Andy Moran picks two massive moments that will bring peace to all who fought for Mayo

Mayo's manager Andy Moran celebrates with fans after the match. Pic: ©INPHO/James Crombie

The world and his mother may have doubted Mayo but Andy Moran kept the faith.

The manager pointed to how they were fuelled by the amount of times they didn’t receive what they felt was due credit on this winning run of theirs.

“I asked a question here two weeks ago," he said of putting it to journalists who of them expected Mayo to win the All-Ireland final. "You try to stay away from the press, but what we do is we let (Colm) Boyler keep an eye on it and I stay away from it completely.

“But listen, I know the general narrative was that we had no chance and we were kind of looking at it and we were saying, ‘Hold on here now for a second, Louth bet Armagh, Louth bet Dublin, but we bet Louth, but we get no credit for beating Louth?

“And we thought this the whole way through. The Monaghan game, we're like, ‘We win and we still get no credit.’ Do you know what I'm saying? There was no credit given at any time.

“So we were like, ‘Okay, everyone is writing us off here.’ It wasn't back-to-the-wall stuff, but we had a hundred training sessions done up to this point and we were quite confident that we could give it a good rattle at least. And then if we thought we were in it down the stretch, we thought we'd the subs to come in and finish the job.” 

On the eve of the game, Moran’s mind switched to his old Ballaghaderreen mentor John O’Mahony who passed away two years ago. He thought of his former comrades and coaches.

“Even last night I was thinking Donie Vaughan, Liam McHale, guys that have suffered, not only losing, real heartache in All-Ireland finals and blame for a lot of it.

“And I just hope that today puts a bit of peace to them guys. I'm waiting for it to give me a bit of peace, but I'm sure on Wednesday and Thursday, I think I'll settle.

“But I'm just so grateful for all the players that have played, all the managers that have managed us over the last 75 years. We're just the lucky ones that have got over the line.” 

Moran admitted the start was a worrying one as Mayo trailed by seven points. “Absolutely, when David (Clifford) rounds Jack Livingstone and puts the ball in the back of the net, of course there's doubts. Donnacha (McHugh) was probably struggling for the first 15 and then has the most outstanding game, from my point of view, for the next 55.

“But I think there was two massive moments. David McBrien comes up, like you're on about leadership, gets his first point in championship history. Not only today, he's only scored two goals up to this point and he gets a hand-pass over the bar.

“And then Jack Carney does what he's done all year and kicks a two. And then Ryan (O’Donoghue) kicks a two and now we're at five. And all of a sudden we were probably three points down and now the game has turned.” 

O’Donoghue placed a big emphasis on the two-pointers. Outscoring Kerry by four to one was crucial. “Last year, I remember having a great conversation with Stevie O'Hanlon in Monaghan. Stevie was top class basketballer and I said, ‘Is the two more valuable in Gaelic than it is in basketball?’ And he said, ‘Absolutely.’ 

“He said, ‘You go from three to two in basketball, you go from one to two in Gaelic football. So, the two-pointer was huge and we knew we had the shooters to hit them and they hit them today.” 

As for their brilliant high press, he mentioned how Mayo changed their ways following the Connacht semi-final loss to Roscommon. “I think the caution is that's what happened in Roscommon if I'm being honest.

“I could never really talk freely about it but Kevin (McStay) and Stephen (Rochford) had a way of playing and absolutely not the wrong way of playing – it's the way most teams play. And we were trying to change it.

“And when you try to change something and you feel on the pitch it's not working and you get caught between two stools, Roscommon happens. And when they have good forwards like Roscommon, that's what happens.

“And after that we just made a commitment. We said, ‘We're just going after this.’ And it didn't really work for the first 20 against Meath and then boom it started and from then on it's been really good.”