Perennial losers getting used to the winning habit

So winning is a habit after all. Mayo can go a couple of decades without any success at Croke Park and all of a sudden they can't stop winning. And instead of wild cheering, we now get a calm round of applause. Welcome to the dressing-room of champions.

But this is the turning point, a time to forget about the past and to look to the future. Midfielder David Brady had been a part of seven losing All-Ireland sides with Mayo and now he can look back and smile at the anger.

"I just can't wait to wake up in the morning and know that I've won. I have a National league title in my pocket. I wasn't going to be a loser my whole life in football but if I hadn't won something then I would have been.

"And this means more than a Connacht title, more than anything else. We have been branded losers up to this but that tag is gone off us now. We older players have trained hard for six or seven years and always kept trying. And the younger guys came up top as well when the going got tough."

Quickly the talk is of the championship and the renewed ambitions but Brady is cautious about the effects of this victory: "Of course it will give us confidence going into the championship but defeat would have been a way bigger blow. We just had to win in Croke Park today and personally this means so much. It was in the back of my mind - and I would never tell reporters - but you do worry if you are ever going to win anything. No one can take this away now."

Even manager Pat Holmes is remarkably composed considering what it means to win against all expectations, and what it means to play another part in the ever-changing streak of Mayo's visits to Croke Park.

"Of course we are happy to have won, even if it wasn't a spectacular victory. We didn't play particularly well in the first half and we knew we hadn't done ourselves justice. But we knew we were up against a very good Galway side, probably one of the best teams in the country right now. It was tough in the second half but we got those few breaks and made them count.

"And we made some important changes as well but the game is not about 15 players anymore. We had quality on the bench when we needed. And everyone has their strong days and today was a strong day for us. Mayo teams have been unlucky in Croke Park before but we weren't thinking about teams of the past, or the hoodoo or whatever."

When Mayo eventually pushed one point clear, the game seemed to be stuck in the moment as the clock spiralled into injury time. "I saw 39 minutes on my watch and I thought would the referee ever blow it up. We still expected to win because we expect to win every game but of course we knew it would be a huge battle. We showed great character and just stayed in it until the end."

And so ends a remarkable league run for Mayo that drew inspiration from the crushing championship defeat last summer. They went the entire campaign without a loss - winning seven and drawing two - and that can only work wonders for the confidence. If confidence breeds success, this habit may well continue.