THE LAST TIME Mayo’s footballers did not boast Division 1 status in the National League, John Bruton was Taoiseach, U2 were going through their ‘Pop’ phase, and David Clifford hadn’t been born.
For all their ups and downs in the All-Ireland championship Mayo have been a model of consistency in the league, enjoying the longest current run in the top tier, which dates back to their promotion in 1997.
Yet that proud run is now under real threat, with yesterday’s decision to suspend all GAA activity for at least two weeks only serving to postpone what has looked increasingly inevitable over the past few weeks.
Five games into their National League campaign, the county are starting relegation in the face with just one win to their name. It’s quite the turnaround from winning a first league title in 18 years last season.
The benefits of the league tend to split opinion, but for Andy Moran, dropping down to Division 2 could have real consequences for the county’s long-term development.
“There’s a few reasons why it’s important,” the now-retired corner forward explains.
“It’s obviously important because you see Oisín Mullin last week marking David Clifford, the best in the country. All of a sudden, he knows that… his bit of movement, how it feels to mark a player of that quality. He’s as good a forward as there is at the minute. To be playing against that level, for these young fellas coming through, I think that’s important. Then obviously the financial side of it too.”
Mayo’s predicament is all the more pressing considering their fate is out of their hands. James Horan’s side still have to play Galway and Tyrone, but will also need teams above them to slip up if they are to stay afloat.
“You take great pride in it,” Moran says of the county’s impressive league record.
“Some years we snuck over the line and we got there, and it wasn’t that we were saying ‘We had a great league’, but it’s the psychological element of staying in Division 1. If we go down, it’s not the biggest disaster of all time, but at this stage, with two games to go, you would like to hope that the boys have something in them to pull out two results.”
Moran himself is still getting used to life on the outside.
After making over 180 appearances in the green and red of Mayo, the veteran forward called time on his inter-county career following last year’s All-Ireland semi-final defeat to old foes Dublin.
So far, he’s found the transition easier than expected.
“Have I missed playing? If I’m being honest, I haven’t,” he admits.
“It worries me slightly, because I don’t miss playing at all. I’m finding it a tiny bit hard to have the hunger to go to play club football at the minute, but I haven’t missed the whole county scene.”
One thing he surely hasn’t missed is the chaos that so often attaches itself to Mayo.
In the last few weeks Mayo cut all ties with long-time benefactor Tim O’Leary over comments he made on Twitter calling for the dismissal of Horan, a situation Moran understandably doesn’t want to weigh in on, given he knows all the parties involved.
He is, however, more comfortable offering his opinion of the sudden departure of former Mayo coach Donie Buckley from Kerry’s backroom team. Moran still keeps occasional contact with Buckley, and expects his old coach to find a new project soon.
“There were big rumours over the winter that it was going to happen but the timing of it, I’m very surprised,” Moran says.
“We would have great time for Donie in Mayo, he spent six great years with us and is an exceptional coach, but they probably have other really quality people around the place as well, and if they are happy with that decision, I suppose that’s on Kerry.
“I think his strengths are clear to see. Even last year he was involved in a team that got to an All-Ireland final. He got us to multiple All-Ireland finals. We didn’t get over the line but got to multiple All-Ireland finals. He’s just a good coach. Any person that can keep a team going for six years, I think that tells their quality.
“I wouldn’t expect him to pop up [with another team] in 2020, but he will most certainly pop up in 2021.
“I think it will be yesterday’s news next week. If there’s a management [team] and they’re not getting on or if they’re not kind of doing the same thing, I think it will probably do more damage by sticking with it than not sticking with it.
“Donie Buckley is an exceptional coach. Donie Buckley will have countless phone calls this week in terms of club teams and county teams, and he’ll be back in action fairly soon.”
As for Moran’s own plans, he has been keeping himself busy through a variety of different interests.
As well as running a few gyms, Moran has stepped onto the other side of the whitewash to do some coaching with the Mayo U20s and his club, Ballaghadereen. He’s even dipped his toes into the world of media by doing commentary for Midwest Radio.
It’s not surprising he’s found himself in demand.
As a player Moran won eight Connacht titles, two All Stars and, at the age of 33, was named Footballer of the Year in 2017.
Yet it is easy to paint his story as one of heartbreak. In a way, the six All-Ireland runners-up medals he pocketed represents the most extraordinary number of them all.
It is the type of record that could torment a man, but he insists the experience of losing six All-Ireland finals [playing in five] does not hang over him.
“I would be lying if I told you there wasn’t moments,” he continues.
“I remember taking James McCarthy down the inside coming out on the right in the 2016 final and missing it with the right foot… Moments that you think about and say ‘Jesus I’d love to have that moment again.’
“But like, I genuinely live in the framework, and I’m sure you do too, that I and we as a group did everything that we could do to get there. And we didn’t get there. We move on. Amateur sport is funny, because it’s the only sport in the world where you are defined by one game. In soccer like, if you don’t win the Premier League you might win a Champions League, you know? And they make lots of money and do other things, and their career is defined in other ways.
“If we keep defining ourselves by winning or losing one game, you’re mad. So I don’t. I genuinely don’t.
“I was coming up the hall [in Croke Park] there, I saw a great photo of us in the 2017 final. If you can’t take a sense of pride of being there… Of course, Jesus, I wanted to win 10 of them [All-Irelands], but like, listen, you don’t win one, you just move on.
“I have kids at home, there’s more important things. I would say my journey starts now in terms of coaching, trying to learn the game, and hopefully [I can] come back in years to come, maybe five or six years time, and try to get back involved with Mayo again and see am I good enough that side. So you know, the journey isn’t finished yet.”
Will that journey end with Moran wearing the Mayo bainisteoir bib?
“I’m not sure I’m too keen on the management side,” Moran says, pausing for a moment as he collects his thoughts.
“But some coaching role within a set-up maybe, that might be the way I go. I don’t know. Again, in terms of business, where I’m going to end up… Like I didn’t know five years [ago] we would have a couple of gyms. In terms of football I played full-back, I played wing-back, I played wing-forward, you never know where you’ll end up.
“So we’ll go away, we’ll discover it, see am I any good at the whole coaching craic. If I am, we develop. If I’m not, we’ll move on.”
Andy Moran was speaking in Croke Park as McKeever Sports announced it has secured the official GAA licence to manufacture official club and county playing kit and leisurewear.
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