Full back's ability has no limitations

 All-Ireland SFC Final Countdown: Perhaps when it is all over, David Heaney will find a sympathetic ear in his Kerry counterpart Seamus Moynihan. Like the totemic Glenflesk defender, Heaney has found himself a victim of his own versatility.

The sometime goalkeeper and former midfield lynchpin has spent all season operating directly behind James Nallen at full back. It is no great secret he isn't exactly in love with the position. His problem is he plays it very well. There must be days when he watches Ronan McGarrity or James Gill bursting from the crowd when he yearns to be restored to the position in which he started the 1997 All-Ireland against Kerry.

"I do, yeah. But I am not going to pick and choose where I play. The lads are going well out there but I would like the freedom to get out there," he says.

Heaney is one of the five Mayo players remaining from the defeated 1997 side and his form - assured and uncomplicated - has been one of the key reasons for the county's fairly smooth return to the reckoning. Naturally, he is enjoying the season but sometimes gets frustrated with the limitations of his defensive role.

"Full back is a bit of restrictive, it is kind of cat and mouse. All you are doing really is watching your man and doing what he does. It is kind of a negative game, really. You are just breaking ball and not really setting up attacks. I would like to be out the field but the lads are doing a great job there so if it helps the team to win by me playing full back then that is what I will do."

When Heaney thinks of 1997, it is of the pressure the team travelled to Dublin under. Given the emotion and the stark fact of a loss against Meath the September before, deliverance was regarded as a must. The situation, he feels, is much different now. As has been observed, John Maughan is a more mellow manager, and, partly by accident and partly be design, Mayo have tapped into a combination of calm senior players like Heaney and youngsters who possess natural maturity. The old Mayo hoodoos, the 50 years of waiting, do not matter, says Heaney.

"The supporters talk about it, of course they do. And the press constantly mentions 1951 but it really isn't something we think about at all. I think we don't feel any pressure now. In 1997 there was huge pressure after the 1996 season. This year we were underdogs all summer except perhaps against Fermanagh. And that will also be true against Kerry. We are staying together as a group and the younger lads are very happy-go-lucky. They have that Fermanagh spirit. They play for the fun of it. Us senior lads have been through this situation before and John is more relaxed so there is just a good feeling."

The team has met sports psychologist Dr Aidan Moran on the Friday evening before each championship match. Together they try to distil the essence of their game to a number of key words and phrases. The red armbands the team has been wearing have drawn comment. Heaney says there is no great mystery behind them, they are just another method of giving the team a focus.

Even in 1997, Mayo were working along those lines. The key word from that era was "one minute". At training, when that call was made, the players would "go hell for leather" for that period. Then we would try and build it up to two minutes and so on."

It was all about getting the team thinking on the same wavelength, something which has been one of their most impressive characteristics this season. Although they stuttered against Fermanagh, Mayo disposed of All-Ireland champions Tyrone, of Galway and of Roscommon with a sense of professionalism that marked them apart from the class of 1996/'97.

Kerry, though, began the season as rock-solid favourites for the All-Ireland championship and their sticky and rugged league winning form set up what has been an uncompromising path to the final.

"They seem to have learned from the Tyrone game last year," Heaney says. "They are a tougher, harder team. They bring their wing backs to sit behind the midfield but they are very quick when they break again. We know we have to bring the ball in quickly from midfield to counteract that. If we get the ball and start bouncing around the middle those wings backs are going to fly on so we have to get quick ball, especially for the two lads, Conor and Trevor. They need quick ball. If they get quick ball too - how do you stop the Gooch (Colm Cooper) and Mike Frank (Russell), especially in a place the size of Croke Park. I suppose if you win your individual battle, that is half of it."

Heaney has been doing that handsomely all summer. But this is the 70 minutes in which Mayo must deliver as a team. Although the excitement around the county washes off him now, he is not immune to it and reckons it is a matter of finding a happy medium in the weeks before a game.

"Everyone is so enthusiastic, everyone wants to talk - even at work, it is all about football and you are kind of looking for tickets . . . And it is hard to blame them, we haven't been there since 1997 and we don't know when we are going to be there again. So you have to entertain them and know when to say 'stop'. I have a game to play and that is it. But this would mean everything to Mayo."

Even being there as Mayo's number three.