Jack Coyne on captain responsibilities: 'If you're comfortable in your skin you won't take it as an extra burden'
LEADER: Team captain Jack Coyne during the Mayo GAA Football Pre-All-Ireland Senior Final media conference at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park in Castlebar, Mayo.
From outside the county and camp, Andy Moran’s choice of Jack Coyne as his captain seemed a peculiar one.
For the previous 17 seasons Mayo had been led out by a string of household names who had experienced at least two All-Ireland finals before been handed the proverbial armband.
Trevor Mortimer for the final two years of John O’Mahony’s reign. Alan Dillon for the first year of the Horan revolution, followed by Moran himself (and in his injured absence, temporarily David Clarke) for the next three. In 2015 it was Keith Higgins’ unenviable task to inform the men who had given him his role that they were no longer wanted in theirs. After him came Cillian O’Connor, his brother Diarmuid, Aidan O’Shea, Stephen Coen, Paddy Durcan.
From Dillon on, all of them bar Coen had either won an All-Star or young footballer of the year – and Coen had captained Mayo to minor and U21 All-Ireland successes. The year Coyne skippered the U20s they were beaten in the first round, albeit on penalties to a Galway team that went on to win that All-Ireland. His one championship appearance in Croke Park had been a heavy All-Ireland quarter-final defeat to Dublin in 2023. From a who’s who of captains Mayo had suddenly gone to Jack Who?
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That’s not how Moran viewed it though. Coyne had been the only Mayo player from the previous two seasons to have played well enough to merit an All-Star nomination. And last autumn when Moran conducted a series of meetings as extensive as John Kiely’s famous 63 one-to-ones, he came to a conclusion. “Jack knew more about the group than anyone else,” says Moran. “As well as his standards being above everyone else’s last year, he was the best person to link the group.”
Was Coyne himself surprised to be picked? And has he found it a burden? “I wouldn’t say so, no,” says Coyne. “[The captaincy] probably wasn’t something I had been thinking of but I feel I became a leader within the team over the last few years. The culture we have, there’s a huge level of respect for each other; whether you’re an 18-year-old or a 36-year-old, your input is valued. When you have that respect and you’re comfortable in each other’s company, it makes it easier.
“We have serious leaders. I don’t know how many previous captains are still currently in the squad – definitely at least five anyway [the two O’Connors, O’Shea, Durcan and Coen] – and [their experience] helps me too.
“And we have a good leadership group. It’s myself, Darren [McHale] and Ryan [O’Donoghue] and we would be in contact nearly every day. And if you’re comfortable in your own skin and true to your authentic self, you won’t take it as an extra burden or put extra pressure on yourself. At times all right you might have to have an extra conversation with a guy if they’re struggling with form or their confidence. But that’s part and parcel of the role and I thrive off that.”
It helps in those conversations that he can relate to such setbacks. After being called straight into the senior panel after the U20 campaign of 2020 and getting gametime against Leitrim in the following year’s Connacht championship, Coyne got a call from James Horan at the outset of 2022 to say he was being let go.
“You could see Jack’s potential but he wasn’t quite yet ready at the time, physically more than anything,” says current selector Colm Boyle who as a player himself was cut adrift for three years only to return a different beast and become a four-time All-Star. “One of the qualities though we’d be looking for is resilience. Does a lad want it or not? Jack showed he wanted it.”
Coyne admits the cut was a shock to the system. For years he’d been either a county minor, U20 or senior panelist. “Suddenly your whole life changes in how you structure things,” he says. “But after a few days of processing it, you can take it one of two ways. You can sulk and give out about people or you can work hard.”
He went to Boston that summer, living and training with future Armagh All-Ireland winners Conor Turbitt, Barry McCambridge and Ben Crealey. That autumn then his club won the county intermediate championship. “As a result of the hard work I’d put in, I’d my confidence back, and given myself the platform for Kevin [McStay] and Stephen [Rochford] and the lads to reselect me.”
It's hardly by chance Coyne plays and leads as he does. He considers himself blessed to hail from Ballyhaunis, “that pocket of Mayo where hurling is really valued.” Every autumn he still hurls with them, just as Keith Higgins continues to do so and like Pierce Higgins used to for decades.
You obviously know Keith. You may not have known Pierce or at least remember him. Coyne always will. On his wrist he wears a band with Pierce’s name.
The eldest of the Higgins was only 20 when he persuaded his Galway-born father Pete to establish a hurling programme in their own parish rather than have him and his kid brother continue to play with neighbours – and future rivals – Tooreen. Pierce duly went on to win 12 of his 14 county titles with Ballyhaunis, just as he’d play 14 years with Mayo. But days before Keith played in the 2017 All-Ireland final, he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease.
He didn’t tell his brother until after the game. The following month he still togged out for the county hurling final. A year later he was still coaching the team.
“Pierce was a great clubman,” says Coyne. “Just a great man. I wear this [band] every day. Even though he died a few years ago [2022], he’s with us every day.”
Keith too remains a constant and inspiration. As a kid Coyne revered him but he became even more of a role model upon Coyne graduating to the club seniors, “just seeing how he behaves off the field and gives back his time to coaching underage teams in Ballyhaunis.”
Now he’s in coaching Mayo’s backs since the county U20s he manages lost narrowly in their Connacht final. “His nuggets,” says Coyne, “particularly for us corner backs, are invaluable.”
Over Mayo’s last four games Coyne has conceded just 0-2 off his direct marker. But for Colm Boyle, Coyne’s intangibles are just as impressive, like how he’s taken the teenaged Eoin McGreal, his roommate on a preseason camp in Portugal, under his wing.
“Just in things like the verbal cues and tips he gives him,” says Boyle, “on the training field or above in Croke Park. Stuff that no one is going to be talking about afterwards in the pub.”
But Moran and Boyle do. In doing what’s not obvious to us he was the obvious captain to them.
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