“Mayo have been in 10 All-Ireland finals since 1989 and won none. That won’t change until attitudes change. If some egos aren’t checked and outside influences curbed, the problems will continue,”
- Pat Holmes, Irish Independent, 2016.
*****
A DECADE OR so ago, when Dublin were winning All-Irelands for fun, mostly at Mayo’s expense, Jim Gavin spoke about developing leaders.
“In my opinion, most leaders are nurtured, rather than (it being their) nature,” he said in the summer of 2016.
That was a claim he made regularly, that his job was principally to facilitate and to help transfer power and responsibility from the management to the players, for them to take ownership of their own progress.
The Gavin approach clearly worked because as the Dubs prepare to face Mayo all over again, those golden generation performers whom he invested so much time in are now steering the ship.
Take the 2015 season, just over a decade ago, as the base point and the amount of Gavin’s players from that year who are mentors now is striking.
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Ger Brennan, who retired in October of 2015, is senior manager for starters. He is joined by selectors/coaches Denis Bastick, Stephen Cluxton and Dean Rock. Jonny Cooper is the U-20 manager and is assisted by Michael Darragh Macauley and Kevin McManamon.
Dublin manager Ger Brennan. Tom Maher / INPHO
Tom Maher / INPHO / INPHO
Brennan was injured for Dublin’s semi-final replay win over Mayo in 2015 but the other six all featured in that game. Throw in Darren Daly, a Dublin selector under Dessie Farrell, this season’s Naas manager Philly McMahon and Paul Flynn, who went on to lead the Gaelic Players Association, and that’s a whole pile of graduates from Gavin’s mentorship programme.
The thing is, you could say the very same about that Mayo group from 2015 and if the two sets of former players fancied organising an anniversary reunion to coincide with this weekend’s meeting in Castlebar, there’d be a decent cast on site.
Andy Moran came on early in the second half of that 2015 game, helping his team to establish a four-point lead before Dublin suddenly hit the spin setting, outscoring Mayo 3-4 to 0-2 in the run-in and leaving Moran and his colleagues feeling like they’d just been tossed around in a washing machine for 15 minutes.
Andy Moran and Jonny Cooper in action in 2015. Cathal Noonan / INPHO
Cathal Noonan / INPHO / INPHO
A few weeks after that defeat, Mayo captain Keith Higgins and Cillian O’Connor sought a meeting with joint managers Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly and informed them that a vote of no confidence had gone against the management, 27-7. Nuclear button pushed.
Holmes and Connelly eventually stepped aside and held their counsel throughout 2016 before, after another All-Ireland final loss to Dublin, this time under Stephen Rochford, they cut loose in a substantial and excoriating 4,500 word Irish Independent interview that left us in no uncertain terms about their feelings towards those who orchestrated the heave.
“We’re talking about a small number within the panel,” said Holmes of an apparent rump of malcontents.
“If a small group within the squad are allowed to dictate the way they tried to when we were there, it’s not good for Mayo football,” added Connelly.
Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
“If that situation is still there, the likelihood is that they will win nothing. That’s the bottom line as we see it. In our days playing for Mayo, we wouldn’t have stood for a small group calling the shots or having all the say. They would have been told fairly quickly where to go.”
A decade on, Mayo are still chasing that elusive All-Ireland and the really interesting thing is, key figures from the mid-2010s era that contested five finals between 2013 and 2017 – losing four and drawing one – are now the ones holding the reins, just like how things have moved on in Dublin.
Moran has Colm Boyle in his senior backroom while Higgins is the U-20 manager with Kevin McLoughlin and David Drake in his backroom. All five of them featured in that 2015 loss to the Dubs.
It is a fascinating thought to consider exactly what they learned from that turbulent and at times chaotic period, and the decade or so when they were so painfully kept under Dublin’s thumb before eventually beating them in an All-Ireland semi-final in 2021.
Like Dublin, that Mayo team of 2015 contained some of the most talented, charismatic and influential performers ever to wear the green and red jersey. When Mayo were looking for a new manager last summer, Diarmuid Connolly even suggested that Aidan O’Shea was an option. “Why not?” said the Dublin great.
O’Shea, of course, is still playing and hit a crucial goal in the win over Galway last weekend. Rob Hennelly and Stephen Coen, also from the 2015 group, played in Salthill too while O’Connor is still part of the panel.
Throw in current GPA chief Tom Parsons, The Sunday Game pundit Lee Keegan and government minister Alan Dillon and you get a feel for just how deep that well of highly motivated, outside-the-box thinkers in 2015 really was.
Perhaps it was inevitable that those two playing groups, Gavin’s Dublin and the Mayo of Horan/Rochford/Holmes-Connelly would throw up plenty of future coaches and managers.
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Dublin's Jim Gavin and Dean Rock. Ryan Byrne / INPHO
Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
The Kerry squad that contested the 2015 final, for example, gave us future inter-county manager Paul Galvin and current Kerry coach Kieran Donaghy.
The Donegal goalkeeper from the 2014 final, Paul Durcan, is currently part of Mayo’s backroom while both McGee brothers, Neil and Eamonn, and Colm McFadden are part of county setups. Karl Lacey is the current Donegal minor manager. Still, none of them went through the sort of experiences and school of pain that all of those now in charge of Mayo’s flagship football teams graduated from.
The early indications are positive with Mayo playing an attractive brand of football, in the mould of Moran himself and, crucially, winning games against old adversaries. Particularly pleasing for Moran, in the context of this weekend, is the fact that Brennan has inherited a Dublin group that look a long way off the dominant force they were a decade ago.
Opponents on the pitch then, rivals on the sideline now.
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Golden generation still calling the shots as Dublin and Mayo rivalry enters a new era
“Mayo have been in 10 All-Ireland finals since 1989 and won none. That won’t change until attitudes change. If some egos aren’t checked and outside influences curbed, the problems will continue,”
- Pat Holmes, Irish Independent, 2016.
*****
A DECADE OR so ago, when Dublin were winning All-Irelands for fun, mostly at Mayo’s expense, Jim Gavin spoke about developing leaders.
“In my opinion, most leaders are nurtured, rather than (it being their) nature,” he said in the summer of 2016.
That was a claim he made regularly, that his job was principally to facilitate and to help transfer power and responsibility from the management to the players, for them to take ownership of their own progress.
The Gavin approach clearly worked because as the Dubs prepare to face Mayo all over again, those golden generation performers whom he invested so much time in are now steering the ship.
Take the 2015 season, just over a decade ago, as the base point and the amount of Gavin’s players from that year who are mentors now is striking.
Ger Brennan, who retired in October of 2015, is senior manager for starters. He is joined by selectors/coaches Denis Bastick, Stephen Cluxton and Dean Rock. Jonny Cooper is the U-20 manager and is assisted by Michael Darragh Macauley and Kevin McManamon.
Brennan was injured for Dublin’s semi-final replay win over Mayo in 2015 but the other six all featured in that game. Throw in Darren Daly, a Dublin selector under Dessie Farrell, this season’s Naas manager Philly McMahon and Paul Flynn, who went on to lead the Gaelic Players Association, and that’s a whole pile of graduates from Gavin’s mentorship programme.
The thing is, you could say the very same about that Mayo group from 2015 and if the two sets of former players fancied organising an anniversary reunion to coincide with this weekend’s meeting in Castlebar, there’d be a decent cast on site.
Andy Moran came on early in the second half of that 2015 game, helping his team to establish a four-point lead before Dublin suddenly hit the spin setting, outscoring Mayo 3-4 to 0-2 in the run-in and leaving Moran and his colleagues feeling like they’d just been tossed around in a washing machine for 15 minutes.
A few weeks after that defeat, Mayo captain Keith Higgins and Cillian O’Connor sought a meeting with joint managers Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly and informed them that a vote of no confidence had gone against the management, 27-7. Nuclear button pushed.
Holmes and Connelly eventually stepped aside and held their counsel throughout 2016 before, after another All-Ireland final loss to Dublin, this time under Stephen Rochford, they cut loose in a substantial and excoriating 4,500 word Irish Independent interview that left us in no uncertain terms about their feelings towards those who orchestrated the heave.
“We’re talking about a small number within the panel,” said Holmes of an apparent rump of malcontents.
“If a small group within the squad are allowed to dictate the way they tried to when we were there, it’s not good for Mayo football,” added Connelly.
“If that situation is still there, the likelihood is that they will win nothing. That’s the bottom line as we see it. In our days playing for Mayo, we wouldn’t have stood for a small group calling the shots or having all the say. They would have been told fairly quickly where to go.”
A decade on, Mayo are still chasing that elusive All-Ireland and the really interesting thing is, key figures from the mid-2010s era that contested five finals between 2013 and 2017 – losing four and drawing one – are now the ones holding the reins, just like how things have moved on in Dublin.
Moran has Colm Boyle in his senior backroom while Higgins is the U-20 manager with Kevin McLoughlin and David Drake in his backroom. All five of them featured in that 2015 loss to the Dubs.
It is a fascinating thought to consider exactly what they learned from that turbulent and at times chaotic period, and the decade or so when they were so painfully kept under Dublin’s thumb before eventually beating them in an All-Ireland semi-final in 2021.
Like Dublin, that Mayo team of 2015 contained some of the most talented, charismatic and influential performers ever to wear the green and red jersey. When Mayo were looking for a new manager last summer, Diarmuid Connolly even suggested that Aidan O’Shea was an option. “Why not?” said the Dublin great.
O’Shea, of course, is still playing and hit a crucial goal in the win over Galway last weekend. Rob Hennelly and Stephen Coen, also from the 2015 group, played in Salthill too while O’Connor is still part of the panel.
Throw in current GPA chief Tom Parsons, The Sunday Game pundit Lee Keegan and government minister Alan Dillon and you get a feel for just how deep that well of highly motivated, outside-the-box thinkers in 2015 really was.
Perhaps it was inevitable that those two playing groups, Gavin’s Dublin and the Mayo of Horan/Rochford/Holmes-Connelly would throw up plenty of future coaches and managers.
The Kerry squad that contested the 2015 final, for example, gave us future inter-county manager Paul Galvin and current Kerry coach Kieran Donaghy.
The Donegal goalkeeper from the 2014 final, Paul Durcan, is currently part of Mayo’s backroom while both McGee brothers, Neil and Eamonn, and Colm McFadden are part of county setups. Karl Lacey is the current Donegal minor manager. Still, none of them went through the sort of experiences and school of pain that all of those now in charge of Mayo’s flagship football teams graduated from.
The early indications are positive with Mayo playing an attractive brand of football, in the mould of Moran himself and, crucially, winning games against old adversaries. Particularly pleasing for Moran, in the context of this weekend, is the fact that Brennan has inherited a Dublin group that look a long way off the dominant force they were a decade ago.
Opponents on the pitch then, rivals on the sideline now.
*****
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