Keith Duggan on how John Maughan and his young team simply walked away after their humiliating All-Ireland defeat only to quietly pick up the pieces with some fine early league displays
The appearance of Kerry on the Easter horizon could not have come at a better time for Mayo. The manner and style with which the All-Ireland finalists have conducted themselves since contributing to the most bleak and one-sided September showpiece in recent memory has been the perfect response.
The general fascination of league football lies mainly in trying to detect what lies beneath the form and substance of any given county, of looking for signs of what is to come. Already, the standard All-Ireland favourites have come to the fore but it is significant that Mayo have been just coasting along, winning on automatic, pushing towards a semi-final place by last Sunday becoming the first team to enjoy a victory in Tyrone in five years.
Of course, Mayo are no strangers to league success, winning the thing as recently as 2000. But it is important to recall the deathly quiet that fell across Croke Park last September as Mayo people began to avert their eyes from what was happening on the field. The great actor Daniel Day-Lewis was once overcome with stage paralysis after claiming to see the ghost of his father Cecil while playing Hamlet at the Old Vic theatre. It was as if the men of Mayo suffered a collective vision of equally improbable and haunting power.
As Ronan McGarrity, the young midfielder whose devil-may-care attitude seemed the epitome of last summer's adventure recalled, the experience was like finding yourself alone in the middle of the Atlantic ocean.
"It was the kind of day you would not wish on any team or footballer," recalls Kevin McStay, the former Mayo forward and present Sunday Game analyst. "But in some respects, it had one benefit in that Mayo people saw it as such a savage trimming there was never a huge analysis of it. It was the first All-Ireland that any of us could remember that was over at half-time. Kaput! We just found ourselves on the end of such a scutching that there was nothing left to talk about."
Quickly forgotten also was that just a week after that numbing disappointment, John Maughan and his management team were back on the sideline for Mayo's Under-21 All-Ireland final against Armagh. While that performance was brave to the end, it also concluded on a note of bitter disappointment, rounding off a truly cruel eight days for a football county whose All-Ireland woes are becoming a cliche. The under-21 team came out second best in a close and tough final that could have swung either way, end of story.
"John Maughan did a very sensible thing after that Armagh game," TV pundit and former Mayo player Martin Carney said this week. "He walked away from the game for a few months and encouraged his players to do the same. He never dwelt on that week at all, at least publicly. It became a thing that happened and was consigned to the dustbin. A conscious decision was made not to return until after Christmas really and then they enjoyed a few FBD games and worked away in the gym.
"Then Mayo came out in the league against Dublin and played in a riveting game of football where they just radiated quality. They lost the game but you could see that night that they had put last September behind them. It was the right thing to do, just to walk away from it because to try and go into reasoning about what happened would only lead to madness."
A number of things happened in the close season. Ciarán McDonald, once the enfant terrible of Mayo football, was appointed captain by Maughan. A man who last year confirmed the long held suspicion that beneath the counter-cultural image was a deeply serious player with a unique genius for the game has responded well to becoming the moral leader of his team.
Against Donegal in Castlebar, he played deep and acted as puppet master as Mayo recorded their first win. In Ballina against Cork, who had held a long Indian sign over Mayo, McDonald was again spellbinding. And as Maughan noted happily, his absence through injury for last week's important match against Tyrone proved two things. It showed the young team were not dependent on him. And it reminded everyone that where McDonald is concerned, rumours are always quick to surface, with selector Liam McHale forced to dismiss suggestions that there had been any kind of problem. A doubt because of injury for this weekend's visit of Kerry, the early reign of McDonald the captain has nonetheless been a boon.
Coinciding with Mayo's league form, Ballina followed up on their county final success by following a long succession of Mayo teams on the trail of All-Ireland club glory. Even if it did mean a minor public stand-off between midfield veteran David Brady and manager Maughan, the adventure ended with a nail-biting win and Brady's emotional and unforgettable words, "I've been a loser all my life but I will die a happy man now."
Carney, thinking about that win, noted that in the 17 All-Irelands Mayo have played at all levels since 1989 (including replays), their total victories now stood at two. It was, to put it mildly, an important win. The curiosity of Ballina substitute goalkeeper David Clarke rising to prominence as Maughan's first choice underlined the fact that in Mayo, nothing is ever simple and the depth of talent runs exceptionally deep.
"The pleasing thing is Mayo have competed well in the league without ever really fielding what is likely to be a full championship 15," enthuses McStay.
"Players like Billy Joe Padden, who has got his first real trot at midfield this year, and John Prenty have shown plenty of promise. Alan Dillon is playing great stuff. They are enjoying their football, clearly. I was talking with Ronan McGarrity recently about the whole All-Ireland experience and I was amazed really at his attitude. There was none of that despair I associated with our previous All-Ireland disappointments. He just saw the whole time as a fantastic learning experience for the players and management and he just wanted to get back there. See a lot of these guys are still only 24- and 25-years-old, they are a young team. That probably makes it easier to move on."
The amendment to the yellow card rule has also probably suited Mayo more than most. McStay has noticed that players like Conor Mortimer, generally well able to win a ball, now have more freedom to turn and beat their man without being subjected to the kind of dragging that suited stronger opponents. Eclipsed in the All-Ireland final, Mortimer's natural ebullience has not deserted him and his league form has been a joy for Mayo supporters.
"It has been said that the new format has taken the manliness out of the game," says Carney. "What it actually does is take much of the cynicism out of it. Mayo have always played very open and expressive football and this system suits them. Of course, they will have to revert to the old rules come the championship so it will be interesting to see how easily they adapt to the heavy defensive systems they are bound to encounter later on in the year."
That will come with time. More immediately, Mayo stand on the threshold of a league semi-final place with this aptly scheduled visit of Kerry. A local victory would end the Kingdom's ambitions of retaining their league title. But it is a fixture worth more than league points.
Thinking about Kerry will inevitably force some kind of visitation to the loneliest day for the Mayo team and public alike. But it is undoubtedly an opportunity to make an definitive crossing away from deep and unexpected hurt that gripped Mayo after these two teams last met.
"There is a real symmetry about it, undoubtedly," says McStay. "And it has to be acknowledged that is not just an ordinary league game. It gives John and Liam and George (Golden) a chance to confront what happened in a very positive way. Just to say, 'now lads, this is Kerry, inour home. How are we going to react?' And of course, it is a very fine Kerry team and the game will be hard but for Mayo, it means the opportunity to go out and play and demonstrate that the All-Ireland belongs to the past."
Of course, the past has proven to be the most mercurial and torturous opponent for several generations of Mayo footballers. The signs of this league suggest the contemporary group is not only young enough to survive the scars of such a confrontation but smart enough to walk away from it altogether.
