Search Results for 'Ray Dempsey'

Often the best game on All-Ireland final Sunday is the minor contest, rather than the senior joust.

The week before the All Ireland minor final, the Mayo Advertiser had an opportunity to sit down with Mayo manager Ray Dempsey to see how the Knockmore man felt about the impending All Ireland final, how his side have performed this year, and getting the best of his players in the biggest 60 minutes of their lives so far.

Twelve months on and Ray Dempsey and his management team and only a handful of their side from last year are back in an All Ireland final and are once again going in as underdogs against the Ulster champions. But that tag won’t faze either the management team or the players who are sent out onto the field in an attempt to claim the ultimate prize in this grade. Over the season the Mayo minors have adapted to many challenges through the Connacht championship and the All Ireland series and any time a question has been asked of them they have found the answer. Starting off against Galway in Sligo as underdogs, Mayo gave a tour de force in the second half blowing Galway off the pitch and sending them into the Connacht final as favourites. A tag that did not rest well on them, and they struggled against a very physical Roscommon side and were lucky to get a second bite at the cherry, but they learned their lesson from that game in Salthill and despite having to go to Hyde Park for the replay, they were able to up their game and change it around enough to see off Roscommon with ease in the end.

Another journey soaked in sadness, another All-Ireland final that might have given us some cheer. Several Mayo fans came away from headquarters shaking their heads in despair. I met and saw some of them on Jones Road. I wasn’t one of them. Of course I was sad that we lost, particularly in view of the fact that we had a glorious opportunity to win the match. But the reality is we are well used to the heartbreak that besieges our towns and villages in and around the third Sunday in September. We are now losing finals at a rate that is just not funny any more. Our resolve is being tested to the limit, but we’ve been here before and lived to tell the tale! As the saying goes ‘nobody died’ and we will get up, dust ourselves down and go at it again. Because that is what we should do.

If friendship was to be measured by the number of times I called to John Naughton’s house to say hello, I was not John’s friend at all, for I never called to his home, nor he to mine and this despite the fact that he only lived over the road from me here in Castlebar. But I have known John all of my adult life because he played in goal for the Crossmolina senior football team for years. Unfortunately John lost his brave battle with cancer and passed away last week. John was a very clever, gifted, man who knew things that others didn’t. He was interested in predictable things like Gaelic football, his farm and livestock, and loved his work with the HSE in Castlebar Hospital. He always struck me as being a wise man. He remained passionate about the Crossmolina football team even after he stopped playing. When I made my way on to the senior team in Crossmolina John was already the well established custodian, having played in goals for years prior to my arrival. He took his game seriously and was never shy in making a suggestion as to how the opposition would be beaten, or offering his point of view on what was going awry in a game. John had notions of grandeur for the club. He wasn’t content with the junior medal won in 1975 or the intermediate title won in 1980. He wanted the team to be the best it could be, to be up there with the top teams competing for the county senior title annually. He was one of the real leaders in the dressing room during my indoctrination. At that time I was a young naive defender on the team and John often pulled me aside before, during, and after games to offer encouragement and advice, for which I was most grateful for. What I loved about those words was the fact that they were delivered in the language of the plain man. In other words, there was no doubt in my mind about the content of the message delivered! John’s manner was genial, his humour easy, and his mind acute. He was enormously proud of the achievements of his native Crossmolina, particularly the All Ireland club victory in 2001. On big match days, whether it was Mayo or Crossmolina that was involved, John would have the field in front of the house bedecked in the Mayo and Crossmolina colours. The display of a variety of paraphernalia, bunting, and flags signalled the fact that a serious follower of the GAA lived in the house behind the field. An enormous crowd of old GAA friends and colleagues, from as far away as Co. Tyrone, turned out for his funeral last weekend to bid farewell to a good man who loved his sport. John would have been immensely proud of his son Kieran who bravely took to the field last Sunday to assist his club, Castlebar Mitchell’s, get through their quarter-final replay vs Shrule/Glencorrib successfully. It can’t have been easy.

I took in all three county finals last weekend at McHale Park. Saturday’s Intermediate final between Westport and Tourmakeady was played in atrocious conditions. What a shame that a final had to be played during an evening when sheets of rain and high winds made a lottery of the result. I thought it might have been cancelled and played on Bank Holiday Monday. Apparently, had the game ended in a draw, the replay was scheduled for Monday as the Connacht Intermediate club championship is fixed for this weekend. I am sure both teams would have been more than happy to a rescheduling with extra time being played if necessary. The pitch would also have been saved from the battering it got and would have been in better shape for our big showcase games on Sunday. Martin Connolly, the Westport manager, must have been seriously concerned last Saturday morning when he realised that the final was to be played in a storm. His Westport team are young and light and playing in such conditions against the bigger, stronger, experienced Tourmakeady lads was an advantage conceded. He shouldn’t have worried too much as his charges were that bit fitter and sharper around the field than their opponents and they appeared to get to grips with the awful conditions a little bit better. Playing against the wind in the first half they managed to score two goals which gave them the cushion of a lead at half time when they might have expected to have trailed by a few scores. ‘ Do not concede a goal in the second half’ might have been the chat in the ‘Covey’ dressing room at half time and they would be home and dry (well the first part anyway)! They did that and successfully and manfully weathered the storm as Tourmakeady threw the kitchen sink at them in the closing minutes. Ultimately their success was deserved as I felt they were the better team on the day.

The freezing conditions that have beset the country have seen the cancellation of the first round of games in the Connacht FBD League this weekend. The Connacht council announced the decision on Wednesday saying: “Due to hazardous driving conditions and having checked the weather forecast for the weekend Connacht GAA Council has postponed the start of the FBD Insurance League until Sunday January 17.” Mayo were scheduled to open their FBD League campaign with a tie in Garrymore against the students from NUIG on Sunday, but all the ties have now been put back a week due to the snow and ice. Mayo will now start their campaign on Sunday week, and follow it up with a game at home to Sligo IT on Sunday January 24 in Charlestown, and wrap up the league stages on Sunday January 31 in Ballinlough against Roscommon. The home final for the league has been pencilled in for either Saturday February 20 or Sunday February 28, and the final against New York on Sunday October 10.

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It was third time lucky for Ciaran McBrien’s men last Sunday as they claimed the Moclair Cup thanks to a three point win over Knockmore in the county senior final. The east Mayo men were deserving winners over an injury hit side from north Mayo who lacked the killer punch up front denied to them by the absence of Aidan Kilcoyne and Damien Munnelly, but that is of little worry to Charlestown who went out and did what they had to do. David ‘Ginger’ Tiernan rolled back the years with a tireless display in the middle of the field which saw him rightfully rewarded with a man of the match trophy after the game but good performances from the likes of Richard Haran which saw him score four points, John Casey in goal who pulled off a few good saves one late on when Knockmore were battling for a goal to save the tie and substitute Brian O’Connell who offered them something different in attack when they needed it, during the final scuffles saw them over the line. And after the celebrations died down this week, attention will turn to the Connacht Club championship, a competition the east Mayo men won the last time they were county champions back in 2001.

“You’ve got to dance with the ladies that are in the hall, as they say,” is Ciaran McBrien’s outlook as he thinks about the injuries he has to deal with ahead of this Sunday’s refixed Connacht club final against Corofin. The Charlestown manager already knew that he would be without the influence and experience of David Tiernan for this final due to injury, and star forward Richie Haran was going to be another major doubt for the game last weekend with a broken bone in his hand. The extra week has given Haran some more time to recover, but McBrien does not know if it is going to be enough. “It’s one of the hardest breaks to heal we’ve been told, they reckon it will be a six to eight week injury whichever way you look at it, but we hope he’s able to make it in some form.”