So where sit Mayo after underdogs have their day?

So, what apparently was Mayo Football’s worse nightmare, actually never came to pass.

Personally, I didn’t quite understand some of the very fierce opposition among Mayo fans to the possibility of a Galway win in Sunday’s All-Ireland SFC final. If you’ve gone to the same dancehall night after night and been told night after night by the same girl that her friend is only dying to dance with you but you’ve never had the bottle to ask her, it’s hardly the lad up the road’s fault when he swoops in on what could have been yours.

The fear that Galway would win their seventh All-Ireland SFC title since Mayo’s last in 1951, and us having played 13 senior finals in-a-row without a single win, had evoked all sorts of hate-thy-neighbour chatter on social media in the build-up to Sunday’s game. To have seen Sean Kelly walk up those Hogan Stand steps and collect the Sam Maguire Cup when after 130 years of battles between the pair at provincial level there still remains not the width of a bee’s wing between them, would have stung many a Mayo football supporter greatly.

But the girl in the dancehall kicked that lad from up the road into touch this time, perhaps with one last hope that her Prince Charming might finally be jolted into plucking up enough courage to dance with destiny.

You’d sincerely wish that the Mayo senior footballers’ WhatsApp group was drowning in messages last Sunday night, the players reflecting on one of the most ordinary All-Ireland finals imaginable and demanding of each other, ‘This Time Next Year.’ Armagh, the champions, remember, were unable to win this year’s Division 2 league title, nor the Ulster championship, during which they had only one point to spare over Down who needed extra-time to advance past Sligo in the Tailteann Cup – a Sligo team who were a handful of minutes away from knocking Galway out of the Connacht championship. It’s no wonder the bookmakers have already placed four teams ahead of Armagh in the list of favourites to win the 2025 All-Ireland SFC; this year’s championship, as a whole, gave us some vintage games, but the final certainly wasn’t one of them.

It did, however, live up to the expectation that it would be a closely fought affair in the extreme. Indeed the possibility of it replicating the hurling final seven days earlier and requiring extra-time, could not have been discounted based upon how evenly matched Armagh and Galway had been in recent meetings; only one of their three championship clashes since 2022 had been settled in normal time and even then, just one point was the difference. And so, in those pre-game debates surrounding who might win, that sometimes fickle aspect of tradition was also thrown into the mix – and yet even that could be said to favour either team. Like where those who pointed towards a Galway victory could state how Armagh had only won one of six previous championship matches against the Tribesmen, the counterargument was that in six attempts, a Connacht county had only ever won one All-Ireland SFC final against an Ulster opponent.

But, of course, Galway’s record of nine All-Irelands to Armagh’s one, and 25 final appearances to Armagh’s four, would also have carried some weight with those who believe that history, as well as current form, is deserving of serious consideration when formulating a prediction. Did that influence the five esteemed pundits – Martin Breheny (a Galway native), Donal Keenan, Fintan O’Toole, Colm Keys and Seán Moran – who all plumped for a Galway victory, and outlined their reasons why, in Sunday’s official match programme?

Of course, none of them would have foreseen the Tribesmen’s plans being thrown into disarray quite so early as the 10th minute when their top scorer of the year, Rob Finnerty, limped off with an injury. He had damaged himself five minutes earlier when bravely winning a free, which he converted, before succumbing to the pain. The knock-on effect of Finnerty’s absence was seismic; Galway’s next scoreable free was sent wide by Shane Walsh who, 35 metres from goal, and wrongly in this writer’s opinion, chose to use his left foot from a quite central position. Rather than push Galway two ahead after 23 minutes, a rot set in that saw the Kilmacud Crokes player miss a multitude of other very favourable chances thereafter, from dead-ball and open-play situations. Big moments in a game of such fine margins.

The biggest moment of all came in the 47th minute. Walsh, to be fair, had just kicked two points into Hill 16, and with manager Pádraic Joyce then throwing team captain Sean Kelly, who had been named to start, into the fray, Galway looked to be generating a little bit of momentum, leading as they did 0-10 to 0-9. But it was the introduction, at the very same time, of Armagh stalwart Stefan Campbell that would have the biggest impact.

Within two minutes, ‘Soupy’ was handpassing across the Galway goalmouth for full-back Aaron McKay to arrive just in time and palm home the game’s only goal. Kieran McGeeney’s team were in front for the first time and never surrendered that lead. Frustratingly for the Tribesmen, the only two goals they conceded in 10 championship matches this year were both scored by Armagh defenders, with centre-back Tiernan Kelly on the mark in their All-Ireland round-robin draw at Markievicz Park in June.

On that note, the spread of scorers is something that served Armagh, and Galway too, particularly well in reaching the final. Neither county has anyone included in the Top 10 of players who contributed the highest percentage of their team’s total score for the 2024 championship whereas who sits atop that list? Yep, you guessed it, Ryan O’Donoghue.

The Belmullet man scored 43% of Mayo’s scores this season (3-48 out of 6-114) while Sam Mulroy of Louth, Emmet McMahon of Clare, Derry’s Shane McGuigan and Eoghan Frayne of Meath occupy places 2 to 5 on that same list. Roscommon even have two players, Diarmaid Murtagh and Conor Cox, in the Top 10, but none of the counties mentioned went particularly deep into the championship and in Mayo’s case in particular, the statistics simply support what everybody knew already – that forwards who offer a greater scoring return are desperately required by Kevin McStay and his management team.

The girl on the dancefloor won’t wait forever.