The lazy Mayo ‘bottler’ charge holds no water

While rumination on the efficacy of curses is no longer regarded as cutting edge analysis, slightly more respectable is the idea Mayo are labouring under some fatal psychological flaw that is continually preventing them from reaching the mountain top. What else explains seven successive All-Ireland defeats?

The bar-room analyst’s favourite charge — ‘bottler’ — is, sadly, never far from the conversation with Mayo.

Favoured for its thoroughgoing abusiveness, the ‘bottler’ label doesn’t just impugn mere sporting ability. Rather, it establishes the target as an all-round windy weakling who could barely be described as a man at all.