Muristek
James Horan, Pádraic Joyce, Declan Bonner and Kieran McGeeney could all be out of a job at the end of this season if things don’t go according to plan. That’s why early championship games rarely come more vital than today’s big clashes in Connacht and Ulster. They’re not exactly must-win matches for Mayo, Galway, Donegal and Armagh because the losers will live to fight another day. But they will play a major part in deciding the course of a must-succeed season for the four managers. The embattled quartet have a lot in common. All gave hugely memorable All-Ireland final performances as players. Joyce’s five-points-from-play tour de force in the 2001 final against Meath was one of the great individual attacking displays in final history. So was Horan’s in the 1996 final replay against the Royals, albeit in a losing cause. And there have been few better defensive displays than McGeeney’s Footballer of the Year-clinching performance at the heart of a back line, holding Kerry to three points in the second half of the 2002 decider. Bonner’s contribution in the 1992 All-Ireland final may not have been in this class, but the magnificent insurance point he scored against Dublin will remain forever embedded in the consciousness of his native county. All four players departed the scene owing their counties nothing. Their managerial legacy, however, remains in the balance. This may seem unfair to Horan. The idea that anything less than All-Ireland final victory for Mayo constitutes failure is, after all, largely his creation. He set Irish sport’s most intriguing and heartbreaking quest rolling again when bringing Mayo to the 2012 and 2013 finals. His achievement in reaching the last two finals may be even greater. Horan has lost Keith Higgins, Colm Boyle, Chris Barrett, Tom Parsons and David Clarke while time has taken its toll on the likes of Aidan O’Shea, Kevin McLoughlin and Lee Keegan. Injury also robbed him of Cillian O’Connor and Jason Doherty last season. Despite the continued excellence of Paddy Durcan and the emergence of Matthew Ruane, Oisín Mullin and Ryan O’Donoghue, the current Mayo side is much weaker personnel-wise than the one which almost beat Dublin in the 2017 final. Yet expectations are as high as ever and Horan shipped a lot of criticism after last year’s defeat by Tyrone, when for once Mayo entered the final as favourites.
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