Nobody ever said it was going to be easy. And Mayo boss Stephen Rochford was not moving from that script ahead of Sunday's All Ireland final showdown against Dublin. "It will take one massive, massive, effort - and rightly so. How else do you expect to win an All Ireland if you are not going to take out the best team, and that’s the position we find ourselves in" were his parting words to the press before the day.
Rochford first took charge of Mayo on January 3 this year against NUIG in the FBD League, under his tenure Mayo have played 17 competitive games, winning 11 and going down six times. Those six defeats came at the hands of Roscommon, Cork, Dublin, Kerry, Donegal, and Galway. One in both FBD and championship, and four in the league.
It will be 260 days since he first put a Mayo side out into action on the field, come Sunday, and it has been some roller coaster 37 weeks to get from there to here. They went eight weeks without winning a game from beating IT Sligo on January 10, to seeing off Monaghan in Clones on March 3. In those intervening weeks, Roscommon, Cork, Dublin and Donegal all took Mayo's scalp in contests. But that was just the beginning and despite a massive setback against Galway in early June, Mayo have put together five back-to-back wins to be right where they wanted to be at this point. A sixth win on the bounce and then, well who knows what will happen.
Achieving that sixth win in a row is not going to be an easy one the Mayo manager knows very well, saying: "We know the talent they have, they have a lot of diamonds in that crown, the challenge is going to be a monster one, but it’s one that this group has risen to previously and has just been marginally the wrong side of it, but we feel that the desire and willingness and hunger is there at the right time."
Dublin were always a likely final opponent even if Mayo had gone through the front door, you always had to be thinking about how to beat the best if you want to be best, he said. "I think a lot of people will say that the team that beats Dublin will be the team that wins the All Ireland and they’d be right, they are the market leaders in performance and quality and certainly in the trophy cabinet for the last number of years, and I think they probably set the bench mark over the last four years around getting to a point whereby if you’re beating Dublin you’re playing at a very, very, high level and we saw that with Donegal being the last team to beat them in 2014 and it takes a performance of a peak level to do that."
While you may have to have part of your mind thinking about Dublin, Mayo's own trials and tribulations saw attentions directed very much elsewhere over the course of the summer, after they needed to correct an early season wobble. "I think where we found ourselves going through the qualifiers you needed to maintain a very immediate focus, on what was presented to you week in week out. We’ve been looking to maintain and improve our own level of performance and certainly Dublin are on our radar since 5.05pm last Sunday [fortnight]."
The last times the sides met in the All Ireland final it was a helter-skelter contest with both sides out on their feet from the effort put in, and Rochford expects it to be pretty similar this time. “We all saw [in their semi-final], the energy and athleticism that Dublin bring to their game right the way from Johnny Copper at corner back to Bernard Brogan and the guys they bring on to the field. That’s a strength of ours we say also, that athelticism. That requirement to support the ball and move the ball and I’ve no doubt that on September 18 it’s a game that will be played at a high pace and with a lot of intensity.
Looking back on last year's games which could have gone either way for long periods, Dublin's goal threat was the ultimate decider at the end of 140 minutes of action and we do not want them running in goals, the Crossmolina native added. "I think you know at a certain period in the first game, Dublin looked like they could just move away and then Colm [Boyle] came on to the end of a ball and we got the penalty, and then at the end, maybe Dublin were hanging on in injury time and it took a fabulous block down in injury time [Mikey Sweeney shot]. It was probably the reverse of that in the second day, Mayo had control or a good stake in the game for long periods of the replay, and we’re just looking to kick on and Dublin hit them for two goals and that’s the level of quality that Dublin can bring. If Dublin score goals against you it can be a long day."
Dublin deserve respect for all they have done and the threats they pose, but getting that balance right with your own game plan is the knife edge that Rochford has to walk on Sunday. "Time will tell, invariably if you don’t win the game you could be criticised for that, in the result lies the answer, they just have a lot of quality and I think not giving them that due respect leaves you open for what could be a very difficult day at the office, we will be certainly giving them all the due respect they deserve and whether that will be enough time will tell," he says.
Facing the Dubs in Croke Park on All Ireland final day can be an intimidating place, but Mayo stood toe to toe in the stands and on the terraces with them three years ago in the final, and it is a venue the players know all too well themselves for it to bother them he said. “I don’t know where they got the tickets for there [Hill 16], but sure whatever. But from a footballing context it isn’t something that we give any real thought to, Dublin play the majority of their games there, that’s just the way it is. We’ve played the majority of our championship games there this year, we’ll play our fourth game this year and if you are to go back down through the number of venues this team have played in you’ll find they’ve played a lot more games in Croke Park than they have in Castlebar. It’s a venue that they love and we’re just eger to get in there and deliver that performance we know is in us."
Sunday marks the end of another leg of a journey for Mayo, and to decide how the next leg of that journey starts, will take one massive effort from all involved. “Look, I think you know when you go into an All Ireland final in any position, be it club or county, it takes a fair journey to get there and that can be the level of committment, the sessions that are going in the challenges that games bring, the one message that I would give to the lads is that they have been here a number of times over the last number of years and let's not have any regrets. We’ve put ourselves in a position to win the All Ireland, that’s been the aim all year, and we’ve been building ourselves through the national league and you know, redesigning our journey in the championship through the qualifiers after being defeated, and ultimately we’re at the final hurdle and now we’re just calling for a massive effort to jump it."
Will he need to do anything to motivate the players who have come so close before and been written off before the game has even thrown in? That is something he will not have to worry about. "I think there are a lot of people that will help me in relation to that, but look that’s words in print, that’s past results, it’s what an analyst says, it’s an opinion, at the end of the day. We’ve got to trust in what we’ve been doing in training, what we believe will be the best way to present the team and the evidence has thus far the lads are certainly committed and aligned to what our plans are. It will take one massive, massive, effort - and rightly so. How else do you expect to win an All Ireland if you are not going to take out the best team and that’s the position we find ourselves."
