Cillian O Connor
By John Harrington
Mayo footballer Cillian O’Connor has opened up about the crucial free-kick he missed in last year’s All-Ireland Final replay defeat to Dublin.
O’Connor had a chance to tie the game up and bring it to extra-time, but his difficult last-gasp free curled past the left upright.
It was the final act of a draining match, but O’Connor doesn’t believe fatigue was to blame for the miss.
“I wouldn't put it down to tiredness,” he said today. “It's probably one that I would normally fancy myself of getting. It was probably just at the edge of my range.
“One that I would have maybe kicked in the past in different circumstances.
“Look, it was a pressure kick, and it just pulled it to the near post and wide. I have looked at it and I can't put my finger on exactly what it was.
“The connection just wasn't exactly the one that I wanted and it just tailed off a little bit too soon to the left.”
O’Connor had been Mayo’s hero in the drawn All-Ireland Final game when he tied it up with a late, great point from play.
He was a key performer in the replay too, his nine converted frees keeping Mayo in touch with Dublin.
Cillian O'Connor
Sport can be cruel though, and he admits it took some time to process the disappointment of that late miss.
“At the start it wasn't easy to park it straight away,” says O’Connor. “Of course there was a disappointment, that's stating the obvious.
“There was definitely a period where it was really, really disappointing for myself and everybody else on the team.
“Even in that particular play, people had made a block on our own '21, worked it up through seven passes and Paddy (Durcan) won us a free.
“It's as disappointing for them as it is for me. Obviously there's that extra bit of responsibility on me because I was the one who kicked it.
“After that initial period of disappointment you just make the decision to go after it again. You have to stop feeling sorry for yourself and you can't beat yourself up too much about these things or they'll hold you back.”
But before he drew a line under last year’s All-Ireland Final replay, O’Connor made a point of analysing his own performance and why he missed that free.
He’s a perfectionist by nature, and his attitude is that if you don’t question why you made a mistake then there’s always a chance you’ll make it again.
“There's definitely a temptation to put that DVD of the game straight into the bin,” he admits. “That's the first instinct.
“But if you ignore mistakes that you're making or you ignore things like that, then you run the risk of them happening again.
“I suppose that mistake was pretty decisive if you're looking at it from the outside, but there were shots missed throughout the whole game that carried the same weight that need to be analysed almost as much as that last kick.
“I watch back the games and I go through them and of course it's not enjoyable, but you nearly have to slow your heart-rate and just be cold in your analysis and make sure that you learn from it.”
Cillian O'Connor
The next time O'Connor takes a high-pressure free for Mayo from a similar position in the Championship, his mind won’t drift back to that missed kick against Dublin last October.
His free-taking routine is set in stone now, and he’s learned to block out any thoughts that might distract him from the immediate task at hand.
“I'm sure players might have their own routines and patterns, whatever they're used to doing, but for me I wouldn't picture frees that I've kicked from that area before," he says.
“I just have my routine where I look at the posts and I have a set routine that I go through that is the same for every free and takes the same length of time.
“I kind of fix my gaze on the same spot, assess the wind and judge how far right or left of the centre of the posts I want to hit the ball.
“I might have one or two key focuses, prompts, or words I might say to myself that are used to stop your mind wandering to less useful thoughts like a miss you've had or something you can hear in the background or something flying overhead.
“If you have one or two focuses in your head they'll take your attention so you're thinking about useful thoughts. That's what I try to do.”
