There is a special kind of resilience in anyone who plays football with Kiltane, perched on the edge of the Atlantic, battling against much more densely populated areas, yet holding their own all the time, breeds that into you. Mayo similarly have shown a special kind of resilience down through the years, through dark days they have raged, and savoured the good ones, with the greatest one still to come to fruition. It should be no surprise then that when Stephen Rochford went looking to complement his backroom team he should look to a Kiltane stalwart he knows and trusts for over two decades to join him on the sideline, and Sean Carey answered that call.
Carey lined out with Rochford as a Mayo minor back in 1995 in a team that were just pipped by a great Galway side that went on to produce a number of players who won All Ireland senior medals over the next six years with the Tribesmen. In 2012 Kiltane were relegated out of senior football in Mayo having flown the flag for Erris since 1974, emigration and the general recession had finally bitten in hard in the area and they exited the top 16 in Mayo. While it could have been easy for them to keep falling the battling heart of the community shone through as Carey and his team-mates bound themselves together on an amazing adventure that would see them go from the depths of despair to Croke Park in 16 months, with up to 35 players togging themselves for each game.
There is something of an Erris man in another of his backroom colleagues, Carey said when speaking about Tony McEntee who has come from glory with Armagh and Crossmaglen to join this Mayo odyssey, he says: "Tony is a good fella, Tony is a very straight talker, very much like someone from Erris maybe in what you see is what you get. He's a really top fella and he knows his football as well. With the four of us [Carey, Rochford, McEntee, and Donie Buckley] it works well."
When you're in, you're all in
Carey is an all or nothing kind of guy, when he's in he's all in, and he had to think long and hard about it, when deciding to accept Rochford's offer. "To be honest I did, it's like everything, I would have stopped playing club football with Kiltane for the simple reason of the travelling and going in and out, and the amount of time it takes to be involved and stay senior in Mayo, I don't think people might realise that. I would have had to ask my wife as well, that was probably a reason I stopped playing senior as well because I was away a lot, but she's into football so I'm lucky to be honest, I'd have been shot had that not been the case.
"Club football is quite a commitment as well in fairness to anyone who does it, and senior club football in Mayo is particularly. There's a lot of time in this [part of the Mayo senior set up], when you're playing — you can kinda go into the car when you're done and basically that's it, obviously there are lifestyle things. But with this your work begins then again, you've a lot of work and preparation so it is time consuming but it is very rewarding."
Having been involved with bringing Kiltane all the way to Croke Park on the field only not to get over the line back in 2014, he has some experience of All Ireland finals already, but this is a whole new level again he admits. "I suppose with your club, it was a great experience. It was a very different experience, that's with people you grew up with. But this is the pinnacle, this is the top of sport really in Ireland, this is what everybody wants to do as a player or on this side of the fence, this is rewarding, to be honest I'd be the type of person who would only see it as rewarding if we were to do it, I'm not along just to experience something."
Not just being there to just experience in it, but to succeed in it, we asked him if he can enjoy it all the same? "I'd enjoy it yeah, but as I said, I wouldn't be doing it just to enjoy it and doing it to win, but I do enjoy it, they are a great bunch of fellas to work with, some of them I would have known previously, but working with some of them closely you begin to realise just how professional these guys are, from that point of view it is an eye opener."
Four become one
As for his own role within the management team, there is great communication and sharing according to Carey, who said of his own position: "The four of us, I guess Stephen does a bit of everything and coaching, I suppose his hands are on everything. Donnie and Tony would coach as well, I wouldn't be coaching, but in relation to selection and analysing the opposition and what we'll do next, that's an even keel between the four of us. Working on to figure out what we should be doing the following day and during games, that's your job, to try and figure out who comes on and who comes off, we work very well together in fairness." Big days in a cauldron like Croke Park makes the communication between all four even more important, he adds: "They are amplified all right, and they are big decisions to make, but there are four who get on and work very well and that helps. That adds perspectives on what should happen next you know. I think we work well together."
Having known each other for over two decades now, did Rochford have something in him as a minor that suggested he might be a guy who ended up in this position? "He was always a very clever, even anyone who watched him play could see he was a very, very, clever footballer, even when he moved up to the forwards after playing as a back he was very good. To even make that minor team which was a very good minor team who were caught in the last couple of minutes by a Galway side that had Joyce, Savage, all of those guys who had All Ireland medals three years later, so to make that when he was probably 16, he was a thinker always, you could see that and that he was definitely someone who would end up in that position."
As for Mayo's opponents, you have to pay them all the credit and respect in the game, because they have earned it over the past few championships he says. "Anyone who has looked at Dublin in the last four years would have the upmost respect for them, in my memory they are the best inter county team I have seen. They have four leagues and if Donegal didn't catch them in 2014, let's be honest, they would be going for four in a row, if you have that kind of consistency in the modern era and you have five or six teams who could win it, that hasn't always been the case you have to respect that."
While Mayo pushed them close last year every title winner has a wobble they have to get over at some stage Carey says. "If you trace back any All Ireland winners in the last decade there were always one or two games where maybe they would have been perceived get lucky, but what you see with the really good teams like Dublin is that their luck is because of their excellence, it isn't anything to do with luck. Mayo did run them really close last year, and these guys, the Mayo players, are a serious bunch of players too and they have shown that over the past six years, and that result last year just shows you there is nothing in it."
Where we expected to be
Being the kind of guy that he is, it should come as no surprise that Carey expected to be here when asked what was the realistic target that they set as a management team when he first met late last year. "The plan was to be here, the plan was to be in the final on the 18th, when you're with one of the bigger counties like Mayo that's where you are, that's the target. They were very close last year, they were very close for a number of years and that has to be your target, the players are ambitious and they didn't want anything else."
As for that heaping more pressure on everyone involved, that doesn't even matter he thinks. "They're used to pressure, Mayo has always had pressure since they redefined themselves since 1996 in the national conscious as a football county, who are there or thereabouts, that pressure has been there since then and I think pressure is a good thing."
Picking the guys who stand behind you is one of the toughest jobs a manager can do, but in Carey, Rochford has picked one that matches his ambition, belief, and will to win. You can't really look for more than that.
