Horan’s Mayo exuding a new air of confidence

A few questions give you an indication of the kind of man he is.

Surrounded by almost 30 journalists, camera crews and photographers, he’s asked if he has a plan to break down the Donegal system and score a goal.

“Do you know how many we conceded?” he responds curtly.

“We’ve conceded two so we’re very happy with our defensive record, very, very happy. We’re up there and I think Cork are the only other team (on that figure). Our defensive record is very, very good.”

Then another question is fired to him — what do Donegal do well?

“They’re em...” says James Horan, tapping his pen three times and pointing his head down.

“They’re winning games. Donegal do their stuff. They do a number of different things well. They’re a fit team, but we’re a fit team too and we’re a young and hungry team. We do an awful lot well and feel if we do our stuff we’ll be competitive against anyone. That’s where I think it is.”

Get the message. Don’t ask him about Donegal, ask him about Mayo. It’s not a sleight on their opponents ahead of the final but rather a style of thinking which has helped transform Mayo into a harder, tougher side from the naive and innocent one we have seen in the past.

“It’s not about credit. If you come to any of our training sessions this year you will see players with a lot of talent and a lot of skill who are trying to be as good as they can.

“Then we have a team trying to be as good as they can. They are very ambitious guys who are looking to win games. If you are winning games, the credit will eventually come.”

He politely answers the by now perennial ‘what do you do with Mark McHugh?’ question by accepting he is a factor but adding: “We’re comfortable and very, very confident that our game and the way we play is very, very strong.”

And why wouldn’t he feel like that? Mayo and Donegal’s trajectories have been similar since Jimmy McGuinness and Horan took over their counties. That his team find themselves 5/2 underdogs must be a mystery to him.

But Mayo have an advantage with their previous experiences. They have players from the 2004 and 2006 U21 sides and 2005, 2008 and 2009 minor teams that reached All-Ireland finals. Donegal’s only recent experience of an All-Ireland final comes from the 2010 U21s, who lost to Dublin.

Combine that with the senior finals Mayo have reached and he believes they have solid lessons to draw from.

“There are a huge amount to learn from those games and where there’s benefit for this team, we’ll take some of those learnings,” he said. “This team is plotting its own course and over the last two years we have changed some of the opinions that there are about Mayo football. They’re just breaking it down game by game, trying to improve. That’s what we’re doing, we’re on the right track and we’re improving at quite a good rate.”

His own background as a player in the 1996 and 1997 All-Ireland senior finals will also help. He picked up a few nuggets of information.

“I suppose the amount of energy that can be lost before the final is something that I remember.

“It’s a case of being ready for 3.30pm for throw-in, not before and not after. It’s about those last few hours and I have seen a lot of energy lost then, those hours are very, very important. I have seen that happen to some players and others get it spot on.

“That’s a very important time and something that is a very important factor. You always use your own experiences to form plans and how you prepare for a game and we’re lucky too with the backroom that we have. We have James Nallen, who is Mayo’s most experienced player and went through four All-Irelands and numerous big games with both his county and his club. Jimmy’s a great source of information that we will use as we plan for the game.”

When you consider his best games for Mayo came in those finals, it shows the experience will not overawe him like it did previous sides from the county. He’s confident his charges will produce the goods, the only surprise is that they didn’t reach the final last year.

“We expected to be here last year, but we just didn’t quite get there. We’re where we thought we’d be but we take each game as it comes and we’re working on improving on the Dublin match and seeing how we get on.”