New venue, same Dublin-Mayo grudge match

The old rivals meet in Dr Hyde Park this weekend.

GLORY DAYS: Lee Keegan of Mayo shakes hands with Philip McMahon at Croke Park. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

Old grudges die hard if the recent Philly McMahon-Lee Keegan exchange is anything to go by.

Last month, the Dublin defender admitted he was struggling for an idea for his “Irish Independent” column when Mayo chairman Seamus Touhy confirmed at a county board meeting that the executive had communicated with the Central Competitions Control Committee (CCCC) asking for Sunday’s All-Ireland SFC Group 2 game to be played outside of Croke Park.

McMahon wrote: “If you were trying to keep a game out of a venue, particularly when there wasn’t much chance of it being there in the first place, wouldn’t you just make the request on the QT and say nothing publicly, rather than drawing attention to the fact and leaving yourself open to the interpretation – rightly or wrongly – that you just don’t fancy it?” 

In his RTÉ column, Keegan hit back at McMahon, who he described as “Groundskeeper Philly” on Twitter/X, for suggesting Mayo were “running scared” of facing Dublin in Croke Park. “I know he always fancied his own ability to rile Mayo players. He's written in the past about the brief ruckus he caused on the way down the tunnel at half-time in the 2020 All-Ireland final. He was particularly chuffed with that one and, in fairness, it was probably his most telling intervention that day.” 

Keegan proved that he wasn’t above trying to upset Dublin players too by whatever means necessary either, and McMahon was right to pick up on the Mayo chairman’s remarks. Furthermore, he suggested the request may have come from inside the Mayo camp. “The more interesting question here is whether Mayo acted on foot of a request from team management. It’s plausible.” 

That may have been the case but the players certainly had no issue with returning to a venue where they lost heavily to Dublin in an All-Ireland quarter-final last year but beat them in a semi-final two years previous. Some of them weren’t all that enamoured with the request to the CCCC, least of all the possibility Touhy’s remarks might have greased Dublin’s wheels.

The quip in Dublin is that Dr Hyde Park is as neutral a venue for Mayo as Croke Park has been in All-Ireland knock-out games. Sunday marks Mayo’s third game at the Roscommon town stadium in eight weeks (former Dublin secretary John Costello is a member of the CCCC but would have had no say in the choice of venue because of his county’s involvement. The CCCC is headed by the current Roscommon chairman Brian Carroll).

If truth be told, the build-up needed some grizzle. Last year’s affair was a tame one and broke a trend when it produced neither a black or red card. In their previous eight SFC meetings, there had been four red cards and 14 blacks.

No, last year was all about Dublin exacting clinical revenge. In 2022, Cormac Costello gave some insight into the rivalry when he was asked if he was given a do-over game, what would it be. 

“Probably the All-Ireland semi-final last year against Mayo. We got beaten so I’d love another crack at them.” With their second-half dismantling of Mayo, Costello and his team-mates certainly established that desire as fact.

But there remain granules of Mayo that stick in their boots. Aidan O’Shea’s longevity – on Sunday, the Breaffy man will make his 90th senior championship appearance – is a topic of bemusement and fascination in the capital when he has no All-Ireland medal to his name and his SFC record against Dublin is played 11, won two, drawn two and lost seven.

His 16-season quest for a Celtic Cross is a key subplot in the chiselling of Mayo’s bridesmaid features these past 11 years. With 15 All-Ireland final appearances, they are only third behind Kerry and Cork as the county with the most runners-up finishes and four of those since 2013 have come against Dublin.

Haunted or simply enduring, the attention paid to Mayo has been a bugbear in Dublin coming as it did at a time when financial investment was considered to be one of their great advantages. On one hand, Dublin were the empire, on the other Mayo the resistance. After beating Mayo in 2016, McMahon described the money argument as “very disrespectful”.

 

Mayo would say that the attempt to darken Keegan’s reputation before the 2016 All-Ireland final replay was contemptible too but their main beef with Dublin is more often than not being the team that has denied them what they so desperately yearn.

Either way, Dublin and Mayo will maintain those as reasons among other on and off-field flashpoints between existing players down through the years not to like the other.

Dr Hyde Park is a new stage, their first championship meeting outside Croke Park in 116 years, when the 1904 All-Ireland semi-final was played in Athlone two years later. But their previous remains.