Mayo ready to scale Mourne mountain

EUGENE IVERS suspected from day one that he had a special group of players on his hands this year but, after one Thursday night in mid-July, he was sure of it.

Four days earlier, on the Sunday, the Mayo minor team he had taken over only that January had somehow conspired to lose the Connacht final against Galway.

Having entered the game as firm favourites, they kicked a succession of bad wides on the way to a heartbreaking one-point defeat, where injuries to four players also played a part.

A full round of county championship matches was already fixed for the following evening and Ivers decided against a postmortem, hoping instead the quick return to action would help wash away the pain such a defeat would help fester.

Now, here he was four days later, making the drive from Kiltimagh to the beach at Enniscrone where the squad had agreed to meet, wondering what to expect when he arrived.

An All-Ireland quarter-final with Ulster champions Armagh lay ahead but Ivers knew their season hinged on this evening by the Atlantic. If the attitude was wrong this night, they could kiss their summer goodbye.

He wasn’t disappointed. Lads talked about where they had gone wrong and how they would put it right. As usual, wing-forward Aidan Campbell and wing-back Chris Barrett led the rallying cry and the tone was set. Mayo would not lie down.

Only a point separated them from Armagh in the last eight, but Mayo had conceded a goal in the last seconds to muddy what had been an all-too-clear gap between the sides.

Kerry were next to fall by the wayside, but not before launching a stunning comeback that saw a six-point deficit reduced to just one.

Some saw their late fade as evidence that this was just another Mayo team with a brittle spine.

Ivers begs to differ.

“After the league I knew we had something to work with,” he says.

“I knew they had courage. Through the league they showed great determination. We looked like being beaten a few days but they always came back with a late point or goal to get a draw or win it.”

For Mayo though, even more than most, the final nut has long been the hardest to crack.

John P Kean’s minor teams of 1999 and 2000 both tasted defeat in September to Down and Cork, but then they were just two among many in recent times.

None of the current minor panel was even born when the 1985 minor captain Michael Fitzmaurice became the last Mayo man to climb the Hogan Stands and accept an All-Ireland trophy on behalf of his county.

For boys so young, that’s a lot of history to carry on their shoulders on the biggest day of their careers, though Ivers insists it is of no concern to either himself or his players.

“This bunch are concentrating on their own game, on their own year as minors. What happened before doesn’t concern them, whether it was last year, 10 or 20 years ago. Mayo have won enough times in Croke Park in the past and they’ll do so again.”

To do so tomorrow they will have to beat a Down team that enters the game as 8-15 favourites and it is Mark Turley’s side that seems to boast the marquee names, a fact Ivers accepts.

Despite his tender years, James Colgan anchored Down U-21s’ defence from centre-back in this year’s All-Ireland final against Galway.

Martin Clarke’s role has been described by the Mayo manager as “similar to Michael Donnellan’s in his heyday” and Kevin Duffin is a wing-back in the dynamo mood of Declan Meehan.

Add in a potent full-forward line and Mayo’s bid to make history and allow a county a deep sigh of relief can be seen for what it is. A big ask.

Down likes to play their way up the field, as far as midfield at least, and Mayo will have to disrupt their arteries from numbers one to 15, as they did so successfully for much of the game against Kerry.

"Ivers says: “The ability is in this team. They’re fit enough but you need the bit of luck. We had a little bit against Kerry and hopefully we’ll have a bit against Down as well.”