‘Unfinished business’ drives veteran Nallen

JAMES NALLEN is just a year off his 30th birthday, but seems to have been around for an awful long time. He’s a veteran of three championship finals with Mayo, but still chasing his dream. What he describes as “unfinished business”.

A university lecturer in Galway, his biggest claim to fame is his consistency in the demanding position of centre back for club and county over the last 12 years. It earned him an All-Ireland club medal five years with Crossmolina, two All-Star awards in eight years and selection on the Irish panel for the 2004 International Rules Series.

It may very well be all he has to show on his sporting CV when he eventually calls it a day, but right now he’s not looking beyond Sunday’s Bank of Ireland All-Ireland Senior Football final against Kerry.

As the gap stretches from the last of the county’s three titles in 1951, he agrees that the pressure to deliver has grown more intense. Asked if he thinks the current team can live with that pressure and he gives the predictable answer: “You just can’t say.”

Since he made the breakthrough to senior ranks, he has played in four finals (including the 1996 replay with Meath, memorable for the mass brawl in the early minutes). Reflecting on those games, he tries to assess where the team was found wanting and hopes the experiences can benefit this time.

“You expect to win every time you go out to play a game. Going back to ‘96, that final was there to be won and we didn’t go after it. In 1997 we were bad. And, in ‘04 we were wiped out quickly and we just couldn’t come back. The reality is that there is no excuse,” he commented.

Understandably, his memories of the final two yeas ago are freshest. In his opinion, losing to a Kerry team in which Johnny Crowley was one of the stars at full-forward, was the cumulative result of a campaign which didn’t ask questions of the team until too late.

“We won our games against Roscommon and Galway easily and when we came up against Fermanagh (in the All-Ireland semi-final) it was our first struggle. When we were really put to the test by Kerry we didn’t have an answer for them.”

They didn’t know how to pull back a lead. Their composure wasn’t good.

The battling qualities which earned Mayo a spectacular win against Dublin last time out have been evident all through the season, he points out. As far back as their championship game against Leitrim, the game seemed to be going from them after losing a player. Against Galway in the Connacht final they were four points down at one stage and were expected to fold.

“We battled back hard at that point and came out on top. Dublin was a greater hill to club. Naturally, we’d prefer to be five or six points ahead and pushing on rather than being five or six points behind and struggling to catch up. The characteristic of the side is that when it has been tight, we have battled hard and got through.

“We have some extremely skilful footballers, but finals are about being won — not impressing the crowd. For me, it’s about the intensity of the exchanges and coming out on top. We have had the games this year to test us physically and mentally and we know that if we can bring what we have learned into the final we have no reason to doubt our ability.”

Against Dublin, it was mental toughness that saw them through, and also the conviction that the game wasn’t lost even when things looked gloomy.

Nallen credits the new management team for bringing freshness to training and to their success in bonding the squad. Former manager John Maughan was big into “endurance and physicality in training”, whereas Mickey Moran and John Morrison have put a premium on “football and skill development”.

He also praises them for the way they have managed to convince all of the players they have a part to play — an approach reflected in the use of so many substitutes over the course of the campaign. “I think they have been very good in addressing that situation,” he said.

“I wouldn’t say mistakes were made in ‘04, but any time you lose it’s very easy to look back and say this and that was wrong. When you win it doesn’t matter what happened — everything was right.

“We couldn’t have seen back in February that we’d be challenging for a title whereas the likes of Kerry consider themselves potential All-Ireland winners every year.

“We matured during the season and we had a very good league campaign. We are where we want to be, but at this stage it’s about winning titles.

“It’s about playing football on the day, about minimising opportunities for the opposition. I would hope — I would expect — that we are in a position to do all those things.

“On different days both sets of players have excelled. On other days, they haven’t done so well. It will be interesting to see what team shows up on Sunday.”