GAA
1 October 1997
BANK OF IRELAND ALL IRELAND FOOTBALL FINAL
John Melvin reports from Croke Park
SORRY. Not ready yet. Please apply again next year. Once again Mayo had their application to join the All Ireland honours list turned down at Croke Park on Sunday, where a Kerry team, better equipped all round and more forceful in a few key areas, deservedly picked up their 31st title.
And so the harrowing wait goes into it's 47th year. For thousands of Mayo supporters the result was devastating, but the performance was perplexing.
Mayo were turned down for a number of reasons, the most important being they simply did not play well enough on the day to win. They did pick it up in the second half when they hit a good speel but the old ghosts of problems up front came back to haunt us again
I was going to suggest they were not good enough. Following John Maughan's welcome decision to regroup, and have another shot at the title next year, I think the final verdict on his three year term in office will have to be postponed. I do think he got the best out of Mayo last year but it was unfortunate that it is obvious that the best does not appear to be good enough this year. And I did honestly believe that this team was a better team than last year. On Sunday's performance that clearly is not the case and Mayo are now left with that ignominious tag of losing two All-Ireland's in successive years. There is only one way of getting rid of such an unwanted label. And it might be the spur that will bring them back.
Team captain Noel Connelly, himself under tremendous pressure due to the illness of his father, in a very emotional speech afterwards asked that Mayo supporters postpone judgment. He asked that they be given another chance. I don't think he was asking too much.
I think it is the least the team deserve given their efforts over two years, despite their failings and at times obsession with the media. An obsession which led to a totally unwarranted and grossly unfair attack on the local media before 1200 guest at the post match banquet in the Burlington on Sunday night. That is, like the All Ireland, in the past now. What Mayo now must to is to decide on their future and perhaps learn a little from their past. I do believe you must look back to look forward.
What is difficult for Mayo people to take in, is the team's apparent lethargy in the first half but they looked totally at sea. And while the early injury to Dermot Flanagan, which forced the questionable reshuffling of the defence-Costello going to the corner, Heaney to right half back McMenamon to midfield, making room for the introduction of Horan on the forty, did disrupt things, it shouldn't have brought about the confusion and lack of shape to that first half performance from Mayo.
That half was punctuated by two major injuries, the first to Flanagan, who had to withdraw with hamstring inside four minutes and later a three minute hold up as Dara O'Sé was stretchered off with a bad leg injury after a collision with Maurice Fitzgerald.
Not wishing Fitzgerald, whose genius has to be admired, any personal harm, but had it been him on the stretcher, rather than O Sé, we might have had a different ending to the script, much of which was written by Fitzgerald who profited from his move to full forward. He did score nine points, four from play, and nobody was up to the job of containing him on the day.
By the time 0'Sé had left the scene, Kerry had gone 0-4 clear, with 323 minutes gone.
Mayo did have their chances. Kieran McDonald had a terrible miss from a close-range free, Maurice Sheridan dropped one short and McDonald had his claim for a good point overruled by the decision of one umpire.
Yes, if you were sitting where I was you were beginning to get that creeping feeling on the back of your neck. This was not going to be Mayo's day.
Picked Up
Things picked up when Sheridan found the target from 35 yards in the 24th minute. At least Mayo were out of the blocks.
But another Kerry free, This time Holmes adjudged, somewhat unfairly I might add, to have fouled Fitzgerald. The Kerry maestro obliged and the clock was ticking tantalisingly towards half time and Mayo playing with the breeze and just one point to show.
Casey earned an important free when he won a rare tussle with Moynihan, who followed him when moved to the corner as Nestor was brought out. Sheridan did the business. Mayo were beginning to win some ball, but the long range passing wasn't finding the man, and it certainly didn't come to where Liam McHale was.
With two minutes left in the half the gap had gone to five points and that's the way it stayed at the break 0-8 to 0-3- Mayo's third point finding Maurice Fitzgerald in an offside position. He did well to fist the bal over the bar as he struggled with his hamstring. Thoughts of a goal must have crossed his mind, but in his condition, and such obvious agony, such an attempt might have been disastrous. We were happy to have another point and it might have been more had Colm McMenamon, working hard as usual, not been off target with a good chance after a superb ball from Horan.
Inside three minutes of the second half McDonald provided Mayo with just the tonic when he reduced the gap to four, but a terrible miss from McMenamon, after a great run by Nallen, must have bit deep into the reserves of self-belief as Mayo continued to struggle.
Another indiscretion. Fitzgerald kicked Kerry's 9th point and minutes later he claimed their 10th to leave Mayo six point adrift and floundering very near the Kerry rocks with not a drop of off-shore oil in sight.
It could have been a total shipwreck if Burke did not produce a brilliant stop, diving at the feet of Pa laide's, a feat he was to perform a for a second time to keep Mayo in the match.
When substitute John Crowley pushed the gap to seven points 0-11 to 0-4- the alarm bells could be heard as far away as Blacksod. The Mayo ship was sinking in stormy Kerry sea and not a lifebuoy in sight.
Reprieve
A reprieve, when a good move from NcHale, now operating at midfield, linked with Horan and McMenamon, and as some of us closed our eyes, big-hearted Mac obliged.
Diarmuid Byrne, who did well on the day, was drafted in for Sheridan, who didn't appear for the second half, got the breakthrough for Mayo as he tried to latch on to Fallon's high ball, Seamus Moynihan pulled him down and Ciaran McDonald brought Mayo into the match with a bang when he finished with precision from the spot-kick.
All of a sudden Mayo were breathing with a new fire in their belly. Yes, this was the team we had seen in last year's final. They were getting the breaks, the breaks they had not been getting up to now. James Horan found inspiration in his boot and kicked the two points which brought Mayo to within a point- 1-7 to 0-11. Kerry were stunned. Mayo needed the equaliser. It almost came. Nestor was taken out in what looked a questionable tackle and he also saw another effort just drift wide as he tried to curl it in. Then Kerry had that chance of the goal which Burke saved. There was a lot of confusion, a lot of tension and a lot of mistakes being made. It was during that period this game was won and lost, and not surprisingly, it was Fitzgerald who rescued Kerry with a free amidst all the confusion. We still were there. Was it a penalty? It looked it, but then I might be seeing it through tinted glasses. But it did look dodgy. Horan was just wide with a chance. Mac had two hops of the bal and was called back Mayo came looking for a score. Costello went on another great run but the opportunity got lost somewhere and we knew time was running out for Mayo.
Kerry too were having their problems. Fitzgerald actually missed a free and they shot three bad wides. But it was Mayo who were now missing the services of Sheridan and McDonald failed with two attempts and substitute P.J. Loftus blazed wide with a chance that might easily have stuck in the net.
But it was the man whose foot-writing was all over this game that dictated in the end. Maurice Fitzgerald kicked a glorious free from under the Hogan Stand then went under the new Stand to kick an even more spectacular sideline ball. It was all over for Mayo.
