That was all she wrote for Andy Moran.
He tried and tried and tried for so many years but couldn’t win the Sam Maguire. Mayo should have won it in 2016 but two own-goals proved that the curse was real.
Two weeks later and Mayo were equally as good but Dublin stepped up their game.
Cormac Costello came off the bench to save Dublin, Andy Moran came off the pitch and ultimately left Croke Park without an All-Ireland to his name.
Sitting on the Croke Park pitch, that was meant to be it for Andy Moran. He was done now and had nothing left to give. His daughter, Charlotte was growing up fast and just about everyone believed that was it for the Ballaghaderreen man.
Another loyal servant was gone without a medal, what more did he have to do? But Andy Moran didn’t listen, it wasn’t his time to leave just yet. Andy Moran wasn’t done.
Fast forward a year and Andy Moran still doesn’t have an All-Ireland medal but, by God, doesn’t he have the respect of every GAA head in the country.
The pundits called him too old, they said Mayo couldn’t be reliant on a 33-year-old in 2017 to get the scores. That was how the script went, but Andy Moran and Mayo took that script and tore it up.
Mayo laboured against Sligo, they lost to Galway and should have been dumped out at the hands of Cork and Derry but they ploughed on. They stepped up against Roscommon when they had to and did the same against Kerry.
Andy Moran is the @PwC All-Star Footballer of the Year! The @MayoGAA man shared his thoughts on the award here with GAANOW! #PwCAllStars pic.twitter.com/6utvOyECXn
— The GAA (@officialgaa) November 3, 2017
Different players’ form came and went, Aidan O’Shea was brilliant against Derry and Clare. Lee Keegan single-handedly dragged Mayo to a drawn game against Roscommon.
But ever present was Andy Moran, the guy that wasn’t meant to be there. He was better in 2017 than any other year.
His scoring tally was phenomenal.
- 0-2 vs Sligo
- 0-1 vs Galway
- 0-2 vs Derry
- 0-3 vs Clare
- 0-4 vs Cork
- 1-1 vs Roscommon
- 0-2 vs Roscommon
- 1-5 vs Kerry
- 1-1 vs Kerry
- 0-3 vs Dublin
All of a sudden, the nation of Ireland were in a position that the Player of the Year award was a near certainty to be heading to the guy just about everyone had written off. The guy that was finished a year ago. The guy that Mayo couldn’t rely on to get to an All-Ireland final. Andy Moran.
Stephen Rochford emphasised that Moran needed to stay closer to goal this year, he didn’t have the legs to be running himself ragged going into the corners and oh how it worked.
This man is in top form at the moment! Another goal in Championship 2017 today for @MayoGAA's Andy Moran vs @Kerry_Official #KERRYvMAYO pic.twitter.com/kD6tziKfUz
— The GAA (@officialgaa) August 26, 2017
As Moran gets a little bit older, his training suits his needs:
“So if I go out on to the pitch, now, I’d do say twenty shots before training but I’d hold it to twenty shots, I won’t do any more, so I’m concentrating on every single shot, religiously,” Moran said on the GAA Hour.
“Before when I was a young fella, I’d go to the pitch for four or five hours just kicking, kicking, kicking. This is different now, I just go out and do my 20 shots and that’s it really,” he added.
“It’s more quality than quantity now.
“I think what helped me in terms of my shooting is that I don’t shoot as much. So every time I shoot, I have to think about it.
“You know yourself, when the body gets old, the hardest thing to do is to shoot,” claimed the forward.”
It has been a remarkable turnaround in Moran’s career, the 34-year-old has suddenly propelled himself as THE marquee forward in the country in the space of a few months.
Moran was the most loved man in Mayo prior to 2017, his legacy has only been further cemented. And the Mayo forward is planning on going absolutely nowhere. Not yet.
“Do I have an age in mind to retire? The answer to that would be no,” Moran said in a video about his Footballer of the Year win.
“If Stephen Rochford or somebody else wants me to go back playing for Mayo and it’s the right thing for me to do with my family, I think I’ll keep going until the body tells me to stop.”
Football, fitness & family. PwC GAA/GPA Footballer of the Year, Andy Moran, reflects on his career to date & his journey to the #PwCAllStars pic.twitter.com/ERPZPDveTn
— PwC Ireland (@PwCIreland) November 8, 2017
Moran will be back and so will Mayo. But to add to his Footballer of the Year award it’d be great to also be named SportsJOE’s Sportsperson of the Year.
And you can vote for him right here.
