It’s hard to overstate the crashing low that the losers of All-Ireland football semi-finals go through each year. For those who lose those games, the Sunday evening through to the Wednesday morning leave a regret that can stay with you for good.
That’s not to be melodramatic: it doesn’t ruin your life or anything. But it follows you. Semi-finals are peculiar in that they leave two losing sides and both Tyrone and Mayo will have shared this hollow feeling through the early days of last week. It remains true that there is nothing worse than losing an All-Ireland final but the dull ache of a semi-final is significant as well.
I think this is particularly true of Mayo and Tyrone. Neither of these were flash-in-the-pan sides. Both have played in All-Ireland finals and have been the closest contenders to Dublin’s crown. So there has to be a context to these defeats for the players. One of the first questions they’ll ask themselves is: where are we now? Are we an emerging team or was that our last taste of the big time? Will our manager be back?
The player is in a strange place after an All-Ireland semi-final loss. He has been through seven or eight matches and enjoyed some heroic moments. There is no medal to show for it though. There is no promise now that his medal is ever going to be won. That realisation can exacerbate the pain for a senior player.
The All-Ireland medal is a badge of honour. It is an access-all-areas pass in Irish GAA life. All-Ireland medal winners stand apart.
Colm O’Rourke wrote something on Sunday that really struck me: “Those of us who are fortunate enough to win a gold medal can easily say that winning is not that important in the whole scheme of things, but it is not so easily understood by those who have invested a big part of their lives and emotions in this quest and ultimately failed. It can, and does, haunt a man.”
I thought it was interesting. I can only comment on the second part. And for sure: it is true. There is a real, substantial sense of loss if you go through your career without an All-Ireland medal having come close to obtaining one.
It won't ruin your life. But it's there, it is part of you
Tyrone, with the exception of Colm Cavanagh, do not have All-Ireland medallists. No Mayo player has that medal. That absence can linger forever. You may never watch those defeats over on television again but you have instant access in your mind to the key moments and sequences in those lost games. It won’t ruin your life. But it’s there, it is part of you.
There was a moment in the 1989 All-Ireland final against Cork when we were on top ten minutes after half-time. I kicked one of the worst wides I ever kicked in my life. I never figured out why that was. But in conversation this year, I realised I took it off my left from 40 metres out. I would never do that. I actually had space in front of me. Cork were on the rack at that moment.
This would be their third All-Ireland loss in a row. We struck three wides immediately after Anthony Finnerty’s goal. Mine was the middle one. And when I rationalise it now: the enormity of the likelihood that we were going to win the All-Ireland hit me. It caused an adrenaline rush. It wasn’t panic: I played a decent game and I finished the game well. But it was a moment in which I could have extended the lead for Mayo and maybe settled us.
No consolation
Anyone who knew me would have backed me to make better use of that possession. John O’Mahony had said at half-time we will get a goal and we will have our chance. And that is what happened. But I didn’t exploit that moment. And it has stayed with me.
And there is no consolation. Provincial medals; league titles, All-Stars, club championships: they are all very nice and grand but they do not make up for the absence of that one thing you want and came close – sometimes achingly close – to achieving.
And in later life you find yourself surrounded by All-Ireland medal winners. I remember having this imposter syndrome when I started doing media work. This idea that your opinion doesn’t matter. Show us your medal. I had this sense that I would have to work harder than the guys around me who had their All-Irelands won. The medal gives you an acceptance. You are in the club. There is a knowing nod. He has a medal. He doesn’t. Is there any chance that I am imagining this or over thinking it? Of course there is. But it is my reality.
My mind will inevitably flash back to what I think of as 'our final'
I will be doing my first ever All-Ireland television co-commentary at the Dublin-Kerry final. And I’m excited by that. I’m looking forward to it. But whenever the whistle goes to end the season and there is a new champion, my mind will inevitably flash back to what I think of as “our final”.
And there will be a small bit of sadness. It is fleeting. But it is sharp. And what you understand is that you can’t turn the clock back. And that is a reflection that a lot of players from all eras are bound to go through. Even fellas that don’t articulate it to me, my team -mates from that time; it’s an itch they cannot scratch
That’s just my experience but I think it is indicative of the kind of introspection that is in full swing in Tyrone and Mayo now. So there will have been a gang who left that field maybe for the last time.
My wife and I bumped into Colm Cavanagh’s wife about 45 minutes after the Kerry-Tyrone semi-final. We recognised their little girl because we had seen Colm with her on the field. We got chatting. It was a tough Sunday for the Cavanagh clan. But it was also obvious that the clan would soon be getting bigger. And 48 hours later they had a baby boy.
I’m not suggesting we have seen the last of Colm, an absolute marvellous servant to Tyrone and I hope we haven’t. But sooner or later, you have to make these decisions and a semi-final defeat confronts you with those choices. There have been renewed debates about Mickey Harte too. Should he go? Should he stay?
Mickey Harte is a manager I have huge respect for. He is at that stage now of figuring out how best to leave the stage that has been his natural habitat for 20 years. That timing is tricky. And defeat sharpens that issue.
Preposterous popularity
In Mayo, we can be self-absorbed in terms of our football. Conversations turned to the future during the week. What are we? Are we in transition? Or as someone said to me: are we in recession now?
I was at home visiting during the week and if you listened hard enough to the conversations, there was a small bit of anger there too. People were wondering who might retire but there were a few dissenting voices as well. This attitude that, down in Kilkenny, you wouldn’t be wondering who’ll retire. You’d be told.
And it is true; a lost All-Ireland final opportunity would lead to merciless repercussions in Kilkenny. In Mayo, the theory seems to be that the more we lose those finals or semi-finals, the closer we get to winning the big one. The players, through no fault of their own, have become the victims of a preposterous popularity. The adulation is excessive and it exacts a high price, I think.
Without the rigor that is required to learn from mistakes, well, mistakes get repeated. So I did detect that undercurrent of anger. The point I am making in general is that everything is up for discussion when you lose these semi-finals.
So the players might have ducked out of civilian life for Monday and Tuesday and just found some quiet pub in which they took stock. In 1989, we found ourselves in Mitchell’s of Moygownagh, a country pub halfway between Ballina and Crossmolina. It became headquarters for us on the Tuesday. The gallows humour was 90 at this stage.
Anthony [Finnerty] got a great goal in the final and then missed another. So the beers were going and someone asked Anthony to sing. He is very talented a singer, a dancer and raconteur. He got up on a small stool and before he sang, he said: “I know what you are all thinking. The goal I got, if you think about it, you’d remember it for a long time. But the fact that I missed the second one means ye’ll never forget me!” And the place erupted. It broke something. Some tension or emptiness disappeared. And it made us face it. No amount of beer will change the fact and we had to look it in the eyes at that moment. We had lost.
After a semi-final defeat, there is no press night, no All-Ireland suits, no songs, no hotel, no flights, no free tickets, no Up for the Match. There is no buzz or excitement of hype. Everything stops. I’d say it’s a form of mild depression.
But Wednesday morning is when reality hits. The game is over. The beers are drunk. Then the message would land in from the club manager wondering if you would put in an appearance at Friday’s training – that it would be great for the lads to see you. You have deferred reality to that point. Then you go back playing club football.
Huge voice
So for Dublin and Kerry, you can flip the coin. This All-Ireland final is going to stand out for these Dublin players like no other game they have ever played. History will be made – or not. Look at how vividly 1982 is remembered. It’s not by accident that Dublin and Kerry win so much. They share a know-how when the All-Ireland competition reaches its elite stage.
I did have a feeling or a sense that the Kerry machine was cranked up with undue haste after they beat Tyrone. I was on The Sunday Game that afternoon and within ten minutes Pat [Spillane] was looking for an amnesty on all black cards.
Also, everyone knew David Gough would be the All-Ireland final referee. Fergal Kelly, Conor Lane and David Gough were the three best officials this summer. And Gough was the pick of those.
The suggestion from Kerry media voices that Gough's appointment was inappropriate was a little bit lousy
I thought the suggestion from Kerry media voices that Gough’s appointment was inappropriate was a little bit lousy. ‘Professor Yerra’ did, of course, say that he is an excellent referee. But that talking out of both sides of your mouth is not something I like. Dublin and Kerry have a huge voice in the media and neither are slow to use it. And maybe that is another difference between winning and losing.
The week gone by, for those teams, is about settling on a game plan, sharpening up and just rehearsing every aspect of that game plan, making sure everyone knows the overall strategy and their role within it.
I think it is fair to say that Kerry would gain more satisfaction from winning this one than they would have had they won in 1982. All of these years later, they would nearly settle to be the team to stop the five-in-a-row rather than being the first county to achieve it. That is the sense I have of it with the passing of time. The fear for the country is that if they can beat Dublin, they could then go on a spree themselves.
And the All-Ireland final is the day when the players from the losing semi-finalist teams have to accept that their chance is gone; that they have to start again and are as far away as ever. If they are lucky, they will have that chance.
