JOE BROLLY: What do we do now?

I MET Trevor Mortimer outside Croke Park after the final. He played in the 2004 and 2006 finals. “What are we going to do now?” he said.

No one in Mayo wants to go home. No one wants to be inside. They want to keep feeling this for as long as they can. Even if they cannot articulate why.

The local vet told me on Friday night that he and his boys have watched the game every night from start to finish up to Sam Maguire being presented. “Why?” I said. “I keep worrying Clifford will score that two pointer and we’ll end up losing.” One of his sons knows the commentary off by heart and repeats each line before Marty says it.

The county team is the pin head of a giant octopus, tentacles stretching around the world, down through the land and the people and their ancestors. This was not winning a game of football. This was something profound and liberating for the world’s biggest county. I was on a plane to Cleveland once and met the Achill Pipe band on board. They were on their way to Achill Day in the city, a public holiday that celebrates the quarter of a million Clevelanders with Achill ancestry. I have a group of Cockney friends from London with Mayo origins. Just don’t accuse them of being English.

Wherever they are in the world, a gentle euphoria has settled over them. Finally winning this is about self worth and respect and dignity. As Fergal McCusker said after Glen won the senior All-Ireland club title, “It means we can go anywhere in the GAA world and hold our heads high. It means that in future we can relax and enjoy our football. “

Better still that the team played with such glorious adventure, enforcing a classic contest that will be remembered as long as Gaelic football is played.

A barrister friend of mine from the protestant tradition texted me on the Sunday night:

‘OMG. I just watched my first ever GAA game. All Ireland final. I was supporting Mayo. What a bloody game Gaelic is. Magic, fast, exciting, consuming. Cannot believe I’ve missed this for years due to perpetuated prejudice. It was bloody magic Joe. Riveting, close, thrilling and Mayo won after 75 years’ trying. OMG. I’m off to Lourdes to convert. Bloody magic.’

The idea behind the triumph was simple but audacious. I had written earlier in the year that it was surprising no team had taken advantage of Jim Gavin’s no pass to the keeper rule. When I was playing, we man marked fiercely all over the field. Keepers rarely kicked out short because it put the full backs in serious jeopardy. Now, you don’t even have the safety valve of a back pass to the goalie.

Also, after Jimmy McGuinness transformed the game in 20112012, pressing the full backs disappeared. Instead, teams at every level quickly adapted to the new game, using variations of the hybrid zonal defending man marking model. For 10 years (longer than most senior football careers), defenders have gotten used to coming strolling out of the defence unmarked, bringing the ball more or less untroubled to the opposition’s defensive cordon. Witness, for example, the Dublin Kerry semi-final.

This was where Andy Moran gambled, and gambled big. He reasoned that defenders would be shocked with an old style full court press. As their performance psychologist Rachel Sheehan explained on RTÉ radio on Monday, he committed the group absolutely to this vision. This was a huge culture shock to the players, none of whom had ever played in a system that gambled everything on turnovers high up the pitch and left the opposition’s lethal forwards man to man in acres of space. So, when Mayo began the process of trying to play like Klopp’s Liverpool it was a disaster.

Kerry destroyed them 2-29 to 0-19 in the league, revelling in the wide open spaces behind the press. Donegal likewise, thrashing them 1-19 to 0-14. Worse followed, as Roscommon walked through them in Connacht, humiliating them by ten points. As Martin Carney said on Up For the Match, “The people of Mayo wanted to lynch Andy after that.”

But Andy, like Mrs Thatcher, was not for turning. He dropped the old boys, invested in the kids and continued to rehearse the high press. Rachel Sheehan said on RTE, “that bank of training after the Roscommon defeat was a God send. It allowed the boys to hone the system until they started to believe in it.”

Jack Coyne lifts Sam

They could easily have been beaten by Meath – saved by an incorrect sending off – but after that they were flying. Again, the Gods worked in their favour. When they galloped through Cork and pulverised Louth, both of whom must have thought they were playing against thirty men, we said, “They’re only Division Two teams.” Which is precisely what Kerry thought as well. But they had now played two big games in Croke Park and the system was purring.

I said to the glamorous brunette before the throw in that if Kerry got a big start it would be a catastrophe. She disagreed. “It might make them think its going to be easy.” As always, she was correct. Kerry’s 1-5 from their first seven attacks. Mayo kicking the ball into the goalie’s hands three times – Ryan O’Donoghue (1st minute), Darragh Beirne (11th minute), Paul Towey (12th minute), losing six of their first eight kick outs. All of this planted the unshakeable thought in Kerry’s minds that Mayo were no good and that the narrative was true.

In that instant (16th minute) Kerry switched off. And when a team switches off, it is impossible to switch on again. When Ryan O’Donoghue kicked a huge two pointer a minute later, a new game began. By the 25th minute, Mayo’s ferocious tackling was starting to break the Kerry men. From then to the half time whistle, four turnovers high up the pitch gave Mayo two points and left Kerry in disarray. Just after half time, Joe O’Connor under huge pressure kicked a ball high up into the air to nowhere prompting a vast roar in the stadium. A minute later, Gavin White gave a panicky handpass over Clifford’s head and within sixty seconds another turnover led to the exuberant Mayo goal.

After that, Kerry simply couldn’t get out. We watched, in terror, David Clifford standing in 50 yards of space behind the Mayo press, hand in the air calling for the ball. But ball came there none. It wasn’t because the Kerry outfielders did not want to. It was because they could not see him. They were under so much pressure, it was all they could do to dive and handpass the ball away, or leap about in hurling style scrums trying to wrestle the ball back.

Andy Moran believed that if Mayo got it right, the novelty of their system (last used in the noughties by Tyrone) would shock any opposition. They would become panicky and lose their composure. They would be turned over high up the pitch. This would allow his boys to counter attack immediately into the danger zone. In turn, this would constantly adrenalize his players. Also, psychologically, this is how footballers want to play. They want to play with adventure and style. They want to be rewarded with goals and points. This creates an adrenalin loop from the crowd to the players.

It is done now and can never be undone. No matter how many times my veterinary friend watches the game, Clifford will not score that two pointer. Mayo will not lose. Jack Coyne will raise the Sam Maguire. This is the infinite beauty of an All-Ireland.

The answer to Trevor Mortimer’s question? At last we can get on with our lives.

AT LAST…Mayo have won the All-Ireland