Old highs and new lows as Mayo savour Cork slaying

By day’s end, football delivered the first pair of All-Ireland semi-finalists most believed would fetch up at headquarters in three weeks’ time.

Kerry’s progression beyond Galway was as routine as Kerry tend to make these challenges — which is to say, not routine in any way.

Mayo were strong enough, in the literal sense, to hold off Cork’s late charge in the second quarter-final in front of nearly 38,000 folk. The Connacht champions believed their day’s work was done when they cruised seven points in front after 50 minutes. In the end, they won with a point to spare.

The journey south last night must have been odd for the Cuthbert group — a certain pride in defeat, but fury at the manner of it.

Colm O’Neill’s injury-time free — pointed on the basis of an exchange with referee Cormac Reilly concerning the time remaining — begun a chain of strange events that turned the quarter-final into a full-on fire-storm.

While Cork were indignantly surrounding the Meath official at the final whistle — he blew from the Mayo kick-out after O’Neill’s score — James Horan was already pulling the pin out of a grenade in the press room, lobbing around incendiary language like “disgrace” and “a new low” in a manner that is scarcely in keeping with his reputation for precision strikes. Or maybe it is.

Those who monitor these things tell us he refused to shake hands with Brian Cuthbert at game’s end — the 1-19 to 2-15 victory made so much sweeter, said Horan, by the comments of Cork’s management last week regarding the tactical fouling of their forwards — in particular Cillian O’Connor and Kevin McLoughlin.

It was an innocent query from a Western People writer regarding the team’s character that released a dam-burst of invective from Horan. If it is “unprecedented in Gaelic football where an [opposition] management team names players,” nobody outside Mayo had the sense in the build-up that Cork selector Ronan McCarthy had taken mind games into the sewer. Within the Mayo camp, however, it was a matter of integrity, and nothing less.

“It is disgraceful, and they should be ashamed of what they have done. Does it make the victory sweeter? It probably does. They will face the Cork public after that but we are happy with where we are,” said Horan.

So quickly after, it’s difficult to thread a line from Horan’s comments to the meeting with Kerry, but there may be some masterful psychology in his outburst. Mayo have used a prominent sports psychologist frequently for the past four seasons. Otherwise, it was simply, if intriguingly, an over-the-top volley at their victims.

Cuthbert, for his part, looked perturbed and bothered when he entered to take media questions, but he disengaged immediately from any counter-barrage.

Probably correctly.

Horan was more sanguine about the issue of late frees and the referee’s interpretation of time remaining. Last September — if not yesterday — Horan and Cuthbert might have been as one on the controversy. He wasn’t asked about other issues. Notebooks were already full.

Only Cuthbert knew the darkness of the place he occupied after the Munster final, so there was some relief whipped into the torment of their season’s end.

“The lesson for us is don’t put yourself in a position where you’re hanging on for a last-minute free to decide whether you’re going to have to go for a goal or wait for more time,” he said. “The referee had nothing to do with us losing today. We had a bit of a rocky patch at the start of the second half and that cost us the game. But the players’ character was questioned; their desire was questioned; and I would like to think they answered that today.”

On the field, Mayo’s capacity for back-alley scrapping for possession is as impressive now as it has been at any stage of Horan’s tenure. Cork’s players walked into a green and red blender time after time with doubly-damaging consequences — turnover ball and Mayo advancing on an undermanned Cork rearguard. Donal Vaughan operated very efficiently at midfield, but no one was as effective as his partner Seamus O’Shea. Cillian O’Connor was especially prominent in the decisive third quarter, as were Moran and Dillon. Indeed Mayo’s lack of impetus up front late on might have been attributable in part to Moran’s removal from the fray 11 minutes into the second period. Enda Varley made no such impression on Eoin Cadogan.

Cork will wonder was there more than 20 minutes in Donncha O’Connor, who has been plagued by injuries this year. His 1-3 suggested so, but hindsight is a great selector.

Brian Hurley regained his mojo in his preferred inside role and his rebuttal of Aidan O’Shea’s goal in the final minutes was a defiant last lunge from Cork.

If Cork’s comeback answered some questions, Kerry left others hanging out there. The Kingdom’s capacity for turning straight-forward things fussy is a source of cuteness and charm to some, but not to Eamonn Fitzmaurice. His defence isn’t nearly stingy enough to accommodate these forays into stuporville.

At several points in their 1-20 to 2-10 victory over Alan Mulholland’s Galway, Kerry had their prey prostrate — such as the 1-5 to no score lead after 17 minutes, or the 1-11 to 1-4 advantage early in the second half. However, when Michael Lundy sashayed through a non-existent Kerry rearguard after 42 minutes for Galway’s second straight-through-the-middle goal, there was but two points between the sides.

Paul Geaney — Kerry’s best player when they were searching for calm waters — missed a goal chance and Declan O’Sullivan fluffed the rebound. With eight minutes remaining it was still a one-score game (1-15 to 2-9) before Barry John Keane made his pitch for a semi-final start with three points to soothe Kerry anxieties.

The Kingdom lost Bryan Sheehan early to a hip flexor problem, but both he and Stephen O’Brien will make the meeting with Mayo on August 24. Kerry’s Croke Park duels with Mayo have been profitable, but it’s not the same Mayo, as Horan indicated yesterday.

“Both teams had a serious game today,” said Fitzmaurice. “And then you’re going up another notch in three weeks’ time. All teams are peaking physically for that end of August/September phase. Traditionally, semi-finals can be a lot more physical than finals can be.”

Of all the press room nanny goats yesterday, it mightn’t have been the most powerful, but was arguably the most prescient.