Carey: 'It has gelled pretty quickly'
Mayo manager Stephen Rochford and selector Sean Carey.
By Cian O'Connell
In the long, hot summer of 1995 Sean Carey was involved with a promising Mayo minor team. The problem, though, was that Galway were prompted by a particularly special crop of players.
Galway finished a smashing Connacht Final strongly to earn provincial glory, but a Mayo friendship that has endured through the decades was formed. Carey is one of Stephen Rochford’s selectors as Mayo seek to reclaim Sam Maguire. “We would have played on the same minor team in 1995,” Carey recalls about the campaign 21 years ago.
“This sounds bad now, it was a very good minor team, we were beaten in the last couple of minutes by a Galway team - there was a lot of household names on it.
“(Padraic) Joyce, (Derek) Savage, John Divilly, (Michael) Donnellan. We would have been ahead going into the closing stages of the game and Derek Reilly, a guy who used to play for them, got a goal that's etched in my memory as you can see,” Carey laughs.
“But those guys have gone on, they won senior All-Irelands in '98 and three years later. I think there was six or seven of that team involved in that. Tomas Meehan actually, another one. That's where we would have got to know one another and our clubs would be in close enough proximity to each other as well.”
Carey remembers Rochford making a significant impression. “He was a very good footballer actually at that stage,” Carey remarks.
“He would have been quite young to make that minor team and he was always kind of thinking about his game and what he could improve, even back then, so in fairness to him you could probably see that he was someone who was going to go on to do jobs like this.”
Following that campaign with the minors Carey was part of Mayo senior panels. “I was under-21 for '96, '97, '98. I was in the senior panel in '98 when Galway beat us in Castlebar.
“Mayo were very unlucky that time, they were in the two finals, '96 and '97 and I think everybody thought Mayo were probably going to win it in '98 and Galway beat us in Castlebar and they went on to win it.
Tony McEntee, Sean Carey, and Stephen Rochford before Mayo played their first game of the year in the Connacht FBD League.
“I would have been there in 2001 as well when Mayo won the League. I would have been part of that panel as well. I'd have been there or thereabouts from that time without ever really making any Championship impact now to be honest.”
How much has the approach to the inter-county game altered? “Yeah, things have changed dramatically,” Carey explains. “Inter-county football around '01 would be quite similar to what maybe clubs are doing now.
“Your average progressive senior club now would be doing what a county team 15 years ago were doing, probably more. That's being truthful. So this is on a completely new different level.
“It's basically lifestyle and it's a huge eye-opener to anyone who hasn't been involved for a while as to what is required to compete at that level.”
Rochford’s backroom team featuring Donie Buckley and Tony McEntee can certainly be classed as high profile, but it didn’t take long for them to gel according to Carey. “No, despite the fact that three of us were new to the situation, that's not the case at all. We get on very well together. That helps.
“Tony obviously had his successes with Armagh, Donie was involved with the boys before. I think the fact that we'd have similar views on what happens and how we should do things, I think that has helped that process and the fact that we get on well together has meant that it has gelled pretty quickly and been easy to sort out.”
How Mayo have reacted to the June defeat against Galway is encouraging. “Well anybody that plays football, once you're beaten you will feel that for a while and there's no point in saying that you won't,” Carey says.
“If there's anything about you as a person or as a sportsperson you're going to be hurt by that. But there's only one way to do that and that's to get back on the horse again as quickly as possible and I think those fellas have proven that their leadership and their ability to respond to setbacks is unquestionable.
“They've had to do that a lot. They responded really, really well and anything that was asked of them, they've delivered up to this point.” Another challenge awaits.
