They've been with the team right from the start and on Sunday the Mayo fans will play an important role in getting their side over the line come 5pm. The boost that the side gets from the full-throated following in green and red isn't lost on Mayo manager Stephen Rochford who said he knows that there's no need to issue a call to arms for the supporters who've been with his side right from the off this year. "I'd like to thank the Mayo supporters for their great support throughout the year and over the years. They have stood by the team throughout the year from our first league game in Cork, there was a huge Mayo crowd there at that, and the other away league games, huge crowds attended the games.
"That gives everybody a boost, we'd like thank them for the support and encourage them to get their hands on tickets wherever they can and to give the team the support they can next Sunday, but there's no need to even ask that of our supporters; they are the best supporters in the country and it's very much appreciated by everyone involved. It's not taken for granted and I know it will be exactly the same next Sunday."
'It's been a long road from last winter to here, with a few courses that had to be corrected along the way, but that's football,' the Mayo manager said and it never distracted them from the next step they had to take, which was all part of the journey of getting this far. "Football is full of surprises, difficulty, challenges. I wouldn't say we doubted it would happen but you set out the goal and then you do what you have to do on an ongoing basis to achieve that goal. So say when we lost the league game to Kerry, your immediate thought isn't, now the All Ireland final is in jeopardy here, your immediate thought then is what did we do well today, what did we not do well today, which of those do we need to do more of and which of them do we need to improve for the next day.
"You're not always guided by this thing, we want to get to the All Ireland final and this means we won't get there. The same was even true of the Galway game, while we were intensely disappointed after that game, we still knew we were still in the championship albeit by a different route than we would have liked, but we were still there.
"After the Galway game it wasn't as much a matter of well 'Ok you know, the All Ireland is now in jeopardy, it's much more about what do we have to to fix, what do we have to do more of to get the team back winning and that's it. You're not running everything through the filter of the doubt of not getting there. I've been very confident of the team at a lot of stages this year because, I felt in every game we were showing potential and at times we had some great flashes and that's what you're looking for as a manager as well."
Everything to play for on the training field
Rochford has used 29 players in this year's championship to date and with everyone of the squad knowing that there's a chance for them to get on the field there is a certain bite to the training games. "It probably does, our training games are very competitive, the players are extremely committed and dedicated and they bring a really serious air to every training session, be that in Dublin or Mayo and I'm sure players do feel they can play their way into the team and players have done that and that's a good place to be"
Being in charge of any inter-county side comes with its own pressures and Mayo probably comes with a little bit more than most, but Rochford wasn't phased by it at all. ""It's a very busy job before you talk about pressure or expectation, so I'm lucky I've a very supportive network of people around me in family, work and the management team who help me out hugely and that's a big big part of it. To be honest I don't think the pressure is an issue, if you're involved in football at any level the pressure of expectation is what you want really, so that you learn to live with that and like that. I suppose the bigger issue is the whole time management side and thankfully that has gone well for me this year and for everybody involved in the management team, everybody has been very committed and we set out our schedules and people follow it through and that does make it easier."
Going through the backdoor wasn't the plan at the start of the year, but you have to take it as it comes and each of those games have brought their own differing challenges that have had to be navigated along the way, but it's also brought it's own opportunities too, Rochford told us. "The qualifiers have give us an opportunity to give game time to players, try out different approaches and to sharpen ourselves up. In that regard it's been a huge help, its not what we wanted to do, we would prefer to be provincial champions that would always be our aim every game, but it helped us in that regard."
Taking it one step at a time
Having not played a team who were in this year's division one could been seen as a hindrance to some, but there were plenty of challenges along the way from serious outfits the 2015 All Ireland club winning manager explained. "Not playing a division one team, well we played teams who gave us serious challenges and Tyrone while they're not in division one right now, are provincial champions and that's a similar status if not an even higher status if there's such a possibility they came through the toughest provincial championship in terms of numbers of teams that might win it; they're a very fine side with All Ireland ambitions of their own. It's been good preparation for a final, you play what's in front of you, just as Dublin play what's in front of them and before the Kerry game they'd only played one division one team Donegal, but championship is different to league, Tyrone might have been in division two in the year just gone by, but they got out of it and secondly they are provincial champions, and we'd played Tipperary who'd beaten provincial champions in Galway who'd beaten us, so I think the preparation in that regard has been good."
