O’Connor learning to take the rough with the smooth

Win, lose or draw in Sunday’s Connacht SFC final, Mayo’s Cillian O’Connor and Sligo’s Pat Hughes intend to seek each other out after the final whistle, shake hands, and maybe swap their jerseys.

After all, it won’t be long until they are back living under the same roof again in Dublin, and heading to lectures together at St Pat’s teacher training college, Drumcondra.

Fate has conspired that the two friends will line up on opposite sides at Dr Hyde Park, Roscommon, but until the final whistle sounds on Sunday the lines of communication are down between Ballintubber and Geevagh.

O’Connor, last year’s Young Footballer of the Year, is under no illusions about the task facing the holders.

“I was very impressed with Sligo,” said the 20 years-old as he reflected on their semi-final win over Galway.

“I thought they defended brilliantly after a shaky start. They sorted things out, carried the ball out of defence at pace and gave the Galway forwards no time on the ball at all in the second half. The momentum they built up, Galway just couldn’t turn it. The Sligo forwards finished brilliantly too, scoring 2-13. They’ve got some very dangerous forwards.”

O’Connor, in his second season as a county senior, is a precocious talent who can make and take scores equally well.

He also talks football with the maturity of somebody twice his age. On the field, he exudes a calm authority and that was never more obvious than when he slotted nine points from frees in last July’s rain-lashed final.

“I was probably more nervous the week before the final when we had an ‘A’ v ‘B’ game,” he explained.

“I was given the frees that day and, as a young fella, that was more nerve-wracking because I was among all my peers, the rest of the squad and the management. But when they went well for me there I knew I had the practice done. I’d spend two evenings a week at home kicking on my own, because if you didn’t have that work done you would be nervous, you would be worried.”

Two years ago, on the same day O’Connor was captaining Mayo minors to a victory over Leitrim, Sligo dumped John O’Mahony’s seniors out of the Connacht championship. That defeat at Markievicz Park forms part of the backdrop to Sunday’s rematch and, while O’Connor might not have been involved, he saw what happened with his own eyes.

“It was just a bit of a disaster,” he conceded. “We started brightly but Sligo just completely took over and completely dominated. They have a lot of that team still there, and the lads are keen to make sure that doesn’t happen again and that we don’t fade out like we did that day.”