MAYO’S MAN OF the match in yesterday’s Connacht final win over Galway Cillian O’Connor revealed how he picked out his wonder pass for their opening goal – Lee Keegan’s high pitched voice.
The Ballintubber clubman proved key in the green and red securing four provincial titles in a row, and his sensational ball through to Keegan set them on their way on the opening half, with O’Connor revealing that the screams of the Westport man alerted him to square the ball.
“Lee is very, very loud when he is coming through so he was screaming at a very high pitched voice so you can’t miss him,” said the 2011 and 2012 young footballer of the year.
“I was thinking I was going to put this over, then I heard him screaming like a girl’s voice and I popped it off to him. You can’t miss it, you can’t miss his high pitched voice!”
O’Connor added that this years’ tougher Connacht championship campaign will stand to Mayo come the All-Ireland quarter-finals after breezing through the province last year with high margin victories over Roscommon and London.
The primary school teacher added that it’s a case of “job done” after coming through a tough encounter with Roscommon in the semis and says their 3-14 to 0-16 victory over the Tribesmen was probably flattering – despite the convincing nature of the performance.
“When you have to push yourself and show character towards the end of games, it is something that you hope will stand to you when you are in a similar position further on,” said O’Connor.
“We’ve had a couple of hard games in the Hyde [Park] and here. Job done is the way we look at it. We got a scare but we were expecting it against Roscommon with the players they have, the shape their team are in.
“We were expecting a tough game [against Galway]. We had to show character towards the end, maybe got the rub of the green but came through it and again today, they threw everything at us.
“The scoreline might flatter us a small bit but had things gone different, it could have been a far tighter game, it flattered us towards the end. We have been lucky with injuries, we haven’t had any big ones lately. We’ve had a god run and training has been good.
“[Croke Park] is where we want to be and that’s where we have played some of our best football so we are looking forward to it.”