Mayo fans not afraid to dream ahead of football final

It is rare that a diamond anniversary goes uncelebrated.

But understandable, perhaps, when there is little appetite to mark what has occurred in the 75 years between event and landmark jubilee.

Across Mayo this week, the focus is not on the past, but rather on hope for the future.

The county's last All-ireland football success in 1951 is an ever present in the mindset but there is a sense that something has shifted in the psyche too.

Maybe that’s because 'Mayo’, ‘All-Ireland Final’ and ‘2026’ were not on many pre-season prediction cards.

There is a Tales of the Unexpected quality to the journey that sees the senior footballers lining out on Sunday in Croke Park.

Beaten in Connacht, only to navigate a way through the All-Ireland series, they stand on the cusp of something bigger than a game of football. Might this be the year?

The answer to that seems to depend largely on your perception of what has come before.

For younger supporters, going through their paces at Westport GAA club this week, there is an infectious joy about what might unfold.

Not for them the doom of finals past. Instead, a youthful confidence in what could happen.

"Well, I’m looking forward to seeing Kobe McDonald in his first season and also his last season," said Callum Hawkshaw.

His Cúl Camp colleague Mary-Kate McGreal is focused on the craic she has had going to games all summer and what might unfold on the journey home to Mayo, were the team to prevail.

"I’ve been going to like nearly all the matches all the way up so the fans like us would love it," she says, before recalling the scenes at motorway toll plazas on the way back from Dublin, after the semifinal, when "all the cars were beeping and the flags were flying".

"I’d never seen anything like it," she said.

Read more: All-Ireland football final: Kerry v Mayo - All you need to know

Rian Murray is hopeful the team can capitalise on frees to "close down the Clifford brothers".

"I’d say if we stop them, we have a good chance, yeah," he said.

At the offices of The Mayo News, on the Fairgreen in Westport, the commemorative preview supplement has been put to bed, and the focus is now on what happens next.

Sports Editor Michael Gallagher says there is a different vibe around the country than has been the case in finals past.

"We’re almost afraid to dream anymore, we’ve got burned so often, but as the week goes on that sense of maybe the romance of it will come into it.

"We’re trying not to think about it, but it does creep into the back of your head.

"It’s a young team and nobody is expecting anything of them, but there is that sense of hope in the background that maybe this is finally the year we win it. Logically, that’s not the case.

"Kerry are raging hot favourites if you look at it logically, but when did Mayo people ever look at anything logically?"

The Moran impact

Mr Gallagher says the shift in mindset with the Andy Moran regime is evident.

"He has trusted youth and that hasn’t always been the case here. You know, we have been afraid to give youth its head, but now we have that vibrancy in it and we see that in the way people are reacting and it’s really exciting.

"We’ve waited a few lifetimes for this, but this is an absolute new team, who’ve never lost a final, so this is their first and maybe they get one from one."

As for the match itself, he shares the view that duels in the middle third will be key.

"You’ve got to try and win more than your share in midfield which will be very difficult.

"It hasn’t been a strong point for Mayo all year. It has been a strong point for Kerry. We have struggled in the middle of the field.

"They’ve got to win 60% a ball in the middle to have a chance of winning and that’s where the problem may lie."

A few kilometres away on the Main Street in Castlebar, local publican Mick Byrnes is holding court.

A lifelong football supporter, he will be one of thousands making the journey to the capital this weekend.

He is pleasantly surprised at having to clear his diary for the last Sunday in July, and puts much of that down to the manner in which Mr Moran has brought in that younger cohort.

"Lots of people are talking about our full forward line, but the backs have been gelling well, our keeper has been doing well, all we need is for them to do that for another 70 minutes and we’ll be happy," he said.

Never one to shy from a prediction challenge, he sides with Mayo to win by a couple of points, but not before he spends the final five minutes as a nervous wreck.

By 5pm on Sunday we will know how it all works out and whether that diamond jubilee idea can be consigned to the dustbin, in favour of a much more meaningful celebration.