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There's a lovely interview with Kevin O'Neill in the Irish Times today. The way he can find time to fit everything into his life, and not to be bitter about some of the football reverses he's suffered, is stunning and humbling. Anyone here with a daughter at home should be punching the air with delight and relief were she to bring the likes of Kevin O'Neill home to dinner. An exemplary character.



Veteran still willing to serve the cause

Thu, Apr 19, 2007

National Football League Final: Ian O'Riordantalks to Kevin O'Neill about his decision to remain with the Mayo squad and how adversity has only strengthened their resolve

If there were any doubts about Mayo being quite the fully committed bunch this year then Kevin O'Neill single-handedly dismisses them all. Last September's All-Ireland defeat to Kerry did take time to wash out of the system, and it was widely expected one of the definite casualties would be the 33-year-old O'Neill.

But when John O'Mahony arrived as manager he not only convinced O'Neill to stay on, he also made him captain. The former All Star forward from 1993 realised the nature of the deal.

Based in Dublin, with a demanding job that involves periods of foreign travel, he clearly needed to be enjoying his football if he signed up - because the commitment would be absolute.

"To be honest after last year I really didn't expect that I'd continue playing intercounty football this year," says O'Neill. "And I did have to think long and hard about that before I decided to do it.

"John O'Mahony coming in was a huge influence. Everyone knows he's a hugely inspirational figure, a very experienced coach, and that was a huge factor in my decision to come back.

"But the captaincy was something I never expected to get. It's a great honour, at this stage of my career, but I don't see it as any extra pressure. I've always gone out to play as well as I can and lead by example. And I've never been shy before about saying things in the dressingroom.

"Football is also something I still enjoy. Sometimes people lose sight of that factor, with the level of commitment there. But at the end of the day it is very important to enjoy the game, feel relaxed playing football and to express yourself."

O'Neill has been doing plenty of that lately, his performances at corner forward central to Mayo progressing to the National League final against Donegal.

A calf muscle injury has left some doubt over his participation on Sunday, although he's obviously keen to get out there, and make some amends for what happened in Croke Park last September.

"It was hard to get back into the training mode, but last year is already history now, and we're looking forward to the year ahead. Nobody died, it wasn't the end of the world, and life goes on. We're fortunate to have made the league final, and to get back to Croke Park so soon after what happened last September.

"Of course we've tried to learn a few things from defeat that day, and I think as a group of players we've got an even stronger resolve now, and that's been seen throughout the league this year. We have been five or six points down in a number of games and come back to win, and that's great credit to the resolve of all the team."

O'Neill's career to date has been notably stop-start. After the high of his 1993 All Star he sustained a broken leg in 1997, then opted out of the panel altogether before his surprise comeback last year.

In the meantime he'd established a professional career as director of business development for Royal Bank of Canada, and being based in Dublin, along with the foreign travel, means a truly hectic schedule of balancing work and play.

"Well I'd always maintained a good level of fitness, playing club football with Na Fianna. If anything I'm in better physical condition now, being away from all the rigours of it for two or three years.

"But there's a group of eight of us based here in Dublin, like Billy Joe Padden, Gary Mullins, Aidan Higgins, Conor Mortimer, and we travel back to Mayo every weekend, and some weeks we'd meet up with the rest of the squad half way there. We do our weight training in Riverview in Clonskeagh, and football work in Clonkeen College in Stillorgan.

"Logistically it can be difficult the way traffic has gone, and there are the demands of work on top of that. But we're all aware of what we've signed up for. You just have to be exceptionally well organised, and well disciplined to manage the schedules.

"My work does involve lots of travel, to the US and UK, and around Europe. It can be exceptionally demanding to combine that with the football, but I always bring a gear bag with me and a pair of boots. But I suppose I enjoy that too. It's a very active schedule.

"It will be like that for most of the summer, but I'm used to that at this stage, and know how to get the diet right, and rest, and things like that. The general level of fitness is quite good, and rest is probably the most important thing for me at this stage.

"But I'm still looking forward to winning something over the next year or so."

Starting, that is, on Sunday.
© 2007 The Irish Times

Would anyone eat the head off me if I said Kilcullen is guaranteed the no.3 jersey and Padden the no.6 jersey come the championship?

I'd say these positions are correct.

Midfield and the CHF line are still in doubt i'd have thought?

To my mind, nobody's position is safe, which is as it should be. You might see Liam O'Malley at fullback yet, with either Higgins either side. If David Brady comes back, David Heaney might go to centre half back - we don't know. Men could be drafted in from the Under-21 panel. We don't know. And the posts of the Galwaymen in the Mayo v Galway thread make for very thought-provoking reading indeed as Salthill nears. It's a windy road yet I'd say.

The NFL final is throwing in at four I believe, and is preceeded by the Colleges Final.

The D2 semi-finals are under lights in Croker on Saturday night, Meath v Monaghan at six and Roscommon v Cavan at 7.45.

Cavan4Ever is right. This topic is not worthy of this board. Dubnut should take a peep at the gospel of Matthew, chapter 7, verses three to five, and reflect on the words therein.

God bless.

Conor Mort should have been withdrawn yesterday.  he was spouting muck in the papers yesterday as well.

What paper was that in EMH? If you can post a link or something like that I'd appreciate it. There was an interesting article in Tribune yesterday that referred to Conor's relationship with Johnno - very interesting. I've pasted it on the Donegal v Mayo thread.

Michael Lyster just after saying on the telly that the National League Final is fixed for Sunday in Croker. I would have thought that the Hyde or Clones would be handier, and had a better chance of getting a gate?

Fascinating profile of John O'Mahony in this morning's Sunday Tribune.



All the angles
Kieran Shannon


ALREADY in Galway they can spot John O'Mahony's fingertips all over his team.

There'd normally have been a handful of Mayo footballers in the papers a week like this;

this week there's only been Alan Dillon and he'd have got a few quid for doing that promotion gig. And Omagh last week; Mayo didn't need to win but their manager has always wanted every team of his to win every game. Raising the expectations of players while quelling those of the public; it was the O'Mahony way in Galway and it's the O'Mahony way in Mayo. Gary Fahey, the man who lifted the Sam Maguire O'Mahony masterminded in 2001, has noticed that.

"He'll make a big difference there, " says Fahey. "For one, they won't be going blindly into anything. They'll be dealing with reality. No way were Mayo 15 points worse than Kerry last year but no way were they better either, yet going into that final the Mayo public had their rose-tinted glasses on, thinking they were going to take this one nicely.

O'Mahony would have controlled that and embraced the underdogs tag. In 2001 he had us believing that everyone felt we had no chance against Meath. But he believed in us and he had us believing in ourselves."

The confidence came from preparation. Before O'Mahony, Galway would gather at a hotel in the middle of Tuam on championship days, hop into their cars and join supporters in traffic. When O'Mahony took over, the group travelled together, by bus, by garda escort, at a time known days in advance, courtesy of a printed handout detailing their matchday itinerary. Even under John Maughan, with his military background and precision, Mayo had several preparatory glitches, like arriving at Croke Park only 30 minutes before the 2004 drawn All Ireland semi-final against Fermanagh.

Whether it was the cause or symptom of Mayo's future troubles is debatable but an apprehension came into their play which would remain for the rest of that summer. In six years playing for O'Mahony, Fahey can't recall one logistical gaffe. "The weather, "laughs Fahey, "was the only thing he couldn't control and I'd say he'd have tried his best there."

Of course, at times he's got it wrong. An anecdote cited to illustrate his exceptional "motivational" powers is the video he played minutes before the drawn 2000 All Ireland final. In the clip were the players' families, wearing Galway jerseys, waving Galway flags. It moved and affected the players alright - after 25 minutes they were seven points down. It was only when O'Mahony made more task-oriented calculations - bringing on Kevin Walsh, moving Padraic Joyce to centre forward - that Galway started approaching the kind of peak performance that O'Mahony had programmed. O'Mahony himself would have recognised that. "The emotional bangingthe-tables stuff is going out these days, " he would say three years later. "Fellas are calmer now and what's coming in is a more technical approach."

It's something Mayo are getting now - after every game, win or lose, the dressing room door is shut for 45 minutes as O'Mahony's management team absorb Martin Carney's stats to ensure no lazy attributions are imparted to the players - and it's something O'Mahony always welcomed.

Shortly after Mickey Harte wrote 'Kicking Down Heaven's Door', outlining a consultative, player-centred approach which was considered groundbreaking, O'Mahony hinted that "directing traffic" was an approach he too had been doing all along, just something he didn't wish to detail or disclose.

Fahey saw him use it first hand. Leaders like Ray Silke might have been born, but others like Padraic Joyce, in time, were developed. "He (O'Mahony) was very good at facilitating meetings, encouraging everyone to say their share.

You saw guys and their confidence growing in leaps and bounds. He was very good oneto-one as well. You could be having a cup of tea and he'd touch base with you. That was one of his skills, making time to meet up with you without you knowing. And not dictating to you. What he'd say is, 'Look, it's up to yourself, but I'd recommend you eat this?'" It's what he's best working with - people - and making them feel important to the cause. He recently stated how good it was to see Ronan McGarrity, still recovering from his testicular cancer operation, visit the dressing room.

In 2000 he kept Ja Fallon part of the Galway group when that player was out for the year with a cruciate ligament injury.

James Nallen might never start a championship game again but O'Mahony recognises he can provide the kind of leadership that Billy Byrne and George O'Connor offered Wexford in 1996. Last week O'Mahony gave Nallen the captain's armband to mark a record number of appearances by any Mayo player, and adapted "Let's win this one for Jimmy" as the match theme. In the wrong hands, it could have been forced and condescending, but in O'Mahony's it was sincere and appreciated.

As much as Mickey Moran tried to cultivate the notion of "family" last season, he alienated the county board. Under O'Mahony, they've been welcomed back into the loop.

Mayo didn't have any overnight stays this year, even for the trip in Cork; instead players were being dropped off at their homes at 4am, and out with their clubs 10 hours later. By empathising with the board's financial constraints and fixture list, O'Mahony knows such a gesture will be reciprocated. It already has;

after attending the Connacht under-21 semi-final, O'Mahony had a helicopter whisking the general election candidate off to the Fine Gael ard fheis.

In some dealings, though, he's had to use the iron fist with the silk glove. O'Mahony has identified that Conor Mortimer personifies so much of what's bad as well as good about the Mayo condition and that he must go to the next level if Mayo are to as well. When Joe Kernan stayed in the same hotel as Mayo the weekend of the 2004 All Ireland semi-final, he was struck by how Mortimer and Ciaran McDonald wore different gear to the rest of the panel; last December, a few nights after the panel were given the same training gear, Mortimer walked out with the wrong shorts only for O'Mahony to discreetly tell him to wear Mayo shorts like everyone else.

One night the DCU student was late for a session with the panel's Dublin-based players.

Just before training the following night, he was handed Jim Kilty's mobile phone. It was O'Mahony, checking to see if he was there. After a poor display in Donegal, Mortimer was dropped for Limerick, before being called back into the starting lineup against Fermanagh. Since then he's been Man of the Match in three of his four games, averaging 1-4 a match.

Every move of O'Mahony seems to have worked. David Heaney's switch to midfield;

Marty McNicholas and Kevin O'Neill coming on against Cork; Ger Brady's three points from play in Omagh after being moved into full forward; but some things aren't going to plan. Ciaran McDonald might never wear a Mayo jersey again. Twice he's resumed collective training and played some minutes in a challenge game, only to break down with his back injury. And politically, polls have O'Mahony seventh in a five-seat constituency.

At times it's been a surreal campaign. Last month himself and Beverly Flynn donned pyjamas in a playschool to help the Make-A-Wish foundation, while his election pamphlets have avoided any reference to the fact he coached Galway, something that initially seemed further proof of his reluctance to offend anyone.

Such caution, however, has been validated. Recently Fianna Fáil opponent, John Carthy, besmirched O'Mahony's residency in Ballaghaderreen by remarking that "if they (the Mayo electorate) want to elected another TD in Roscommon", they were free to do so.

O'Mahony, born in the last house on the Mayo side of Ballaghaderreen, did not allow such a slur go unchallenged. "I have absolute trust in the people of Mayo to decide whether I am a Mayo person or not, " he responded in that diplomatic but forceful way of his. "I'll be concentrating on a positive campaign and while everyone is entitled to their opinion, I want to clarify the matter from my point of view."

His Mayoness is beyond question. Months before taking the Galway job, O'Mahony admitted that "I would love to manage a team to win the All Ireland title." He realised that ambition, yet here he is today, facing the team he guided to that All Ireland, wanting more.

"Winning an All Ireland for Mayo, I would say it would mean more to him, " contends Fahey. "When he was with us, he was fully committed to us, but whereas he wanted to win an All Ireland as a manager, we wanted to win it for Galway. He wants to win one for Mayo."

And will he? "Well, " says Kevin Walsh, "if this group don't win it under him, they won't win it at all."

He has three seasons to win it. Or to put it another way, Mayo are lucky to have him for three years.

http://www.tribune.ie

The Sunday Tribune live on the web every Sunday.

Subscribe to Tribune.ie and discover why the Sunday Tribune is Ireland's quality Sunday newspaper.© All contents copyright The Sunday Tribune 2007.

There's an interview with Alan Dillon in this morning's Irish Times. Dillon doesn't give much away - a man hardly spends this much time around Johnno without picking up some of his habits - but I get the feeling there'll be a lot of shadow-boxing at this game at the weekend before the real thing by the seaside on May 20th.




http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/sport/2007/0412/1176156964710.html

Dillon paints brighter picture

Ian O'Riordan

Thu, Apr 12, 2007

GAELIC GAMES/National Football League:One got the feeling when Mayo's Alan Dillon looked out across Croke Park yesterday he didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so he laughed. "It looks well," he said, with an obvious grin.

It was Dillon's first visit to GAA headquarters since last September, when along with the rest of his Mayo team-mates he suffered football's worst nightmare. Having played so brilliantly to make the All-Ireland final form deserted them when they most needed it - with Dillon, almost inconceivably, ending up scoreless in the 13-point defeat to Kerry.

His duties yesterday were far less pressurised as he helped launch the GAA's latest sponsorship deal involving Crown Paints. But Dillon will be back on Sunday for more important matters as Mayo renew their enduring rivalry with Galway in the football league semi-final.

Still, even that game will probably pale in significance compared to the Connacht championship meeting between the same teams on May 20th. And besides, Mayo's ultimate goal for the year must be to get back to Croke Park in September, and finally win the cursed thing - which is the only way to make full amends for the disappointments of recent years.

"Of course, there'll still be the memory of last September when we come here on Sunday," he said, "but it's only a league semi-final. There won't be 82,000 here or any great pressure, and hopefully, we can enjoy it this time, and express ourselves a little more. But all players love to play in Croke Park and I can't wait to get out there again.

"You can't hide from the facts either, so of course we've analysed the All-Ireland final, and looked at all our mistakes, and what we did wrong. We've looked back at our weaknesses on the day, and tried to work on them. You can read into it as much as you want really, but it was a combination of things."

Mayo, it seems, haven't dwelt on that disappointment, and already put the lessons of defeat to good use. Along with Donegal they secured play-off status even before the final round of the league, and Dillon also puts that down to a combination of things.

"Our fitness during the league has been very good. Jim Kilty has come in, and brought a whole new freshness to the thing. We'd some tough games along the way but got through, like I think the game against Cork showed we'd some good character there, being six points down at half-time. That's the most pleasing factor really.

"John O'Mahony has also come in with a new approach. His man-management is very good, in that he gets to know all the players, and tries to improve you as much as he can, individually, and that's one thing that has made a big difference.

"Of course everyone still has an eye on six weeks' time. But at the same time we won't be holding back. We want to put in as strong a performance as we can. It would be a great boost at this time of the year, getting some silverware going into the championship. At the start of the league everyone wants to make the knock-out stages, which we've done. So it's time to move on again, try to make the final, and win it."

Whenever teams meet in the play-offs of the league with a championship date looming there is always the danger that some shadowboxing will take preference to the real punches. One can't even be sure if victory on Sunday will give the winning team some sort of psychological edge for next month's meeting, or if the losing team gain the greater incentive to turn the tables the next day.

Mayo and Galway met at the same stage last year, with Galway triumphing, only for Mayo to come up with the trump card in the Connacht championship final. When Mayo last won the league title in 2001 they also beat Galway in the final, only to watch Galway capture the All-Ireland title.
© 2007 The Irish Times

The Railway Cup always did more to promote players from so-called "weaker counties" than all this old blather about the Tommy Murphy Cup. It's marvellous to see some effort being put into its proper promotion.

This morning's Indo reports that Conor Mortimer is an injury doubt for the game. Losing your highest scorer wouldn't be a great way to be going into the game.

Anybody know how Ciarán McDonald's rehab is getting along?



Hat-trick hero Mortimer a doubt for semi-final

Tuesday April 10th 2007


CONOR MORTIMER is Mayo's latest doubt for Sunday's Allianz NFL semi-final with Galway in Croke Park on Sunday, a match both teams were keen to avoid.

Mortimer, who bagged a hat-trick of goals against Tyrone in Omagh, was visibly in pain on a couple of occasions after picking up a shoulder injury in the first half. The Mayo players were involved in club games yesterday and O'Mahony was keeping his fingers crossed that there would be no more casualties. Initially, Mayo were led to believe that Kildare would be their semi-final opponents immediately after the win in Omagh.

But now that it's Galway, Mayo's opponents in the first round of the Connacht SFC on May 20, O'Mahony insists his team won't be holding back.

"Neither team would have wanted it that way but neither team will shy away from it either. Ultimately, the championship game is what will be relevant at the end of the year but we have been cultivating a habit of being competitive in all games, trying to win every game. We had that in Omagh on Sunday.

"People said to me all week we didn't have to win against Tyrone but games are there to win, not lose or hold back from."

O'Mahony accepted it was better to be playing Galway in a league semi-final than a final a week later and a week closer to their Connacht clash.

Mayo have the luxury of re-introducing Peadar Gardiner, David Heaney, James Kilcullen and Kevin O'Neill to the team after they were rested for the Omagh match. Galway have turned their league campaign around once again with the return of Pádraic Joyce most significant.

They lost their opening two games and were facing a third defeat midway through their Pearse Stadium encounter with Armagh. But they came storming back to win that and reeled off four more wins to top the group with an impressive finish against Down.

Colm Keys


© Irish Independent
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/ & http://www.unison.ie/

Declan Quill would be  a national superstar if we wore blue

Would you boys think this could be part of the problem? Players whose chief attribute is that they play for Dublin are turned into stars by relentless media hype when they aren't really that good? There were a lot of fellas looking down on the city from lucozade posters last year who were by no means superstars. Not only were they not the best nationally, they weren't even the best on their own team. And then real Dublin stars, like Sherlock and Shane Ryan and Alan Brogan, who turn it on year after year, get ignored. I don't get it. Never have.

Today Ger Brady sounded very impressive in full forward. David Heaney is doing a brilliant job in mid field.

I don't think Heaney came on at all today.

I completely forgot about yesterday being Lá na nAmadán. That sounds like the most likely explanation alright. A relief so for all concerned.

Except me for being one of the Amadáin in question, of course. 

Mike Finnerty and Billy Fitz had a story on the Mid-West radio coverage that Dublin claimed sweet revenge for Mayo's little bit of fun with the Hill last summer. It seems that when Mayo arrived at the home team dressing room that the Dubs were already in situ, and had blocked the way with an ice bath.

Anybody know what was the point of this? Don't Dublin have other stuff to worry about? Like football?

I've heard the Mayo Under 21 team has been named but I can't seem to find it anywhere. If anybody has it you might put it up here, thanks.

Or if you're reading this Noelle, you might put it up on your own site.