Horan’s results a reflection of what everyone puts in

The weeks leading up to championship games tend to be hectic for James Horan. There’s the media responsibilities, midweek training sessions, medical and player status reports, the day job in Ballina Beverages, a training camp the weekend before the game, video analysis, home life...

He had been asked to attend a GAA camp last Thursday close to where he works and obliged. The job may be a busy one but it also comes with responsibilities that he holds as his creed.

To build something special you have to encourage players to create a pride in the jersey at all levels. It’s something Mickey Harte instilled in Tyrone. Harte’s minors were taught to fold the jersey after a game and leave it on the table in the centre of the room. Respect the jersey and you respect the traditions of the county.

The kids James visited may never kick a ball for Mayo and he could have easily blown it off. But instead he turned up. Respect the jersey once and it will stay with you forever.

The organisers had set the hall up with the kids in rows of seats in front of the stage. They sat impatiently waiting for Horan to take the empty seat. But when he came in, he surveyed the scene, grabbed the chair and placed it in the middle of a throng of kids.

“Now, any questions for me?” he said before undergoing a Soccer Am style team-mates grilling.

For those who have only seen him on the television it provided a rare insight into the man, one that is hard to expose when a microphone or camera is stuck in his face. He laughed a few times when the School Around The Corner type questions like ‘how many times have you won the Sam Maguire?’ came.

But when the kids were serious he gave serious responses. He told them he always expects his side to win and of the importance of a squad pulling together to fulfil a goal. Those sentences uttered from anyone else would normally fall on deaf ears to a bunch of kids who just wanted to kick a ball or swing a hurley but coming from a man within their own county that they had seen in the newspapers and on the Sunday Game it was as if a switch was flicked. Attention was absolute.

After the questions he took them out on the pitch, posed for photos, signed autographs and imparted words of wisdom to individuals wondering how they could improve their game. And then it was back to the grind of preparing for an All-Ireland semi-final.

One of the first things he introduced to the Mayo squad was the notion that they were all a team and the results in a year was a reflection of what everyone put in, not just the players on the pitch but the backroom staff and the players in the stand too. So when the match-day 24 come off the field after a game they slap the backs of those who didn’t make the squad for pushing them all year.

Maybe that’s why he believes no matter what is said outside their group, they can only control what they do for themselves. So when the notion of whether they are already preparing for an All-Ireland final came up at the press conference last week he replied: “I can genuinely say no.

“The approach we’ve taken for the past three years is that we’re taking it one game at a time. I know it bores the life out of you [media] and it’s not what you want to hear but that’s exactly what we do. We prepare for each game and look to perform for 70 minutes in each game. Through this year’s championship that’s what we’ve done.

“Whether people think we’re favourites or not... I think I read something that we’ve scored a goal every 22 minutes or something like that. There’s an awful lot of that stuff going on and it doesn’t affect the team I can genuinely say that. We’re focused on what we’re doing. We’re very ambitious guys and looking to be as good as we can and that’s what we’re looking to do.

“We’ve been favourites in every game we’ve played this year and we’re comfortable with that. It genuinely hasn’t come into the equation. We are where we want to be and are playing the football we’re capable of. We’re really looking forward to have another crack on August 25.”

The signs that his approach has been working are over everything Mayo have done in the championship over the past three years. And it’s evident, just like the kids in that hall on Thursday, the players believe this will be their year.

“We went back and analysed [the final loss to Donegal] in October and that room was a tough place to be in,” his captain Andy Moran said.

“We looked at the game and it was skills more than anything else that let us down so we went away and worked on them and our tackling. We worked on the tempo of our play and Sunday is a chance to show it off. We hope to learn from the lessons of the past and not be hindered by them.”