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Andy Moran is a true believer

Andy Moran

Andy Moran

​By John Harrington

Andy Moran extended his record number of appearances in a Mayo jersey to 140 in last Sunday’s drawn All-Ireland Final against Dublin.

He marked the occasion in familiar fashion – by kicking a couple of sweet points and providing the Mayo attack with a vital ball-winning presence.

The 32-year-old has been one of Mayo’s most influential performers in this year’s Championship, which is a fair achievement considering it looked like his role had been relegated to that of a bit-part player early in the season.

Before he started the All-Ireland Qualifer match against Kildare last July he had been a substitute for Mayo’s six previous Championship matches going back to last year’s campaign.

But since that Kildare match he’s started the last five matches and brought a focus and drive to Mayo’s attacking play that was marked absent in their defeat to Galway in the Connacht semi-final.

Andy Moran was influential for Mayo.

Andy Moran was influential for Mayo.

Moran might be in the twilight of his inter-county career, but he’s proving he still has what it takes to shine brightly at the highest level.

“People would have said that Andy Moran owes Mayo nothing if he had retired last year,” says Moran’s friend and Ballaghaderreen team-mate Barry Regan.

“He didn't feature a great deal in 2015. And even this year he wasn't featuring a great deal.

“Something that was very noticeable was that he came back with the club this year after the Galway game. We had a League game the following Sunday morning and I'd say a lot of the county players didn't turn out for their clubs at all.

“But Andy showed up in Ballina and I was very surprised to see him in the dressing-room. I just said, 'Unlucky yesterday'. And he was like, ‘That's past now, I'm driving on here today, and I'm going to get my starting place in that team.’

“You could just see by his body language he was out to prove a point and he scored six or seven points from play. The following weekend we went out against Kiltane and he scored 3-6 from play in a Championship game.

“You could just see it in his eyes that he was determined to say to Stephen Rochford and everyone else that he wasn't finished. Then in his first game back for Mayo against Kildare he carried that form through.

“It would be great for him if he could get over the line and win an All-Ireland. If there's a footballing God up there at all, himself and the likes of Alan Dillon and Keith Higgins and some of these guys deserve one. But you don't always get what you deserve.”

Regan isn’t the least bit surprised to see Moran still setting such high standards in his 14th year of inter-county football.

Barry Regan

Barry Regan

The two of them have been team-mates since they won an U-10 County title together with Ballaghaderreen in 1992, so Regan knows better than most just how driven a sportsman Moran is.

“With Andy, what you see is what you get. He's a really driven guy. He's certainly a leader in a group, that was obvious when he was a very young lad. I played handball with him and played underage football with him and he was always a leader within the group.

“He always wanted to win and be the best he could be. Again, when he as younger, he played Gaelic, soccer, handball. He played everything. And he'd be the last man out on the green in the evening practicing his skills and always trying to be his best.

“That was the thing with him all the way up, he mightn't have been the most naturally gifted guy or most talented, but he was always prepared to work and get better. That's been a big thing for him.”

Moran once said, “Football would be a principal light in my life. I love the game, dream about games.”

You only have to chat with the man once to realise that’s no exaggeration. His passion for the sport, and for representing Mayo, gushes from him in torrents, and once he starts talking football he’s a hard man to stop.

“It really is incredible,” says Regan. “I was on the county panel myself for a few years with him and the longevity of him is amazing. The first time we went in for trials was in 2003 and we were playing U-21 together and on the outskirts of the senior panel.

“It was a hard grind even that time. You were probably over there four or five nights a week. A lot of lads came and went and maybe found they wanted to do other things with their life, but Andy just loved being over there. He'd stay there all night if he had to.

“He always had the energy for it, he always wanted to keep going back for more. He was a talented soccer player as well and probably could have played League of Ireland, I think he had a contract with Longford Town at the time, but Mayo GAA was his thing. That's where he wanted to be and he had no doubt in his ability to get there.”

Along the way Moran has had to overcome some serious injuries such as a ruptured cruciate ligament that ruled him out on the 2012 All-Ireland Final, a broken leg, and a number muscular tears.

Andy Moran

Andy Moran

He’s injury-free now though and looking light on his feet, which might have something to do with the fact that he’s no longer a sales rep who spends hours every day in a car driving all over Ireland.

He has set up a gym in Castlebar called Castlebar HQ, where the motto is ‘Movement Changes Everything’, and it looks as though he’s practicing what he preaches.

“I'm not sure if he fully attributed some of his serious injuries to all the driving he used to do, but maybe the hamstrings and the glutes and the different muscles as that maybe weren't as strong as they should have been from all the sitting down and that,” says Regan.

“But I think in the last year he's obviously taking spinning classes and has got all the equipment there at his finger-tips and is probably doing that extra bit of stretching and is on his feet all day. It seems to have definitely helped his movement.

“You'd notice it inside in training, he's moving as well now as he was six or seven years ago.

“He has a couple of other guys, his brother in law from our club, David Drake, is working there as well. So it probably suits the lads' lifestyles very much that he's his own boss and they can schedule classes around trainings and all of that sort of stuff.”

A few moments after the final whistle blew in last Sunday’s drawn All-Ireland Final, Moran gave a pitch-side interview that summed up what he’s all about as he promised Mayo would come on strong again for the replay and “finish off the job.”

His positivity and bottomless faith in Mayo football has always been his calling-card, and his influence in the dressing-room must be one of the reasons why they keep coming back for more year after year.

“Especially since the James Horan I think that Andy has been a real leader in that group,” says Regan. “I see what he does with our own club as well. You could have a big loss, but he always believes that if we put the heads down together then you can achieve anything.

“He never doubts his ability to get over the line with these things. You can see that down through the years in '11, '12, '13, '14, '15, they took serous knock-backs and I think it's no coincidence that they have Andy a couple more characters like him in that dressing-room.

“There's just a huge drive there. They don't doubt. ‘Okay, this is a knock, but we're going to come back from it.’ That seems to be the way they look at it and I think Andy is very central to that as well.”