Christy O'Connor: Can Mayo complete the odyssey to deny hot favourites Kerry and bring Sam home?

A few days before Mayo began their 2007 National league campaign against Kerry, Alan Dillon spoke about Mayo embarking on a new odyssey under a new manager, just four months after being hammered in the 2006 All-Ireland final by Kerry.

The late John O’Mahony had taken over from Mickey Moran and the late John Morrisson, who had spent just one year in the job, as Mayo sought to try and repair the damage from a second heavy All-Ireland final defeat to Kerry in just three years.

The autumn, winter and early spring had been a difficult few months for the Mayo players as they tried to slowly discard the baggage from the previous September.

“I would say that Kerry have a psychological hold over us in All-Ireland finals at this stage,” said Dillon, who has served as Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment and Minister of State at the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment since January 2025, back in 2007.

“We don’t have any hang-ups with any other teams in the country but that will always be there with Kerry in an All-Ireland final. And that would have to be dealt with if we got back to an All-Ireland final against them.” 

It's taken 20 years for Mayo to meet Kerry in another All-Ireland final but Mayo have had their hearts broken by plenty of other teams in the last two decades, having lost six All-Ireland finals in that time to Donegal, Dublin (four) and Tyrone.

Mayo did experience their share of pain at Kerry’s hands in that time too, losing All-Ireland semi-finals to them in 2011 and 2014. After the drawn 2014 semi-final, when Mayo looked to have Kerry dead and buried before Kerry salvaged a result and won the replay after extra-time, Kerry were perceived to be a demon in Mayo’s minds that they could not remove.

And yet, Mayo never saw it that way. The 2004 and 2006 All-Ireland final defeats made a deep laceration on the Mayo psyche but the wound closed and the Mayo team of the last decade never allowed that scar to become part of their identity.

The Mayo team would have won at least two All-Irelands if they weren’t around the same time as the greatest team of all time, Dublin. 

Mayo had some brilliant players but one of their greatest strengths was their ability to never see history as having any relevance to them.

In the spotlight

Mayo have inevitably always been judged by history. When Stephen Rochford’s side came back to secure a draw against Kerry in the 2017 All-Ireland semi-final, Kerry still believed that they could infiltrate Mayo’s psychosis for the replay. “I still think Kerry have a psychological edge over Mayo,” said Marc Ó Sé a few days later.

It encapsulated much of how Kerry still thought about Mayo but Mayo blew that notion out of the water six days later when whacking Kerry to record their first championship win against them for 21 years.

When James Horan first took over in 2011, Mayo had more historical baggage with Cork than Kerry, who had tormented them throughout their history. Mayo beat Cork in that year’s All-Ireland quarter-final when Cork were reigning All-Ireland champions. Mayo subsequently lost to Kerry in the 2011 semi-final but the team was still in its infancy and was beginning to develop into the force they would become.

Mayo’s failure to hang on to a five-point lead late on in the 2014 drawn All-Ireland semi-final was as much down to a tactical error in not screening Kieran Donaghy as a psychological meltdown. When Mayo lost the replay after extra-time, that result hinged on a number of refereeing decisions, the Kieran Donaghy factor, and losing two of their key players — Cillian O’Connor and Aidan O’Shea — to concussion for a key part of that game.

The general dialogue afterwards inevitably turned towards Mayo’s failure to beat Kerry again but Mayo defeated Kerry in two of their next three league meetings before taking them down in the 2017 All-Ireland semi-final replay.

Mayo had a great league record against Kerry in the last decade. They beat Kerry in the 2019 Division One league final. Kerry did beat Mayo in the 2022 and 2025 league finals, and in the 2022 All-Ireland quarter-final, but Mayo’s sacking of Kerry in the 2023 round robin was Kerry’s first championship defeat in Killarney since 1995.

Sunday will be the 31st championship clash between Mayo and Kerry, with the score standing at 20-6 in Kerry’s favour, with four draws. Kerry have always dominated the relationship but the reason that Mayo could never historically beat Kerry was because they weren’t good enough, or prepared well enough.

Yet Mayo teams now are as well prepared as anyone else. They also had an edge on Kerry because they didn’t fear them anymore.

That side of the last decade embraced the big challenges. This team has adopted a similar approach since their defeat to Roscommon in April, but Sunday is as big as it comes against a Jack O’Connor side odds on to win successive All-Irelands.

Few give them a chance of winning, but Andy Moran will be preaching the creed that served him and his former team-mates so well for most of the last decade, especially against Kerry.

That Mayo team had the worldliness and big-game experience that this team doesn’t yet have but this Mayo group will be similarly trying to divorce themselves from the negatives of their distant past by trying to write their own unique history.