“These fellas now have three All-Irelands in their arse pockets and what have we, Mike?…Ah give us a break, for god’s sake give us a break. It’s the least we deserve.” John Casey Midwest Radio
About three weeks ago I stumbled across a documentary about the Buffalo Bills. It was called the four falls of Buffalo and chronicled the story of a Bills team that went to four consecutive Superbowls and lost each one.
Somehow my dad decided to watch the documentary also out of a morbid curiosity like how you slow down as you pass a car crash. When the show finished he turned to me and said they are like Mayo.
If Mayo are like the Bills, then yesterday was definitely their “Wide Right” game. That refers to the Bills first trip to the Superbowl where in the dying seconds they had a field goal to win the game only for kicker, Scott Norwood to hook his attempt to the right of the posts and the Bills lost by a point. It’s was the closest the Bills ever got to winning a championship.
That might be an over exaggeration to apply the same thinking to Mayo so soon into the post-mortem of what went wrong but, when you think back on all the things that went against them over the two games against Dublin you would be hard pressed to disagree.
Two own goals in the first game, Cillian O’Connor who up until his last free in the replay was nine for nine in free kicks misses the last one and the chance to force the game into extra time. Not to mention the fact that over the two matches the Mayo defense suffocated the Dublin attack and if it wasn’t for the above mentioned own goals and a penalty Mayo would have held Dublin goalless which most pundits agree you have to do to beat them.
The game was decided by the thinnest of margins and if you were to play it again another ten times you would feel Dublin would win five as would Mayo.
When the margins are that thin though it is easy for people to over analyze to try and gain any advantage real or imagined and you have to feel that Stephen Rochford was guilty of over thinking when he decided to change his goalkeepers.
After the game Rochford explained his reasoning for the change as so “We did our analysis on Dublin. They had pushed with a formation in the first game, pushing four guys inside. They were trying to cut off our short kick-out and as the game developed in the drawn game they were getting more comfort or more reward and it was probably something they were going to try and maximize further. Robbie’s kick-out gave us a bit more length, a bit more option and that was the reason behind it.”
Which was fine in theory but, as the game wore on it was clear that Dublin were feasting on Hennelly kicks out which such is the importance of them in the modern game as demonstrated by Rochford’s decision to change goalie in the first place, swung the game in Dublin’s favor in the end.
For a new goalkeeper to come in and play is never an easy thing for the player in question. It is different from an outfield player in the sense you can’t really find your feet and play your way into the game. You got the feeling that Hennelly was acutely aware that he was being brought in for his long kick outs and when those went against him it was natural for his confidence to be shaken.
Did it contribute to his fumbling of a high ball that lead to the Dublin penalty? You have to say it did.
The irony of the whole thing of course as highlighted on the Saturday game afterwards is that the short kick was available to Mayo, But Hennelly turned it down instead sticking with the long kick out as I said you feel that was drilled into him and they only varied their kick out and got more joy when David Clarke replaced Hennelly after the black card.
After the Buffalo Bills first Superbowl loss Head Coach Marv Levy was given a poem by his mother and he recited to his team. I think it sums up how Mayo are feeling today.
“Fight on, my men,” Sir Andrew Said “A little I’m hurt but not yet slain. I’ll just lie down and bleed a while, and then I’ll rise and Fight again.”
