Johnno struggling to 'Keep The Faith' in Connacht championship

IT’S EARLY IN the week and John O’Mahony is kicking back in his residence, the famous Tower House in Ballaghadereen, wondering about the weekend.

Mayo and Galway. Galway and Mayo. Saw Doctors puns, Tuam Stadium, last-chance saloons and a million memories dredged up when the green and red meet with the maroon and white.

But O’Mahony is just not feeling it. Our old friend, ‘competition structures’ is being referenced.

Most people, you wouldn’t entertain them when they start down this path. An instant yawn, smack the lips and move on.

But when it’s O’Mahony, your attention is guaranteed. No manager in the history of the game has won the same provincial title with three different counties.

Winning with Mayo and Galway? Well that was expected.

Look back 30 years ago, it feels like a miracle that he brought Nestor Cup success to Leitrim in 1994. It felt even more amazing that the captain of the previous team to win it – Tom Gannon in 1927 – was there to help Declan Darcy lift the cup.

That they beat O’Mahony’s native heath of Mayo in the final is the detail that everyone – rightly – forgets.

All in, O’Mahony’s personal haul is eight Connact titles. 1988 and ’89 in the ‘Keep The Faith Johnno’ Mayo years. 1994 with Leitrim, before switching to Galway and hungrily compiling Nestor Cups in 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2003.

Back again for one more spin in Mayo, and a Connacht title in 2009.

Flip to Chapter 1 and page 1 of his autobiography; ‘Keeping The Faith.’ He describes how he grew up in Magheraboy, Kilmovee, Co Mayo.

A few yards from his house there is a gushing stream that runs deep into a gully. This is it; the dividing line. His homeplace is the last in Co Mayo. The other side of the bank is Roscommon. Us and Them.

‘Rivalry is the heartbeat of the GAA,’ he notes.

‘And it pumps ever more furiously the closer you get to a county’s border. From a very young age I sensed it, embraced it and was energised by it. Football has always been at the very core of my existence and I just cannot imagine what my life would have been like without it.’

Written just a few years ago, O’Mahony feels a little more detached on this week of a Connacht final, with Mayo heading to Pearse Stadium.

It means something. And damn all at the same time.

“There’s no flags up around the place at the minute,” he drily observes.

“It hasn’t taken off fully, any road. We’ll see, we’ll see.”

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30 years ago, Leitrim was awash in green and gold. Giddiness and happiness brought to an entire community through winning a clean sweep of the big beasts; Roscommon, Galway and Mayo.

It’s not the ageing process, nor is it an enhanced introspection having recently got on top of some serious health issues. It’s just a pervasive ennui when he looks to Sunday.

“It’s probably been the least exciting build-up I have ever seen,” he says.

“That’s the new championship. It’s on top of people before they even realise, to be honest. If it points to the demise of the provincial championships or not, I don’t know. But from my involvement in the past over the years, Galway-Mayo was the big game in Connacht.

“The new championship has taken a grip now and it is deadening the old provincial rivalries that were there.

“It’s such a slow-burner now compared to what it was in the past, that the era of these closer rivalries is coming to a close. That’s what it looks like now to be honest.”

John O’Mahony after winning the 1998 Connacht title.

Every provincial final has its’ own vibe. The Connacht final day has a hazy post-Mass feel that takes a while to shrug off, but then the madness arrives like the flick of a switch.

Take things back to 1999. The Connacht final in Tuam. A Mayo man of my acquaintance recalled how there were something like 5,000 surplus fans in the old Stadium. Traffic was backed up as far as Claremorris.

Such was the scrum, that he vacated the park at half-time and entered a nearby hotel to watch the second half.

‘But what a day out it was Declan,’ he messaged.

‘What a day out. That’s all gone now. Win on Sunday, lose on Sunday, they’re both out again in a fortnight in another game that kinda matters but kinda doesn’t either.

‘The GAA can propagandise all they like, but the reality is the championship is broken and most people know it, even if they won’t say the quiet part out loud.’

It’s a sentiment shared, with the greatest of reluctance, by O’Mahony.

“Having lived through managing both Mayo and Galway over the years, you would claw your way at any little advantage you could get over either team,” he says.

“But it just doesn’t… I fail to see how that same element of rivalry is continuing. It looks like, from the outside, that it is in decline.”

Other matters aren’t quite right. He’s not gone on the split season. Having managed Salthill Knocknacarra for two years, he noticed the scheduling allowed players to head off to America for a few weeks of being a paid player, before returning ahead of the championship.

In conversation with Rob Finnerty, he learned that the Galway forward and son of his former Mayo player Anthony ‘Larry’, hadn’t a break from football for the previous three years.

“Maybe I am misreading it, but the provincial championship was always a valued feather in the cap at the time. I was lucky enough to win eight Connacht championships and I valued every one of them. You just have to wonder if the same value is put on them nowadays.”

A Connacht final on 5 May is unnatural, he believes.

But it might not all be about that. Among the Mayo support, they might only be a loss here and a stumble towards a preliminary or quarter-final loss away from being the players in the shirts the day the music died.

The support get all the credit they could ever ask for, for simply ‘turning up’ and ‘getting behind their team.’

That has its’ limits. Supporters still want to know there is a chance, not even an overwhelming chance but a chance nonetheless that they can win an All-Ireland. And the thought of missing out on that leaves them with a paranoid and manic edge.

Galway are cooler. Take the county hurlers. Their request for home games in the Leinster championship was granted, but the supporters were just too cool to actually turn up and watch them play Kilkenny.

It takes a huge amount for their bandwagon to engage.

All that being said, picture the Pearse Stadium pitch at around half five, splashed with colours of one county. The question is, who needs it most?

Mayo’s management team of Stephen Rochford left and Kevin McStay right .

“Mayo need it,” says O’Mahony.

“There is that thing and I think McStay has admitted it himself, urging all the Mayo fans on. They were a bit subdued against Roscommon. That’s an unusual situation for Mayo supporters as they are a team that have one of the biggest band of supporters throughout the country.

“But look; both teams need this badly to be honest. If Pádraic Joyce doesn’t get a run in the championship this year… He’s in his fifth year, so it looks as if it might not happen.

“I think they felt they were going to build on 2022 last year but that didn’t happen and it petered out very poorly.”

What hangs over Galway is their injury list. Shane Walsh hasn’t been in the same form for them since the 2022 final and was taken off against Sligo. Matthew Tierney is doubtful. You can’t even get a good whisper out of a camp now.

Galway manager Paadraic Joyce.

“Mayo I would say will go in as slight favourites, although we have to take into consideration how poor Roscommon were in the semi-finals,” he says.

“Really, the Connacht championship hasn’t taken to flight at all up to now. It’s in a last-chance saloon and it needs some of that old-time feel to get it up.”

We’ll see. We’ll see.