As the dust settles on yet another Mayo heartbreak to swell the ever-lengthening list of losses to confront before their next All-Ireland final, Stephen Rochford has returned to a dominant theme in the build-up to the final: a Lee Keegan agenda.
A number of Mayo fans online revolted against what they believed was the deliberate demonising of Lee Keegan by ex-Dublin players in the media. The duel between Keegan and Diarmuid Connolly was one of the most conspicuous of the drawn game, and was subsequently accentuated by Alan Brogan in the Evening Herald (As Lee Keegan himself admits, some of this is right on the edge of legal, and at times, he crosses that mark. Twice I saw his drag Diarmuid Connolly to the ground) and Ciaran Whelan on the Sunday Game. This was after Joe Brolly said that "It's unbelievable how many of Lee Keegan's opponents get yellow cards for wrestling with him. It's one of the amazing coincidences of Gaelic Football".
Mayo GAA blog also drew focus to the words of Paul Clarke also, writing in the Irish Independent that "I don't see footballer versus footballer out there. I actually think Lee is conceding his footballing ability by pulling and dragging rather than pitching himself against him as a footballer".
Okay, by my count that's Whelan, Brogan, Caffrey and Clarke all sent out to spread the same anti-Keegan message. Have I missed anyone?
— Mayo GAA Blog (@MayoGAABlog) September 27, 2016
Mayo Club '51 tweeted this statement, saying that these ex-Dublin players are guilty of ignoring the fact that "it takes two to tango", thus helping create a Lee Kegan agenda.
Perhaps symbolic of how helpless Mayo fans felt at this perceived injustice, they began to laugh at it with #ThingsLeeDid.
Now it has emerged that this unrest with the portrayal of Keegan has pervaded the Mayo camp, as Stephen Rochford has told The Irish Examiner that he believes that there was an "agenda" against Keegan:
Lee Keegan is one of the most mentally tough, honest-to-God football guys I have ever met.
I don’t think [the perceived agenda] knocked a breeze out of him, but I am under no illusions that there was an agenda out there.
It is unfortunate that former players would feel it necessary to get into that. Guys that haven’t always been whiter than white but, look, that’s for them to deal with their own consciences.
When asked by media if it was an orchestrated attempt on the part of former Dublin players, Rochford replied ruefully: "I don’t know, ahem, it is coincidental. Four or five days in a row. So be it".
Keegan certainly did not look in any way ruffled by all the talk surrounding him in the build-up: he took his goal superbly and conceded just 0-01 to Diarmuid Connolly before his exceptionally harsh black card. There was also no ill-feeling between both players after the game, as this photo by Sportsfile will attest:
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