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Sheridan: 'There is great resilience in this team'

Maurice Sheridan during the 1996 All Ireland Football Final replay.

Maurice Sheridan during the 1996 All Ireland Football Final replay.

By Cian O'Connell

The riveting and relentless Mayo drive for Sam Maguire continues. Twenty years ago Maurice Sheridan was the stylish free-taker as Mayo’s challenge was eventually shrugged off by Meath following two matches that were both bruising and dramatic.

Sean Boylan’s sterling work with the Royals was rewarded when the replay was in a death or glory phase late on: Brendan Reilly’s point brought pleasure for Meath and Mayo had to deal with the pain.

A couple of weeks earlier Mayo had drawn the original match. Two decades on Sheridan acknowledges that a peculiar range of emotions were experienced at Croke Park. “It is strange, just after the final whistle there is a flat sensation, you nearly don’t know what to do,” Sheridan, who is in charge of the NUI Galway Sigerson Cup team, recalls.

“There were no great handshakes or anything like that, you were just there trying to make sense of it.

“In the first game we were four or five points up so in a way it was nearly like we had lost it. The thing I took from it, though, was that I had played fairly well the first day. So it gave me a bit of confidence heading into the replay.

James Horan and Colm Brady in action during the replayed 1996 All Ireland.

James Horan and Colm Brady in action during the replayed 1996 All Ireland.

“Other guys mightn’t have gone as well as they would have hoped so they might have felt that they had a point to prove. It was a weird sensation at the end of the game, no doubt about that.”

In the build up to every decider talk swirls about treating a final the same as every other fixture, but Sheridan, who captained Salthill-Knocknacarra to All Ireland Club success in 2006, doesn’t agree with that notion.

“It is a different thing, I don’t buy into it when people say it is just another game and things like that,” Sheridan reckons.

“It is a life changing event, especially in a county like Mayo where there hasn’t been an All Ireland win for so long. It is life changing to play in an All Ireland final.

“You have the build up, the parade, the Presidential handshake all these things. In many ways it is a false environment to what you’re used to. It is very important that you keep your concentration, but that can be difficult.”

How much can be done and achieved by the respective panels between the two matches? “I think we obviously learned a fair bit, we were ahead early on,” Sheridan recalls about how Mayo commenced the second instalment. “We were playing well and even after the row I don’t think it disrupted it us hugely.

Cian O Sullivan and Andy Moran at Croke Park last Sunday.

Cian O Sullivan and Andy Moran at Croke Park last Sunday.

“In the first game there was a minor skirmish too just before half-time so in many ways it was a mirror image of the first game. We were focusing on ourselves in 1996, there isn’t a whole pile you can do in a fortnight, it is hard to make gains in that sort of a time frame.

“Your body is sore until maybe the Wednesday or Thursday so you really only have a week to prepare. Maybe you might focus on small things, like doing a bit of free taking or a small bit to work on your handling. That is what I can remember trying to do at the time.”

For Mayo the search for a senior title dates back to 1951, but Sheridan admires the current Green and Red crop, who will clash with Dublin again on October 1.

“I was confident enough before the first match to be honest,” Sheridan admits. There is a spirit in this team and they have no fear of Dublin. They beat them in the 2012 All Ireland Semi-Final and they have matured as a bunch over the years.

“Mayo have played Dublin in the League and they’ve beaten them too. I think if Mayo can improve their forward play, while it wasn’t bad, there is room for improvement. I would like to see their scoring from outside the D area being a bit better, we have to improve on that.

“They showed outstanding character to come from five behind and then again to come from three behind late on. There is great resilience in this team.”