The 10-point thrashing at the hands of Roscommon was the turning point in Mayo’s season and set them on course for a stunning All-Ireland SFC victory, says Martin Carney.
Slinking out of MacHale Park last April after surrendering a three-point half-time lead in their Connacht semi-final, few would have given Andy Moran’s men a snowball’s chance in hell of returning there as heroes with Sam Maguire just three months later.
“The difference, I think, was the defeat to Roscommon, believe it or not,” former Mayo player Carney told RTÉ Sport.
“They were beaten in the second half of that game by 1-07 to seven points.
“Then they had four weeks to think about it, to mull over it and to actually remodel his team.
“And [Andy] brought in three young people, three or four lads.
“He brought in Darragh Beirne. He [had] brought in Kobe McDonald, who was still actually in the throes of his Leaving Cert.
“He was still in school at the time, and he brought in the young [Eoin] McGreal lad at corner-back.
“On top of that, he kept faith in a lot of lads, the likes of Bob Tuohy.
Mayo’s Connacht campaign came to a juddering halt against Roscommon
“He kept faith in his captain, Jack Coyne.
“He put a huge emphasis on getting the ball in quickly into his forward line, getting the ball in quickly into those three inside lads [Beirne, McDonald and Ryan O’Donoghue].
“And it made all the difference.
“If there’s any one statistic that gives you an idea of the change of emphasis that you had with Mayo this year, it’s the following: in the entirety of the championship last year, Mayo just scored three two-pointers.
“This year, I think they scored 32.
“In the All-Ireland final last Sunday against Kerry, I think they might have attempted 15. They scored four, they had two wides and the rest of them dropped short.
“But attempting them and missing them didn’t carry a death sentence.
“They were encouraged to do that, they were encouraged to take risks.
“And most importantly, from a defensive point of view, he had a discipline instilled into that team.
“And [coach] Paddy Tally is to be complimented on that.
“Paul Durcan, as a goalkeeper [coach], is to be complimented, and the improvement that he brought about with Jack Livingstone.
“So many components came right. Not just at once, but just incrementally.
Mayo beat Meath by three points to reach the quarter-finals
“I remember talking on the phone to [former Meath player and manager] Colm O’Rourke after the Meath game [in round three of the qualifiers], and Colm said, ‘they are two awful average teams’.
“And you know something, he was right. Because you could have run a Dublin bus through the Mayo defence that day.”
Carney, who won four Connacht titles as a player with Mayo before taking up coaching positions with the county, was present in MacHale Park yesterday evening as the All-Ireland winners were welcomed home by a massive crowd at the county ground.
He praised Moran’s speech in which the manager hit back at the criticism the county received over the course of 11 unsuccessful All-Ireland finals since 1989.
“They sneered at us, they laughed at us – but they won’t laugh at us any more,” said the manager, in his first year in charge.
“It was extraordinary,” Carney said.
“You had about 50 to 60,000 people there; the team didn’t arrive until 6 o’clock, but they were in the ground since 2 o’clock.
“I’ll tell you what it was last night, he kind of, in a sense, encapsulated the feelings that all Mayo had.
“That they weren’t respected, that they weren’t actually given the credit they deserved over the years.
“Yes, they lost a lot of finals, but they got there.
“A lot of the finals they lost, they lost three of them, remember, by just a point against Dublin, three times in the last decade.
“But in doing so, people had this kind of this false sympathy for you, this kind of cynical remarks and all of that kind of stuff, that we weren’t good enough, that we were second-raters and all of that.
“And I think this was, in a sense, a kind of a gushing, a flowing, a kind of a crescendo of the feelings that most people had.
“And it was perfectly expressed by Andy from the stage last night.”
Carney is now enjoying something of a viral moment following the dramatic conclusion to the final.
He was on co-commentary duty, alongside Stephen Grealis, for Midwest Radio and their passionate, description of the final minute has become famous.
“Embarrassed completely,” he joked of the reaction to the clip.
“No, look, it was a wonderful moment. It was a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful conclusion to the game. It was an outpouring of joy.
“You know, I was halfway through it and there was a great player for Mayo from the past, the late Joe Langan, and his wife came over and I was blowing full on.
“She came over and gave me a big kiss on the cheek because the way we were, I was just beside the crowd and it was just surreal, the whole thing.
“Beautiful and what an outpouring of emotion. And just the roar that went up, it nearly lifted Croke Park from its foundations.
“It was delightful. It was a wonderful, wonderful sporting moment. As good, I think, as I’ve ever experienced, to be quite honest about it.
“It’s just lovely to have been there, lovely to have witnessed it, and lovely that my children were able to witness it.”
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