Padraig O'Hora pictured at the launch of Supervalu's #CommunityIncludesEveryone at Croke Park.
By Paul Keane
Padraig O'Hora, by his own admission 'consumed' by inter-county activity with Mayo, has an interesting take on just how much energy goes into it.
"If you'd ask most footballers at elite level who want to win something, we're putting more time and energy into this than we are our full-time jobs," suggested the defender. There's not a minute of the day that goes by that isn't focused around football."
It is a stark reminder of just how much players like O'Hora are putting on the line each week and while the Ballina man jokes that he hopes his employer doesn't read the above, he is happy enough to stand over the bones of the statement.
"Your mind is consumed with football," he said. "People say it's a sport and it's about participation, it is at club level, but when it comes to elite sports, and you step into the realm of inter-county teams who want to be successful, it's no longer a sport, it becomes a lifestyle.
"It's everything about you. Every time you think about eating food, planning out your week, training, gym, recovery, analysis. All of these things that come with it, sports psychology.
"When you start to accumulate all of that and think where your energy is being sent, that's what I mean. I might be at home with the kids alright but my brain is with Mayo GAA a lot of the time."
With all of that in mind, father of two O'Hora could be forgiven for cutting a particularly frustrated figure in recent months. He only featured late on in the Allianz League for Mayo following a winter operation on his ankle and didn't feature at all in their recent Connacht championship defeat to Roscommon.
"If you didn't want to be there, you could just walk away - there would be no issue there," reasoned O'Hora of his personal situation. "It's very hard when you're injured because you're not playing games. It's very hard on your mind, just mentally to remind yourself of the process, that there's a long-term plan.
"It tests your coping strategies, your resilience. There are days where you do want to throw in the towel because you can't see yourself getting back, and maybe you're not recovering fast enough or maybe guys are flying around, playing well and you don't think you can play well again.
Mayo's Pádraig O'Hora in Allianz Football League action last month. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
"All of these things go on, irrational thoughts that come into rational minds, and they challenge us all the time. It's been demanding but you wouldn't do it if you didn't love it. I still feel extremely privileged to be within that group. I wouldn't change it for the world."
Getting back into the team then is O'Hora's challenge. He has time on his side to progress as there are still a number of weeks to the beginning of the All-Ireland round robin campaign.
"Yeah, that's the challenge," said the 2021 All-Ireland finalist. "It's a fair old challenge. That's a double-edged sword too. You might think, 'Jesus, wouldn't it be lovely to just come back and slide into a position', and it would, but at the same time, what's the real ambition of a team that you can do that? What quality of a team is it if you can just walk into it?
"It says a lot more about the team that no matter who you are, when you come back, if you're gone for a week or two, coming back from an injury, you're going to work like a dog, and you're really going to have to earn everything you get. It's not going to be handed to you.
"That is the case in Mayo. It's brilliant, and you wouldn't have it any other way. I'm going to have to do that, and I look forward to doing that. I have four or five weeks to do just that."
The good news for O'Hora is that Mayo manager Kevin McStay has operated a revolving door policy since taking over. He used 33 different players across their successful league campaign and has been happy to shake things up and try out different players as he sees fit.
"I'd hate to be in management, I'd absolutely hate it," smiled O'Hora. "If there's one thing I'm sure I won't do when I'm finished playing football, it's management. All the options, that's the headache.
"Management are absolutely blessed at the same time that they're not scraping 15 players together, that they have that capacity, and that's where the headache is, figuring out who goes where and what's best. Maybe the five or six weeks now might help us do that, you wouldn't know.
"Either way, Mayo are going to line out a serious team, no matter who is pulling on the jersey because there are 30-plus fellas looking to take it off you."
