We have enough quality to win title: Maughan

Mark Gallagher assesses Mayo’s chances of success with their manager John Maughan

LAST time John Maughan brought a team to Croke Park their dreams were destroyed by men from the Rebel county. A long time has passed since then, there was a reign in Fermanagh that promised much but delivered little and an urge to give it one more try with Mayo. And between it all, he has managed to fit in coaching his hometown club.

That August afternoon, it wasn’t Colin Corkery who draped the curtain on Maughan’s first tenure as Mayo manager, rather the intelligence of Joe Kavanagh at centre-forward. Reminder, if any are needed, that Nemo Rangers are no one-man team.

“They are a formidable outfit, quality all the way through their team. Colin is a player I thought should have got an Allstar last year. He has been one of the best and most consistent players over the past few years. Joe Kavanagh we know all about, Alan Cronin. When the tide turns against them, they are able to look at Corkery or Steven O’Brien to steady the ship.

“Steven is a player who has really impressed me this year, he seems to be reborn as a footballer. He is after getting himself very lean, he has no significant injury in the past few months and you can see what that has done to his game. He was awesome against Errigal Ciarán and he is one of the players that will need a lot of watching.”

Given that the All-Ireland final is looming on the horizon, it is traditional for someone in Maughan’s position to talk up his opponents to the hilt. However, considering they all have one All-Ireland medal in their back pocket, he can’t escape the credentials of his own side.

“We have a real quality side,” Maughan agrees. “And if we play to our potential, we are more than capable of beating Nemo or anyone for that matter. No messing about. The problem is we have yet to play like we can this year. We showed real quality for 20 minutes against Dunshaughlin, but 20 minutes of football is not going to win an All-Ireland final. The question is, can we extend our quality football for a longer period than we have showed thus far?

“There is real potency in our attack, we have some defenders of real ability, there’s no question about that. But we won’t beat Nemo Rangers with 20 minutes of football and that is something we hope we can address in this game.

“But we are playing a team looking to redeem themselves after losing it two years on the trot. There is huge pressure on their shoulders, which is understandable.”

Although Maughan now lives in Castlebar, his home is still Crossmolina. His mother lives in the town and you never really leave where you were brought up. Crossmolina has stayed in Maughan even during his couple of years of national fame in the mid-90s.

It was a different Crossmolina when he grew up.

When emigration snatched the youth of Ireland, Mayo was affected more than most and Crossmolina affected more than most in Mayo.

“In my time playing football, we won nothing. We went through a lot of lean years. I have an intermediate plaque from 1980 and that’s it. This club saw a lot of bad years, for a variety of reasons, in the 70s and 80s. When I was playing under-age we were the whipping boys in the area.

“It wasn’t until Bórd na Óg came along, set the structures in place. The club starting winning under-age titles, but we were lucky because I saw a lot of other clubs around Mayo who dominated under-age and then, their players went overseas.

We were lucky here that a lot of the lads got work locally, and those that didn’t were focused, keen at coming back for training, continuing to play with the club.

“And that is how the thing changed. You had talented lads like the Nallens, Stephen Roachford, Kieran McDonald, they came down the pipeline, but they were willing to continue playing for the club, even if they went off. They would come back to Crossmolina for training. And I think that is part of the reason the town has become so enraptured by the whole thing, because this is all new to Crossmolina, unlike Nemo Rangers who have such great success and six All-Ireland titles. This has only happened in this town in the past six, seven years.”

There are a lot of demons Maughan will be hoping to bury against Nemo in Croker. Like the last time he left Croke Park as a manager it was against a Cork side. Back again, it’s a Cork side. It’s funny how the circle turns.

Maughan, though, keeps guarded about how the game might develop. “The team that play, that adapt to the occasion, will win. That’s what it comes down to. It might be us, it might not be. I have been a long time in management and the one thing it has taught me is there are no certainties in sport.”

Just ask Billy Morgan and Nemo Rangers that.