Jack McCaffrey came running off the pitch in Dr Hyde Park last Sunday, one of the last players from either side to make good his escape from the selfie jungle out on the grass. He stopped on his way to the dressingroom to shake hands with Kevin McStay and the pair of them shared a laugh and wished each other well the rest of the way.
“When are you going to just f**king retire?” McStay cracked as McCaffrey headed off to get changed. “Just don’t answer the phone!” McCaffrey jogged away cackling to himself, another foe foiled, another sword pulled from the stone at the last possible moment.
For all that McStay looked cranky on the television screens afterwards, he was in sanguine enough form by the time he and McCaffrey were cracking wise at each other. It was obvious enough that the only downside to the day was the result. And even at that, his team wasn’t beaten. In fact, Mayo have been beaten once in six games in this championship — and that was by a long range free in the 76th minute of the Connacht final.
But of course, Mayo don’t get a free pass on anything. It is their curse and their blessing that everything has to be hard-earned, including, latterly, the fealty of their support base. They had, at a guess, about half of the 16,870 support that paid through the gate in the Hyde last Sunday. If their performance did nothing else, we can be damn sure it guaranteed more than 8,000-odd Mayo fans in Castlebar tonight.
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“They’ve restored my faith!” said one Mayo man I ran into this week. This is the sort of sentiment that wouldn’t come as any kind of surprise to McStay and his team but still, one that must baffle them to some extent. What faith, exactly, needed restoring?
Faith that they might win the All-Ireland? Surely not. Even the most fecklessly optimistic Mayo followers can’t be setting the bar that high. Mayo have to beat Derry and then either Armagh, Donegal or Kerry next weekend just to make the last four. They’ve been hockeyed in their last two All-Ireland quarter-finals, losing by 12 points to Dublin last year and eight to Kerry in 2022. Mayo have no business inspiring faith in a run at Sam Maguire. That kind of chat is at least a fortnight away — and more likely a month, in the unlikely event it happens at all.
So what, then? What sort of faith should a draw against the Dubs have been restoring? Faith that they aren’t yesterday’s men? Faith that they’re not useless? If those are the kind of notions Mayo people have been harbouring, they can’t really have been paying attention.
Plenty of teams have ceilings — and god knows Mayo have bumped against theirs on countless occasions in full view of the watching world. But they have also proven time and again that they are one of the few who have a floor.
At no stage over the past dozen years or so have Mayo not been one of the best six teams in the country. It is a rare season when they’re not one of the best four. Dublin and Kerry are the only other counties you can safely say that about. Maybe Tyrone, at a push? But none of the other Ulster teams and not Galway either.
This is the Mayo paradox. They are the butt of so many jokes precisely because they always haul themselves back into contention eventually. Other teams bubble up and disappear, licking their wounds in private and gathering themselves for another push. Mayo fix the train while laying the track in front of themselves and keep chugging along regardless.
Their people tend to know this. They are usually under very few illusions as to what they’ve signed up for. And, it should be said, they’re usually fairly reasonable with their demands. They don’t expect to be challenging for Sam Maguire every season. But they are rarely shy about getting on board and seeing where the trip will take them.
All of which made the wan showing in the stands at the Dublin match the kind of thing that McStay and his team would be apt to take umbrage at. Yes, there are more matches than ever to go to. No, following your team isn’t cheap. But this was the Dubs in a neutral venue, west of the Shannon, in the middle of a championship where Mayo have been in pretty decent form. They’ve played plenty worse in the past and not had to wonder if they had their people in the van with them.
They have Derry now, which was the draw they probably didn’t want. They’re playing at teatime on Saturday, which they definitely didn’t want. But they’re finding a rhythm and they’re still in there pitching, for another weekend at least.
It fell to the glorious Mayo-loving Twitter/X account @RefComeOn to sum it all up. Above a post detailing the news that Ballina’s finest, Dr Norah Patton, will become Ireland’s first astronaut, the great Ah Ref! responded thus:
“Imagine telling someone in 1951 we’d send a Mayo woman into space before we win another All Ireland.”
The good news is Dr Patton won’t be heading up this side of 2026.
So on they go.
