"Sean Cavanagh had his say in an RTÉ studio on Sunday, declaring that Mayo are no longer contenders. I can't remember the last time Sean had anything good to say about Mayo, so it was no surprise," wrote former Mayo manager James Horan in his Irish Daily Star column last weekend.
Horan was referencing Cavanagh's appearance on The Sunday Games' championship preview show. "I just feel we are starting to see the end of the road of this great Mayo side," Cavanagh told Des Cahill. He also omitted them from his prediction for the teams which he believes will reach this year's Super Eight.
Speaking to Balls on Wednesday at the launch of Electric Ireland’s ‘This is Major’ campaign, Cavanagh said that he found it curious that Horan had taken offence.
"Yeah, that was strange. That was really strange. Because I think he said that I never have any good word on Mayo. I've only ever spoken about them once, I think, before I spoke about them on the Super Eights.
"I was on before the All-Ireland Final last year and I think all I said at that point was that Dublin were going to win. I thought Dublin were ahead of them at that point and I was right about that.
"So I thought that was strange. The Super Eight prediction that we had to put in, I excluded them because I thought Galway would beat them and they didn't have the age profile of a team to come through a qualifier series."
When Cavanagh considers this Mayo team, he sees parallels between them and the Tyrone side of which he was a part in the late 2000s.
It reminds me of what we were like with that Tyrone team at the end of the noughties; you could see that there was still serious quality there and a propensity to pull out one big game or a couple of big games but whether you can back that up, whether you have enough energy and power and hunger to back that up... I know we didn't.
So unless there's something different… I can see similar signs and traits.
Cavanagh added that followers of Mayo football have a tendency to be a little bit touchy.
"Yeah, they're super-sensitive for whatever reason. I haven't had a word from the other 25 counties I didn't include in the Super Eight predictions."
Four major GAA legends, Sean Cavanagh, Ollie Canning, Michael Fennelly and Daniel Goulding, have teamed up to form the Electric Ireland Minor Star Awards judging panel to shortlist Minor Player of the Week nominations for both hurling and football throughout the Championship.
These Minor players will then go forward to be considered for inclusion on the Minor Hurling and Football teams of the Year which will be unveiled at the Electric Ireland Minor Star Awards in Croke Park in October.
Picture credit: Sportsfile
