CILLIAN O’CONNOR HAS spoken out about how the disappointment of Mayo’s All Ireland final loss ‘still eats away’ and he admits he would have gone for goal at the end of the game if he had known time was up.
O’Connor pointed a late free to cut Dublin’s advantage to 2-12 to 1-14 in September’s game in Croke Park but referee Joe McQuillan blew the full-time whistle from the restart.
But the Mayo attacker had not realised that time was rolling as he lined up that late kick.
“I just said how long was left and his answer was 30 seconds. Then Barry (Moran) shouted how long was left and he said 30 (seconds) and Donal Vaughan came running in and he said 30 (seconds).
“It was obviously rolling all the time with people in the way, me moving, steadying, taking my time and doing my routine obviously. He was including all of that, I wasn’t.
“If I could go back now knowing that the game would be blown from the restart, obviously I would have thrown caution to the wind and tried to go for the goal.
“But I thought there might be a passage of play. My understanding was that there would be another little bit of time. If we had maybe won the kickout and scored an equaliser, it would have looked like a good decision.”
O’Connor is refusing to blame anyone for the incident.
“Joe, he didn’t do anything wrong either. There’s no point dwelling on it and I wouldn’t be pointing the finger at anyone and I wouldn’t be in any way sour or bitter.
“At the same time you have to remember that there were 13 or 14 people on the line. The game wasn’t lost in the last passage.”
The end result was the same as Mayo suffered dejection for the second successive September.
“Just blown off your feet really with the disappointment. It’s kind of hard to put into words. It hits you very hard and it eats away at you for a long time and it doesn’t really go away. It takes a long time to get over and we’re still dealing with it.”
Diarmuid O’Connor of Mayo celebrates at the final whistle
Pic: INPHO/Donall Farmer
There was a silver lining on that September day as O’Connor’s younger brother did bag an All-Ireland medal with Mayo.
“Diarmuid was midfield for the minors that day. It was great to get that bit of news going out, someone just told me that the minors had won.
“That was a nice little boost. Ah jeez, I was delighted for them. I know a good few of the minor lads, they’re hot on our tails at the moment. It won’t be long until we see a few coming into the senior team. That’s a good thing.”
