-half generated the biggest roar I have heard in Croke Park since Cluxton kicked the late winner in 2011. From that moment, Mayo fans started to believe, and they never stopped believing after that.

Babe Ruth once said, “It is hard to beat a person who never gives up.” O’Donoghue never gave up on his All-Ireland dream and here we are now. He must be an absolute nightmare for every defender to mark. Not only do you have to worry about his attacking brilliance, you also have the inconvenience of him ‘marking’ you. He gives opponents barely a moment’s peace, hounding and harassing them from first whistle to last. David Clifford is an extraordinary footballer but ROD is something altogether different. As an attacker, he is utterly unique and unparalleled.

Apart from a decent opening ten minutes, Kerry were off it for most of the day. They never looked comfortable and were unnerved by Mayo’s relentlessness and madness. This was a victory for legs, energy and hunger. My God, we were ravenous. You could say we were 75 times hungrier than Kerry, and it showed.

According to top GAA performance analyst Darren Devine, Mayo had 40 phases of play and 28 of those started as Kerry possession. Mayo forced Kerry into ten turnovers through rabid tackling and pressing. Even for Kerry’s six unforced turnovers Mayo were stalking their opponents like psychopaths. Mayo’s fuel was pure, unadulterated want.

Don’t get me wrong, Mayo weren’t perfect. We were excellent in possession around the park but missed an awful lot when it came to kicking scores. The two-point shot conversion rate for both teams was less than 25% in the match. Mayo only retained 40% of their own kickouts, the lowest retention rate of any team in a single championship game this year.

Yet those details didn’t seem to matter. There was a greater force at play. Foibles and all, a pure pig-headedness and indefatigable spirit made Mayo the masters of their own universe. They were simply going to get the job done, no matter what.

There were so many standout moments from that fateful day that will forever be etched in my mind. Jack Carney’s magnificent two-pointer stemmed the tide midway through the opening half and turned the match. From that moment on, Mayo were totally dominant.

Darragh Beirne’s wonderful free in front of the Hill, from far out wide on the right, showed that he is a special young man born for these big days. David McBrien’s double involvement in Beirne’s goal was another unforgettable moment: the turnover on Gavin White in front of his own goal, followed by the impudent flick to set up Beirne barely 20 seconds later at the other end.

Kobe’s cojones to run at Kerry, throw a few shimmies and set up Tommy Conroy at the death, when all the world begged him to just run to the corner, summed up the fearless nature of this Mayo team.

And speaking of young Kobe Won Kenobi, the force was most certainly with him in that second-half. He has a wonderful gift of staying in the game, getting regular touches and affecting it when things aren’t fully going his way.

Young forwards can drift out of games or let games pass them by after a few misses, but he seems totally unfazed by everything. If you get him on the ball enough, you know he is just going to take fire sooner or later.

“One-season wonder” is often used as a derogatory term to describe someone who briefly shows a glimpse of their talent but never truly delivers. It means something totally different when talking about our Oz-bound Kobe, who has been the most wondrous of one-season wonders.

Andy and his backroom team deserve all their flowers too. They played this game inch-perfectly. Hands up honestly, who predicted that Eoin McGreal would pick up Paudie Clifford? It was a brilliant call too, as the young Garrymore man curbed Paudie’s influence nicely in the first-half. It also freed up Enda Hession to start so many of Mayo’s attacks.

Not waiting until half-time to move Ryan to number 11 was another masterstroke. It got ROD more involved, ignited the comeback and the rest is history.

Forget the tactical and technical stuff for a second though, because the greatest attribute Andy has engendered in his men is belief. The belief to have a go and to keep going and going and going. Every player would love to play for a manager who backs you to the hilt. Every player loves Andy.

Beating a stacked and hotly fancied Kerry side on our greatest day made it all the more special. They are great champions, footballing royalty, kings from the Kingdom. On this day, though, the crown belonged to Mayo.

When I compare the dross of last week’s World Cup Final to the life-affirming, electrifying experience in Croke Park, I feel privileged to have been in attendance to witness such a seismic event.

Instead of a crappy half-time show featuring Justin Bieber and Madonna, we had the Saw Doctors providing the stirring soundtrack to our summer Sunday. In place of the nasty grifters Trump and Infantino presenting the trophy, we had the classy grafters Jarlath Burns and Jack Coyne on the steps of the Hogan Stand.

Rather than Spain’s mind-numbingly boring tiki-taka, we had Mayo’s chaotic heavy-metal football, or “Vollgas” (full throttle), as Eamon Fitzmaurice beautifully coined it on The Sunday Game.

Last Sunday was the greatest day in the history of the world.

The day Mayo became All-Ireland champions.