A high pass is in over the heads of the Mayo backline, Connor McAliskey is waiting to fist home. There’s tension in the air, if Tyrone get a goal they’ll have something to hang onto.
Bang. David Clarke takes man and ball. Not today, lads.
Mattie Donnelly slices open the defence, Connor McAliskey collects and lets rip at goal. Bang. David Clarke tells him where to go. Not today, lads.
Colm Boyle, patrolling around the 45′ with uncompromising menace for three quarters of an hour, sees a gap and he charges at it like a fearless miner piercing further and further until he sees light. From 50 metres, the number six curls high and mightily and he forces the umpires to go searching for a white flag. He forces his county men to follow him.
Lee Keegan glides down the left, tight to the sideline, no angle at all and it was like Ciarán McDonald himself was making history against the Dubs again with that left foot of his. The half back switches to his right later on, it’s the same result.
Seamus O’Shea, blazing a trail right through the middle of Croke Park, is running at the guardian of the gate Colm Cavanagh for all his worth. If Mayo can’t find a way around, the Breaffy man is going to barge them straight through.
Jason Doherty bangs Cathal McShane to the turf at half time as the sides go in level. It was a stupid yellow but it was a marker. A signal of intent. Angry intent. Not today, lads.
Big Aidan is causing chaos inside. His score is from nowhere, it’s from another planet – the aesthetics and the distance. He’s throwing men to the grass like they’re just pests swarming around him as he drives forward, bodies hanging off his battering ram physique. He loses the ball to Colm Cavanagh and he’s goaded. He doesn’t react. All day he was faced with direct and constant confrontation. He just got on with it. Not today, lads.
He just goes for the next ball. The next one happens to be high and aimless, but he’s there above two white shirts to knock down for Andy Moran.
Andy Moran: Jesus, where do you start?
136 appearances and still playing like a teenager https://t.co/UFm6ekDIzd #Moran #Mayo #GAA
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) July 30, 2016
Trying to pin him down and keep him quiet is like trying to hit a Whac-A-Mole. He keeps popping up with the same unbowed energy and the same restless enthusiasm almost taunting you to try and do something about it.
Then, Cillian O’Connor. Christ, Cillian O’Connor. Fierce, wired, possessed.
If ever a man came to Croke Park fed up with history and form and all the rest of that trivial nonsense, Cillian O’Connor epitomised it. He refused to be chained by what has gone on before, he wouldn’t be kept timid by the nasty Tyrone rearguard. He was a man on a mission and there was no way he was going to leave Dublin beaten again.
In the first half, he couldn’t be touched. He buzzed around headquarters with frightening purpose. It was sharp, it was clinical, it was focused. It was a thing of beauty. A story they’ll tell in years to come about the day Cillian O’Connor led the charge of an unfancied Mayo side and put the Ulster champions to the sword.
But you watched on at these men – all of these men – stepping up and you think, ‘God, how stupid are we?’ How the hell were they unfancied?
How on earth did we write them off?
You haven't breathed in real passion until you've witnessed @MayoGAA fans at MacHale Park https://t.co/vdRTLLAQJu
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) July 13, 2016
How did we overlook their five successive semi-final appearances before this? Or the fact that only an All-Ireland champion has eliminated them for four seasons? Or that they’ve had one blip in all that time?
How did we overlook David Clarke or Colm Boyle or Lee Keegan or the O’Sheas or Andy Moran or Cillian bloody O’Connor? How did we overlook Mayo?
Stephen Rochford listened to all the critics and he just let them talk. Andy Moran felt all the history weighing on his team so he put it on his own shoulders and shrugged it off. Cillian O’Connor looked at what the form book was saying and he ripped it to tiny pieces.
Mayo made a statement in Croke Park on Saturday.
They controlled the game against one of the most effective Tyrone sides for a long time, they ran through their tackles with fearlessness, they strode over the grass with pace and confidence. The whole team moved and up down Ireland’s most hallowed ground like they belonged there. Like they would stay there. And they moved together. As one.
When they had to, they wound down the clock and held their nerve. They did it with brains and with composure. Everything they did, they did with balls.
They took every bad word that has been written and said about them and they rammed it down the throats of poor Tyrone.
In doing so, they didn’t just book their place in the All-Ireland semi-final. Again.
They’ve actually stood up and made a bold statement that this, more than any other, is their year. This could be the one.
And don’t you forget it.
Listen to Michael Murphy chat with Colm Parkinson on The GAA Hour. Subscribe here on iTunes.
