A new Mayo team has developed since Roscommon defeatOne of the main talking points at the outset of Andy Moran’s tenure at Mayo was his decision to recall Rob Hennelly and Cillian O’Connor, while also ensuring Aidan O’Shea stuck around for another campaign. It had “the band getting back together” vibes.The inclusion of their experience made sense for a management trying to bring through new players – but that strategy hit a speed-bump in their Connacht semi-final defeat to Roscommon in April.Hennelly started in goal that day – as he had done for all bar one game until that point – but has not played since. O’Shea was named at full forward against Roscommon but has not started since, coming off the bench against Monaghan and Tyrone. O’Connor was introduced off the bench against Roscommon but has yet to see more game-time.Of the seven defensive players (goalkeeper and six defenders) that lined out against Roscommon – only three started last weekend against Louth (Jack Coyne, Enda Hession and Sam Callinan).Jack Livingstone was handed his championship debut between the posts for Mayo’s Round 1 All-Ireland SFC game away to Monaghan and has remained there.Eoin McGreal wasn’t in the match-day 26 against Roscommon, was an unused sub against Monaghan, started against Tyrone and has been a key member of the defence in every game since.Darragh Beirne didn’t see game-time against Roscommon but was handed his championship debut against Monaghan and has started every subsequent game in Mayo’s run to the All-Ireland final.The experimentation of Ryan O’Donoghue at centre-forward has been discontinued for now with the Belmullet bullet operating as the fulcrum of a lethal full-forward line where he is flanked by two teenagers in their debutant seasons – Beirne and Kobe McDonald.This is not a new Mayo team that has been road-tested throughout the league – this is a new Mayo team that has developed since their Connacht SFC exit in April. Gordon ManningJack O’Connor well-versed in how to deflect Kerry hypeFor all the talk around the hype train soon to be departing from the Mayo stations, Kerry football manager Jack O’Connor wasn’t simply hopping on board when directing high praise towards Mayo’s two teenage forwards Darragh Beirne and Kobe McDonald.In the immediate aftermath of Kerry’s semi-final win over Dublin on Sunday, O’Connor talked them up in his own gentle way, referencing what they will bring to the final in two weeks’ time in that will be only their third game ever in Croke Park.“We’ll have our hands full with that elusive forward line they have with those young lads, [Darragh] Beirne and Kobe [McDonald],” said O’Connor. “And obviously they’ve got a serious scoring threat and Ryan O’Donoghue was sensational [against Louth]. So we’ve a lot of improving to do.“They were very impressive, obviously. They are coming good at a good time. I mean, if we’re judging the two performances, you would say they [Mayo] were more impressive than we were today.”If Beirne and McDonald have been showing the way for Mayo, they’re in good company, given the rise of some other teenage sporting stars this summer. US distance runner Cooper Lutkenhaus, still only 17, has clocked up impressive Diamond League wins in Oslo and Stockholm, running 1:42.08, and while Tadej Pogacar has blown the Tour de France apart in the first week, Paul Seixas from France is holding his own in sixth place, the youngest rider to start the Tour in 89 years. Sometimes the hype is justified.O’Connor meanwhile has now guided Kerry into the All-Ireland final for the ninth time. Starting with his debut season as Kerry manager in 2004, O’Connor also guided Kerry to the finals in 2005, 2006, 2009, 2011, 2022, 2023 and again last year. Hype that up.“The only thing, probably in our favour, we have a bit of experience,” noted O’Connor. “Maybe a bit more experience than some of their younger players. But, you know, the exuberance of youth, they might come out and shoot the lights out. You don’t know.”Indeed you don’t know, but O’Connor is certainly well versed in how to deflect some of the Kerry hype. Ian O’RiordanLong-suffering Mayo fans are back again in hope of gloryAfter Roscommon demolished Mayo by 10 points in McHale Park at the end of April, Ryan O’Donoghue was asked about the disappointing crowd: only 15,321 had bothered to turn up. In the Gerry McDonald Stand, which has a capacity of 10,000, there were swathes of empty seats. The Connacht Council had jacked up the ticket prices to €35, which was cited as one reason for the poor attendance, but it surely went deeper than that.“The Mayo supporters have travelled the length and breadth of the country over the last decade,” said O’Donoghue, trying to play it down after that game. “I was a part of it myself from 2012 onwards, so we appreciate all the support and the hard work of the fans travelling the length and breadth of the country to follow us.”The reality is that the 2021 All-Ireland final defeat to Tyrone had represented a breaking point of sorts. In the previous decade when Mayo were perennial contenders their quest for Sam Maguire was an opium for the masses. Outside of Dublin, they had the biggest following in the football championship. The nature of that defeat to Tyrone, though, separated the hard core from the day-trippers.It probably bottomed out during the 2025 league, when a crowd of just 6,000 turned up for a game against Tyrone, Mayo’s smallest home attendance for a league match since 2011.In recent weeks, though, there has been a reconnection, and O’Donoghue has been keen to stress it at every opportunity. “I suppose as our team now – the mid-20s, late-20s – we haven’t been in Croke Park or given the Mayo fans or the Mayo faithful something to shout about,” he said after the quarter-final against Cork.“In the second half against Meath, that was the first time that we’ve heard the Mayo faithful and we’ve given the Mayo faithful something to shout about for quite a while and too long. We repaid them.”At the end of his player of the match interview after Saturday’s game O’Donoghue returned to the same theme, unprompted. The interview was being broadcast around the stadium, and he didn’t want to miss his audience while he had their attention.For so long the Mayo crowd were inseparable from Mayo’s story. Just like the team, they were missed. Denis WalshWicklow complete ‘petit slam‘ with Tailteann Cup successBy half-time on Saturday, we were in agreement. This year’s Tailteann Cup, somewhat distorted by the enforced presence of former winners, Down was not going to have a gripping final to embellish its credentials this year.Twelve months previously, Kildare and Limerick had played out a belter of a final but now with the score reading Down 2-10, Wicklow 0-4, all hope had been surrendered.Fortunately, elsewhere in the stadium, in the Wicklow dressingroom, a feistier mood prevailed. The mechanics of the county’s stunning turnaround are well established at this stage.They outscored Down by 1-17 to 0-6 after half-time to win their first Tailteann Cup, led by the galvanic Dean Healy, who modestly asserted when being presented with the Tailteann that his presence in the Hogan Stand was an encouragement to every young player: if he could be raising a trophy in Croke Park, so could anyone.Healy’s heroic goal, which turbocharged the comeback, functioned as a bit of an asterisk to this celebration of possibilities.Success meant that Wicklow became the first Division Four county to win it and it also secured a “petit slam” of all the competitions intended to give less traditionally successful counties something to aim at.They now have two junior All-Ireland titles (1936 and 2002), one All-Ireland B (presumably so named to discourage notions) in 1992, the Tommy Murphy in 2007, one of its few years of operation, and on Saturday, before a sizeable contingent from down the road in Wicklow, in many ways the most successful iteration of the concept, the Tailteann Cup.Healy may not have been aware of it but his predecessor from 1992, the great Kevin O’Brien, still Wicklow’s only All Star, had a less edifying experience at presentation time.For a start, the weather in Navan’s Páirc Tailteann (coincidentally) couldn’t have been much different from the weekend’s Costa Croker. Sheeting December rain made for near-impossible conditions in which Wicklow beat Antrim 1-5 to 0-4.Then to put the tin hat on it, when he was presented with the trophy, one of its handles fell off.O’Brien, an All-Ireland club winner with Baltinglass and a regular Irish international rules footballer, went on to be one of Mick O’Dwyer’s selectors when they won the Murphy Cup 19 years ago. Seán MoranCroke Park’s tribute to long-standing steward Mick LeddyThere was an emotional moment just before the national anthem on Sunday as Jerry Grogan, the usually unflappable voice of the Croke Park PA system, started to get choked up announcing the minute’s silence. Within seconds, anyone who has been around the stadium on a regular basis could see why – the pictures up on the big screens told you that Mick Leddy, the long-standing Croke Park chief steward had died.Leddy was part of the furniture in Croker, overseeing the safety and stewarding in the stadium on match days and at major events. He would have been there yesterday as usual, as the note on page 47 of the match programme spoke of him being a “modest character, always radiating a respectful, polite aura of calm while administering the strategic oversight, deployment and management of the stewards”.“He will be hugely missed and remembered by all the volunteers and staff. His legacy is built on his integrity, the lives he quietly affected, and the unwavering standard of respect he held for everyone.”As Jerry spoke, sending the GAA’s best wishes to Leddy’s wife Kathleen – “herself a Kerry woman ...” – his voice started to catch and it became obvious that he was having to will himself to get through it. At which point, one of the stewards appeared by his side and put his hand on his shoulder, leaving it there until the Artane Band struck up Amhrán na bhFiann.A small, beautiful thing. Malachy Clerkin