Who do these men think they’re talking about?
Mayo are in an All-Ireland final for the third time in five seasons.
For a fifth year in a row, only an All-Ireland champion can eliminate them. If this team doesn’t get this far, it takes replays by eventual winners to shake them off.
They’re well-versed in September football. They’re not some part-time, haphazard outfit thrown together and stumbling along blindly as if they’re getting this far every single year by some sort of fluke. You don’t reach the semi-final for six successive seasons – go one better half the time – and do it all by chance or luck.
It’s consistency. It’s science. It’s talent.
When The Sunday Game panel talks about Mayo though, you’d swear they had just witnessed an under-performing three-time All-Ireland champion lose by 10 points in the quarter-finals.
Pat Spillane is off to Knock #GAA https://t.co/QYSBlh2TBl
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) August 21, 2016
Stephen Rochford’s men cast aside Tipp with five points to spare on Sunday and made it five wins on the trot as they’ve banished the despair of Galway to reach the third Sunday of September yet again. Mayo are 70 minutes from getting their hands on Sam Maguire for the first time in 65 years.
This was how the studio pundits saw it:
Pat Spillane said the mental problems were still there.
They spoke about leadership issues.
Mayo were criticised for changing tactics. Imagine, having flexibility. Imagine, having brains to approach each opponent specifically.
Then words like courage and belief were thrown into the mix by Brolly when he started questioning lambasting the Connacht force.
It was worse than watching the RTÉ soccer analysis when Eamon Dunphy starts declaring the death of a club whilst we’re watching pictures of that same club celebrating winning the Champions League.
We finally got away from Tommy Carr and Marty Morrissey virtually patronising Tipperary the whole game for being a Division Three side, completely neglecting the fact that we were watching the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship semi-final, and then we had to listen to the three wise men rip Mayo to shreds because they’ve reached the final again.
.@ConanDoherty breathes a little easier https://t.co/n3jlnez2ru #Mayo #GAA
— GAA JOE (@GAA__JOE) August 21, 2016
We’ve been saying all summer that Mayo need to improve. We’ve been saying that they’re not good enough and we’ve all been trying to write them off as they beat Fermanagh, they beat Kildare, they beat Westmeath, they beat Tyrone, and they beat Tipperary.
When do people give up and start dishing out some credit or some bloody respect?
Pat Spillane said you need pace to beat a Dublin or Kerry. “Pace, pace, pace.” Has he ever actually watched Mayo?
Athletically, they are the closest thing to the Dubs anyone will ever get. They bounce around every inch of Croke Park like they’re just striding their legs out for a warm-up and they made this mean, organised, sweeping system of Tyrone’s look like an underage team in front of them.
Mayo have pace – more than Kerry. And they have leaders and belief and, yes, even tactics – however bad you think that might be.
More importantly though, they have a place in the All-Ireland final. As unconvincing you think they’ve been, however better you think the other two are, they’ve done what they’ve needed to do and now only one Sunday stands in their way of immortality.
They have the players to win the All-Ireland on a given day – no-one can deny that. But if we’re criticising them for getting down to the last two in the country standing yet again, what hope is there for anyone else? What’s the point of this whole thing?
It just looks like Mayo are going to need another 70 minutes to shut everyone up. But, this time, they could shut them all up for good.
Big interview with Eamon McGee in the latest GAA Hour. Subscribe here on iTunes.
