Tom Parsons: ‘I remember saying to my parents — I will play for Mayo again’

Tom Parsons is here and he isn’t. Like at a séance, journalists sit around a mobile phone in Breaffy as the Mayo midfielder chats from his Dublin base. Certainly a first for an All-Ireland team’s press event.

Nevertheless, the interview is engaging. Finals might be a ritual for some in Mayo – Alan Dillon is preparing for his seventh (including last year’s replay) – but for Parsons simply donning the jersey is something in which he places huge store.

Dropped by James Horan at the end of the 2011 league campaign having been an International Rules panellist, his decline had been sharp.