Mayo supporter Thomas Costello outside Croke Park on Saturday

Shay Connolly writes:

During the week I said at home here that Tyrone would win the All Ireland final. Was it the shock of Mayo beating Dublin that was influencing my opinion? Was I being biased, bitter or blinkered to not give this Mayo team the nod? I asked myself these questions umpteen times and each and every time I went back to that Dublin match… and for 50 minutes in that match I thought that Mayo were extremely poor.

Could they get over the line like the last day playing so poorly? I just couldn’t see that happening. I watched Tyrone make incremental progress in every round. To me they were all footballers, exciting footballers and were releasing the seat belts that Mickey Hart had them strapped into for quite a number of years.

I didn’t expect them to beat Kerry as I thought their transition would take a little longer.. But fortune favours the brave and brave they absolutely were.. They were very lucky to get over Monaghan in the Ulster Final but in the Kerry game they notched it up another gear and were not afraid to keep their foot on the accelerator. When your car is driving so smoothly its very hard to stop it from reaching its destination.

Mayo’s car was stuttering on its journey. Against Galway in the first half they were dire. They changed it around in the 2nd half and went on to win comfortably but I had now watched Mayo play 90 minutes of terrible football in the last two matches and I didn’t ignore it in coming to the conclusion that Tyrone would beat them on Saturday.

I have watched Mayo win All Ireland semi finals before. In fact I watched them win 11 semi finals since 1989. –.

This year it peaked like never ever before. The entire country was caught up in the narrative that this was their year, especially since they dethroned the all conquering Dubs. However of the 11 All Ireland finals that they lost, only two were to Dublin. Getting over Dublin at semi final stage may make for a pleasant journey home across the Shannon but when you arrive home and check the boot of the car there’s nothing in it.

They beat Dublin in the semi final in 2006 at a time when Dublin were winning nothing but such was the euphoria that followed that it looked like they really didn’t care in the final… and Kerry went on to a facile victory with 13 points to spare. However this year the euphoria reached a crescendo never seen before by this ageing scribe. And while the entire GAA nation joined in the celebrations of Dublin’s defeat not one space was provided for a proper analysis of Mayo’s play. Nothing about the bald patches on their now lovely looking heads.

The entire Sunday Game after they beat Dublin three weeks ago was taken up with how dirty Dublin were. They couldn’t help themselves.. As the weeks passed leading up to the final and despite Tyrone knocking out the favorites Kerry, all the talk was of Mayo. Emotion ruled the day. Commentators, usually well experienced GAA pundits got caught up in it all.. There was no place for Tyrone. They were party poopers. At times it bordered on a partitionist mindset as if Tyrone belonged to another Island altogether.

I don’t like to single out individuals and all these amateur players deserve great credit for their commitment but the hyping of Aidan O’Shea has to be one of the biggest downfalls of modern Mayo final losses..In all seven finals that he has appeared he has gone missing and he might as well as have thrown a white sheet around himself and cut out the eye pieces such was the ghost like figure that moved around Croke Park in those finals.

He has failed to register a single score in any of those seven final appearances.. The fact is that different managers have failed to drop him. But it wasn’t just in All Ireland finals that he has disappeared. His Club Breaffy have never ever won the Mayo County Championship.. They have appeared in four finals in the last six years. They lost them all! I watched all of them on TG4.

He cut the same forlorn and lonely figure in those finals also.. Aidan O’Shea, for me typifies all that is wrong with Mayo football, believing all the hype yet failing to deliver. And no Manager had the balls to change this in case the emotion of such a decision might backfire on them from within the County.. Not alone were they afraid to call it out but they made him captain also. A popular choice in the County, no doubt. but a man to lead you to the Holy Grail? Hardly. In the media’s desperation to find the greatest player of the modern area during Dublin’s reign they played up the “brilliance” of Aidan and Michael Murphy because they didn’t play for Dublin.

Joanne Cantwell committed the most perfect Freudian slip on Saturday evening when she addressed him as ‘Aidan O’Shite’ when discussing him. I kid you not!! But Joanne was all chirpy .She didn’t have to burst any anti Dublin veins in her neck throughout the presentation..

In another interesting titbit of information on the Wikipedia page of Aidan is that he was born in Mullingar and in the 15 line write-up the author managed to squeeze in that he was refused entry to a Dublin Nightclub after Mayo beat Donegal in the quarter final in Croke Park in 2013. Jeez those horrible Jackeens! Do you see the rather large chip that they carry around on their very broad shoulders..

When Dublin were coming good in 2009 or so they had many fine footballers but they were lacking a warhorse in the middle. Along came Michael Darragh McAuley and the rest is history. Tyrone have had many fine footballers in the past number of years but they missed a warhorse after Brian Dooher retired. A man who could go up and down the pitch almost infinitely, harrying and carrying and controlling the game. Brian came in as Manager this year and moulded Conor Meyler into his former self and even managed to surpass his own greatness in this player.

For me, Conor has been the gem in their crown throughout this year’s All Ireland Championship and his snuffing out of the the opposition’s danger men whilst at the same time being the main playmaker has been the most singular reason that Sam Maguire went north.

For Mayo, despite novenas being said all over the Country for you to dispel the curse, despite almost every emotional sinew of the Nation’s biology being fastracked to you by Pony Express, the sad story is that none of that stuff wins you All Ireland Titles. I don’t know if you can turn around the freaky mindset of 70 years but surely beating Dublin in a semi final can never ever again be interpreted as an All Ireland win.. The three weeks since seems like an awful long time ago today.

Shay Connolly is a writer/songwriter, a Ringsend resident and a former Dublin Minor Hurler.

RollingNews