CASTLEBAR MITCHELS WON’T be intimidated by Crossmaglen’s glittering trophy cabinet when the sides meet in the All-Ireland senior club football semi-finals this evening.
It was a case of so near, yet so far, for the Mayo men two seasons ago as they ended their 20-year wait for county and provincial honours.
But when they found themselves faced with an irresistible St Vincent’s, a first All-Ireland title proved to be a step too far.
Diarmuid Connolly lit up Croke Park with a virtuoso performance, scoring 2-5, as the Marino men penned another chapter in their illustrious history and ran out seven-point winners.
Now another of club football’s heavyweights stand squarely in Castlebar’s way. Cross are two wins away from the record-equalling seventh All-Ireland crown that would see them draw level with Nemo Rangers and while there’s plenty of respect from the Mayo men, there’s no fear factor.
“They’re a top class club,” Barry Moran says, “and the history that they have and the amount of Ulsters and All-Irelands…
“But from our point of view we’ve never really come across them, and while we respect them because of who they are and what they’ve done, it’s the same as going out playing any other team.
“It will be 15-on-15, and it will be whoever gets out of the blocks earliest and keeps it going will win the game.
A great club, we’ll show them the highest bit of respect, but we’ll treat them the same really as anybody else.
The shadow of that 2014 All-Ireland final still lingers, but the disappointment has been harnessed and turned into a learning experience.
Simply put there were no excuses, not even the black card suffered by Richie Feeney early on.
“I suppose it was a setback but if you look at the game – and we’ve looked over it – we just didn’t play well enough to win the game. We were there or thereabouts for a while but we didn’t deserve to win it and we’d be the first ones to say that.
“St Vincent’s were the much better team, they were probably set up a bit better and I suppose we were new to the scene in the sense that that was our first county final in 20 years and then we went to an All-Ireland final.
I don’t know if we embraced it as much as we probably should have from the players’ point of view but it’s something we’ll learn from and hope that we get an opportunity to rectify that this year.
Moran adds: “When Diarmuid Connolly is on song he is the best forward in the country. Looking back on that, the whole St Vincent’s team were brilliant, but he in particular was top-class.
“The way he was playing that day, I don’t know if we had anybody capable of stopping him to be quite honest.
“He was the difference between the two teams in the end and whereas they had Diarmuid that stood up, we probably didn’t have anyone that stood up for us on the day.”
Crossmaglen’s CV is enough to ensure that they will start this evening’s game as narrow favourites but Castlebar have already taken care of one heavyweight en route to this point, stripping defending champions Corofin in the Connacht final.
Now St Patrick’s Day and a shot not only at redemption, but at history, is within reach.
“Absolutely, you try learn from your experiences,” Moran says. “If you ask any club footballer around how many opportunities are you going to get to win a Connacht or provincial club and then go on to win an All-Ireland – we have already had one and we’ve missed it.
“I’ll be quite honest with you, we’ve an All-Ireland semi-final coming up and we know if we don’t take that opportunity we might never get it again.
“Nobody knows what’s around the corner. You lose a couple of players or you just go out of form and that’s it, it’s gone, so you have to take the opportunity when it comes around.”
