WEA Supplement - Flipbook - Page 17
ALL-IRELAND SFC FINAL
IN ASSOCIATION
WITH
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 10 2021
www.irishnews.com
17
‘Lee Keegan is the best player that
ever played for Mayo. Between
the end of 2014 to the end of 2017
there’s no-one ever in the green and
red that produced the consistency
of performance that he produced in
that time... an absolutely unique
team-mate who used to come
to play with no weight on his
shoulders’
Former Mayo team-mate Andy Moran
that’s the truth. I think people
outside the county would say the
same thing. He was just a horrible
fella to play against, and an
absolutely unique team-mate who
used to come to play with no weight
on his shoulders.
“Literally, he would just
arrive at Croke Park and
be ready to play ball.”
T
HAT approach
is one that
both Kieran
Shannon and
Shane Conway can
agree with.
“James Horan
would often have
said Lee has the
perfect temperament
for inter-county football.
He doesn’t go out and
overthink it. I remember talking
to him after the 2012 final against
Donegal and asked him how he found
playing out there. He said it was just
like a playground, he loved it. He is
made for it,” says Shannon.
“He was always one of these guys
who could find the calm in the chaos.
Some players can’t find that. Lee
can. Nothing ever fazed him,” adds
Conway.
‘Someone,
somewhere, made
a really bad call in
rugby. As a result,
Gaelic football was
blessed with one of
the greatest stars that
ever played the game’
School coach, Shane Conway
Those who know him spoke of
how often he has gone through the
pain barrier to play and there were
questions that his abrasive style
of play might restrict the length of
his inter-county career with injury
setbacks and surgeries required.
Such questions took full
flight after he struggled
on Con O’Callaghan in
the 2019 All-Ireland
semi-final loss to
Dublin.
Not many people
then would have
predicted he would
still be going so
strong two years
on, delivering a
man-of-the-match
display a few weeks
ago in the All-Ireland
semi-final win over Dublin
recently.
“I think his performance against
Dublin was as good a performance as
he’s ever produced. Because I didn’t
think he had that in him, if I’m being
honest,” admits Andy Moran.
“He’s always on your team, he’s
always in your six backs, but I
thought maybe he was your fifth
back in terms of being a man-marker.
But he’s turned the formbook on its
head.
And when an older player gets a
scent of, ‘Oh, I’m back here’... The
confidence that gives him.... And he’s
going into the final hugely confident.”
Lee Keegan will be 32 next month, is
married with a young daughter now,
and approaching the final stages of a
remarkable Gaelic football career.
Next Saturday he will be lining out
in his seventh All-Ireland senior final
(including the 2016 replay), while he
also won an All-Ireland intermediate
club championship medal with
Westport at Croke Park in 2017.
He has come a long way since those
days with the oval ball and is now
within 70 minutes of that elusive
ultimate prize in Gaelic football
again.
‘He doesn’t go out and overthink it. I remember talking to him after
the 2012 final against Donegal and asked him how he found playing
out there. He said it was just like a playground, he loved it. He is
made for it He was always one of these guys who could find the calm
in the chaos. Some players can’t find that. Lee can’
Supermarket | Off Licence | Butchery | Forecourt | Bakery
Journalist and sports psychologist, Kieran Shannon
Stock up on all your
MAYO V TYRONE
Big Match Essentials
at Fiveways!