Search Results for 'Andy Moran'

Anytime over the past few years that I have met, or spoken to Cillian O'Connor, I have found him to be in the vernacular of my home place, Belclare, which is a half-parish of Corofin, 100 per cent "spot-on". Or alternatively he might be described as “sound as a bell” or "sound as a pound" by a few of the older generation.

And breathe. There is no word in the English dictionary to describe what went on last Sunday. Mayo produced their gutsiest performance ever to snatch a draw against raging hot favourites and current champions Dublin in Croke Park in the All-Ireland final. The tone was set long before throw-in as the teams entered the field. I happened to be on the sideline doing a piece with Radio 1 as I watched Stephen Cluxton lead his team out to a deafening roar. I was left stunned to see Cillian O'Connor burst out the tunnel through the Dublin players, followed closely by Aidan O'Shea and the rest of his team mates. Misinformed initially, I was told Mayo lay in wait for Dublin to ruffle their feathers. The reason for this coming together was the fact that Dublin were meant to enter the field at 2.56 and Mayo at 2.58. This clash occurred at 3.02.

Anytime over the past few years that I have met or spoken to Cillian O’ Connor, I have found him to be in the vernacular of my home place, Belclare, which is a half-parish of Corofin, to be 100 per cent “spot-on”.

When Mayo needed a man to show the leadership in a clutch situation, their star man came good right at the death. Cillian O’Connor showed why he was picked by Stephen Rochford as his captain, when he created the space he needed to shimmy inside and drill the ball through the drizzle over the bar and electrify the Mayo faithful in Croke Park to haul his side level at the death.

Connacht Championship quarter-final

History has weighed heavy on the shoulders of every single man who has thrown a green and red jersey across his shoulders since 1951, every year there is expectation in the county, from those on the sidelines and those spread far and wide across the globe, that this will finally be the year.

All-Ireland final hype is about to enter fever pitch. Nothing beats preparing for a final, whether your a player, supporter, county board or club official. It gives everyone a pep in their step. The players and officials have the trivial matters out of the way and will have their match day suits ready for the off and press commitments done and dusted. For them now it's all about focused minds and mentally preparing themselves for the biggest day of their footballing lives.

There has been a lot of talk about the scheduling of championship matches in Mayo for this weekend. I have experienced both ends of the stick with club and county and it's not very nice for club players to be left in limbo as regards preparing for big games only for them to be called off at the 11th hour, but for me nothing should get in the way of Mayo's pursuit of the holy grail.

Mayo have been involved in enough epic semi-finals over the last two years and have come out on the wrong side of the result at the end of the day that Sunday’s performance over Tipperary won’t mind them that much at this stage, with four weeks to put things right before they face either Dublin or Kerry in the final.

After Mayo's superb victory over Tyrone I have to pinch myself to comprehend that Mayo are playing Tipperary in an All-Ireland semifinal on Sunday. It sounds bizarre. If we go back to June 18 and after watching Mayo's poor performance against Galway, we firstly did not see Mayo getting to a semifinal and if they did we certainly did not expect the opposition to be from the premier county. Clare and Tipperary have both been very successful examples of the qualifiers in 2016 but Tipp's trouncing of Connacht champions Galway by nine points has certainly made them the number one success story.