Burning desire for success drives Mayo

THERE'S a discernible freshness about the Mayo footballers this year. And a new-found confidence.

It's because a lot of them weren't involved in the National League campaign for a number of reasons. Manager John Maughan points out that 'surgery and travel' were the primary ones. Their appetite for football - fuelled by an overpowering desire to make that long-awaited breakthrough - characterised their play in Connacht and continues to. It's not an illusion. They are fresh.

By way of illustration. Mayo played Tyrone in the League in Castlebar on the St. Patrick's weekend, losing by eight points. When the counties clashed a fortnight ago in the Bank of Ireland championship quarter-final, eight of the starting fifteen in McHale Park were substitutes. Two others are not in the squad, which means that a mere five lined out in Croke Park. Among them was team captain Fergal Costello, who has lost his place for tomorrow's All-Ireland semi-final game with Fermanagh.

Maughan had been with Fermanagh for a year before he agreed to get involved with Mayo a second time two years ago. Joined by former player Liam McHale and George Golden, he says he did so because he genuinely believed the potential was there to win an All-Ireland.

"Every team manager who has been involved with Mayo in recent years has said, 'yes, it's time to win an All-Ireland. We have won Connacht titles over the last two decades and we all aspire to win the big one. That's the reason we got involved. We took on the job for three years and within the three years this is our goal. This is our aspiration," he explained.

While himself and McHale might often be seen together consulting on the sideline, Maughan stresses the importance of Golden's role as the third selector - and that of trainer Marty McGrath. "It's a team thing in every aspect - a team management, a team of footballers. "It's not about any single individual. Likewise with management, it's not about John Maughan, it's about Liam McHale and George Golden who has done a huge amount of work preparing the team and likewise with Marty McGrath. Marty has been absolutely fantastic. In Maughan's own words, getting Kieran McDonald back into the Mayo team was the final piece in the jig-saw. Apart from his obvious talents, he's one of a small group with links to the county's last appearance in a final - in 1997 against Kerry.

The unity within the squad - which he makes a point of emphasising - developed initially through the short break the squad spent together in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York at the beginning of May. They went there the day after they had played New York in their opening championship and were together for five days. It was, says Maughan, 'a sound decision, made with economics in mind.'

"It was based on the fact that we were out and it was just a question of extending our stay by a short period. We had a lot of young guys who wouldn't have known some of the older members. The idea was that they would all get to know each other a bit better and that was achieved. We had young fellows on the panel like Dermot Geraghty, Colin Moran, Alan Costello guys coming off the Under-21 squad who wouldn't have known David Brady for instance, or some of the older members of the squad." Brady had been away in Australia but it was only when he returned home that contact was made with him.

After deliberating about it for a while, he decided to re-join the squad. He articulated his mission statement and that of the team in an interview after the Tyrone victory when he said: "I didn't come home just to win a Connacht medal........"

When Maughan talks about Mayo's record in the recent past, he does so in terms which indicate his training as an army officer. On a previous occasion when I asked him about planning for certain eventualities, he replied that it was SOP (only learning later that it meant Standard Operating Practice).

Success is all about maximising the resources you have at your disposal,' he says, adding nonchalantly: "and if you're good enough you're good enough. If you're not, you're not.

"This year we have greater depth in the squad. We didn't have the real depth in 1996 or 1997 that we have now.