Search Results for 'Bernard Brogan'

The World Cup has reached the quarter final stages, Wimbledon has almost reached its climax, yet the Provincial finals in the GAA championships have yet to yield their winners despite starting two months ago. When you think how fast these other tournaments are run off it makes you feel for the inter county players with the long drawn out season with gaps of up to six weeks between games. None of the big hitters has been eliminated in the football championship, and before you say what about Derry, they were never going to win the All-Ireland. One team I felt may be able to put it up to Dublin, physically anyway, was Monaghan. They are lucky to be still in the Ulster championship and they have no greater incentive to win their replay with Armagh than avoiding a replay against Tyrone in the qualifiers. Monaghan more than likely felt great about themselves after beating Tyrone, and clearly took their eye off the ball playing against Armagh, while probably looking ahead to an Ulster final repeat against Donegal without actually having qualified for it. They got the wake up call necessary and I am sure they will win the replay.

The good news first.

With the busy schedule of National League games and Kiltane’s and Castlebar’s run to All-Ireland club finals, I have had very few column inches to discuss the importance of ‘the club’ and how GAA clubs have been severely hit in the last number of years. Charlestown, like every other club in the county, have lost lots of players to emigration because of the downturn in the economy. The only exception to the rule may be Kiltane, who had 44 players togged out for a championship game last year. However Shane Lindsay was commuting from Scotland pretty much every week.

Now that 2013 has almost gone to the history books it is time to reflect on the year that nearly was. The Mayo senior team played their first game against Leitrim in the FBD league on January 13. Little did we know back then what the year was about to unfold. Mayo’s National League campaign was not of the consistent variety and after a convincing win at home to Kerry on February 3 we became expectant again. That was followed by four consecutive losses to Tyrone, Dublin, Down, and Kildare. The Tyrone game was a crushing defeat, Stephen O’Neill’s last gasp penalty winning for the red hand. Mayo were given a taste of Stephen Cluxton’s ability in the league game in Croke Park in March, the Dubs convincing winners; Bernard Brogan was unmarkable the same night. Worrying for Mayo were the losses to Down and Kildare, two games they should have won. Mayo were now in real danger of being relegated and had to beat All- Ireland Champions Donegal in Castlebar and then travel away to Cork to try to complete a miraculous escape. What was of great concern was the lack of goal chances and goals, Keith Higgins’ goal against Tyrone the only attempt to hit the net in five matches. Michael Conroy bettered that stat with a soccer-style finish against Donegal in a game in which Barry Moran was in superb form. Mayo well and truly ground out a result in Cork, winning by the slimmest of Margins 0-11 to 0-10 to achieve their goal of staying in division one of the league. It was a complete bonus that they sneaked into a league semi-final and had another big game in Croker against the Dubs. Confidence may not have been too high after Dublin easily won the league semi-final by 2-16 to 0-16. Bernard Brogan was untouchable in the first league encounter, Paul Mannion the star of the semi-final scoring 1-04. It really was amazing Mayo got to a league semi final despite losing four games on the spin while staring relegation in the face. Two goals in eight matches had to be a very worrying stat for James Horan and his management.

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The first Mayo man I met early on Monday morning in the staff room just nodded at me. Smiled a sheepish, bashful smile, shrugged his shoulders, looked a tad embarrassed and said nothing. And he was right. Because, unfortunately, there was nothing to say.

To win just once would be enough seems to be the overwhelming feeling in Mayo this week. To say I’m sick to the pit of my stomach is somewhat of an understatement. I fully know what the players, management and their families are feeling, there is no word to describe it, it is the closest feeling to losing a loved one. In time it will heal but now the game is being dissected by everyone, even people who know nothing about football, that is the nature of the beast. I have no doubt the players are dwelling on decisions they made during the game, the management are wondering whether they made the right calls even Joe McQuillan will be feeling a little dire and maybe he should.

It has to end sometime. But not just yet, as Mayo's wait to stand on top of the mountain goes on for another year at least. There were no excuses from James Horan afterwards as he explained: "We had enough ball to win the game today. We just made too many mistakes, too many turnovers. I think it's that straightforward."

The first Mayo man I met early on Monday morning in the staff room just nodded at me. Smiled a sheepish, bashful smile, shrugged his shoulders, looked a tad embarrassed, and said nothing. And he was right. Because, unfortunately, there was nothing to say.

As he did on the pitch, he did off the pitch, as Keith Higgins stood up and tried to answer the questions surrounding another All-Ireland heart-break for Mayo. He found it difficult to understand where it went wrong this time.