It was a dark, damp, and typical Mayo winter's night last December when the newly appointed Mayo manager Stephen Rochford sat down to speak with the press for the first time since he was appointed, after the Mayo players had signalled their intent by looking for a change of direction, just one year into the management term of the previous incumbents' of the role. When asked what would constitute a good year for Mayo, his response was simple and practical, saying: "I think we need to get back to a situation where we're ultra competitive in all games," before adding, "we'll be looking for a performance every day that we go out, and we can be honest in ourselves and we do ourselves and the county proud, and that we're going in the right direction towards what our goals will be." Rochford's comments were very similar to those echoed by James Horan when he took a side, that was on the floor after 2010, to four Connacht titles and two All Ireland finals over the next four years. Tomorrow Rochford has a chance to go one better when Mayo and Dublin renew a rivalry that has lit up the football world for the past half decade.
Working on a dream
It has been a bumpy road Mayo have travelled so far, with a few detours they could have done without, but on those detours they have learned more about themselves than they might have expected, and it is what the group of players have learned that will be the winning of the game tomorrow, and what those players think and deliver is all that Rochford is concerned about ahead of the game. "With all due respect I'm only concerned with what 33 guys and the management focus on, and we genuinely don't see this [drawn game] as some sort of lost opportunity. We see it as an opportunity to get our top performance, we did a lot of things right but we did a lot of things that we wouldn't be happy with, and if we had set them out as what were our five, six, seven, key points in the game, I would say that in five of those seven we didn't do them to the quality that we had wanted and had set out. I would certainly see us demanding an improvement. It's a cliche and you guys are sick of me or other managers telling you this but it isn't one of the controllables [some commentators' opinions that Mayo left it behind them in the drawn game]. We look at when we are in possession, how we can stop Dublin, that's what we will be doing up to the replay."
One of the charges laid at Mayo this year up to the first final was that they had not consistently played for the duration of a game all year up to that point, but they kept the performance up for the entirety of the contest last Sunday week, and their manager knows they have to keep that level up again tomorrow. "The Tyrone game we were quite consistent, but there was a bigger prize on offer the last day and we came across bigger challenges in that we were five points down and three points down at the end and Dublin have that knack in the last 15 minute spell of being able to blow teams away. And in that spell we scored four to one or three - zero or whatever it was. So that was pleasing and we have been saying all year that we can get to a level of consistency in our performance. But the quality of it is now the challenge that we need to rise to."
No sleep lost over pundits and columinsts
The morning of the drawn match Joe Brolly's column drew plenty of ire from Mayo supporters where he described Mayo as "celebrity losers", that kind of thing is something the camp pays no attention to, Rochford said. "Control the controllables! Again, we don't really get bogged down in it. My ask has always been about it not being personal. We're all big boys and we understand that we're open for analysis, and analysis can sometimes be critical as well as it can be supportive, or players being highly acclaimed for some performance, here and there. I would think that, you know, 'celebrity losers' - no more than a player being called a cheat during the summer – I don't think it's necessarily fair language. But again, that's a choice for that journalist or pundit to make. It certainly didn't keep me awake when I heard about it."
Mayo have not hit the back of the net against the two biggest challenges they have faced so far in the championship, against Tyrone in the last eight and then again against Dublin on last Sunday week. That is not something that is overly concerning for the Crossmolina native but he does recognise the need to raise the green flag to get the result against the Metropolitans. “Mmmh. If we had lost the game, it would certainly be a concern. Yeah, like I mean the aspect here is that we created one chance maybe in Andy’s [Moran] and maybe a half chance with Paddy Durcan’s in the first half. It is certainly something we need to work on because I think you need to score a goal to beat this team. You think 15 points will do the game: you got 16 and you would have won it, but in the broader aspect you need a big score to beat Dublin in that you need to score a goal.”
Mayo's defensive shape and structure won plenty of deserved plaudits after the first meeting of the teams, while undoubtedly a lot of thought went into how they would shape up and which players they would pick up, Rochford downplayed it a bit focusing on the drive and determination of all who were on the field. "I don’t know... we didn’t spend the three weeks totally looking at that. I think you view these things around what qualities you think your players have, some of them probably fall into place themselves. What pleased me is that as a group they stuck at it. I suppose Kevin [McLoughlin] and Colm [Boyle] could have felt sorry for themselves having those touches close to goal. But as a wider group they went about really putting their head down, and what was pleasing most of them as a unit was probably the second half performance when we went three points down, those guys really showed a lot of discipline and togetherness to be able to back each other up when double teams were needed or when there was a sniff of an opportunity to clear the ball in a disciplined fashion. And again, that is what is going to be needed. But look, the six guys who started there are the six that started most of the games so maybe there wasn’t as much analysing or deep thought as others maybe are making it out to be.”
Stick with us the message from the start
If we rewind the tape back to last December, as things were finishing up on his first night at meeting the press, we asked Stephen Rochford if he had any message for the supporters, and he almost predicted what was about to come over the course of the year. His simple message was "stick with the team, because nothing will go perfectly all the time. Continue to support the team, there will be some road bumps along the way, I've no doubt, but when my team goes out they'll be going out to honour the crest on the Mayo jersey, to perform to their very, very, best and I believe that if we can get it consistently into our performances, we may not win every day, but I think people will be very proud of what the team will do and that will be part of our ambition for it." He nailed that one on the head right off.
