This didn’t drop down from the heavens. Jack Coyne’s stunning acceptance speech on Sunday made a point of acknowledging those who had gone before, past and departed players, but also the coaches that helped start the careers of these champions when they were kids.
But the impact of Andy Moran and his coaching team is what made Mayo All-Ireland winners two days ago.
They hit serious turbulence in late April, but how they responded was just one of the steps to sporting heaven.
THE TALLY MAN
Andy Moran explained to the Mayo Football Podcast how his relationship with Paddy Tally was formed.
It was thanks to Moran, then with Monaghan, wandering around Derry’s training centre when Tally was in charge of them before the counties played a challenge game last year.
Paddy Tally celebrates with David McBrien after Mayo’s All-Ireland final win over Kerry
‘I stumbled into a room, and Paddy Tally was there, and we started chatting. I came out of that room, and I was kind of thinking, “Jesus, he’s an impressive fella”.’
Moran said that within 48 hours of Tally’s departure from Derry being confirmed, he had rung the Tyrone native and their conversations ultimately led to Croke Park last Sunday.
Tally’s impact has been immense, with the players instantly taking to his ideas, which fitted exactly with Moran’s bold attacking style.
Tally is a long time on the circuit, and he’s been burdened for years with the reputation of being a defensive coach.
No longer: he showed the extent of his football thinking through his work with Mayo.
MORANBALL
This was the idea that lured Tally in, and it was one in which Moran had no interest in compromising.
He had a vision for how Mayo would play the game, and if it was being heralded on The Sunday Game after the final, it’s not that long ago that Moran’s strategy was being dismissed as unfit for purpose – even in a newly liberated sport.
There’s an obligation on every man, from corner forward back, to engage their marker in attack and defence as displayed here by Ryan O’Donoghue and Kobe McDonald
The idea, in its crudest terms, relies on players winning their individual battles. It eschews zonal defence and it obliges every man, from corner forward back, to engage their marker in attack and defence.
There were early misfires, resulting in heavy league defeats away to Donegal and in Tralee against Kerry.
But Moran was not for turning, and signs began to emerge that the plan was bedding in; the narrow defeat to Tyrone in Omagh was, in retrospect, the most convincing evidence that this just might work.
And how.
THE KOBE CALL
Don’t die wondering could be the motto for Moran’s approach to the Mayo job. That includes tactical courage but also making the decision to invite Kobe McDonald into the Mayo panel shortly after he turned 18.
McDonald’s prodigious talent has been the talk of Mayo football since he was a child, but the combination of his imminent move to Australia and his age and educational responsibilities – he’s awaiting the results of his Leaving Cert – would have led others to let him be and move on with other options.
Kobe McDonald takes on Louth, the youngster had a massive influence on Mayo’s run to glory
Moran decided to take a different approach. He played with McDonald’s father, Ciarán, and that relationship was no hindrance to his efforts to involve Kobe.
What followed was the famous debut off the bench against Monaghan in the league, that brought 1-4 from four shots.
And the story only became more picture-perfect as the season went on, with his loping running style, sublime skills and the sheer joy he got from playing providing Mayo with a catalyst without which they wouldn’t have won Sam Maguire.
ROSSIE REACTION
One of the memories of that evening in Castlebar was the composure of Moran as all around him Mayo fans despaired.
There wasn’t a great crowd at the match to begin with, with the Connacht Council pricing policy keeping them away in their droves.
Those that did attend saw Roscommon rout Mayo in a provincial semi-final, the 10-point margin of defeat a fair reflection of a mismatch.
Dejected Mayo supporters witnessed Roscommon rout Mayo in the Connacht semi-final, the 10-point margin of defeat a fair reflection of a mismatch
The response has since been distilled down to a story of Moran discarding the veterans and giving youth its head. He did both, but that wasn’t the whole story.
The six-week break allowed for an intense period of conditioning, with Mayo getting stronger in matches the longer they went on.
The tactics also started to take and, while they were far from faultless on their return, they simply got better each day. Players like Jack Livingstone, Eoin McGreal, David McBrien, Jack Carney, Darragh Beirne, Kobe McDonald and the mighty Ryan O’Donoghue hit their best form in Croke Park.
SIEGE MENTALITY
Moran’s outburst after the Louth game had taken on the dimensions of an epic even as it was happening. Lee Keegan claimed in an RTÉ column that journalists sniggered as Moran spoke in defence of supporters enjoying the build-up.
That simply didn’t happen. But Moran did ask the assembled media who among us thought they could do it.
Andy Moran fired up his players and the Mayo fans with his ‘us against the world’ approach
No one replied in the affirmative, a not unreasonable stance given the way Kerry were starting to flex by then, and post-Dublin’s win against Donegal.
But Moran, one suspects, couldn’t care less what he thought. What he was doing was tightening the bond between the Mayo team and its fans, once intensely close but which had frayed following the 2021 final loss to Tyrone.
No one but the true believers think we can do this, was his message. It was a brilliant approach, but he won’t need to do it again: the Mayo people are head over heels for their county team again.
