Mayo captain Keith Higgins has hailed the work James Horan did with the Mayo team during his four years in charge, saying the Ballintubber man completely changed the side’s mentality.
Mayo have shown an unerring consistency in the last four years, reaching two All-Ireland semi-finals either side of two final appearances. Part of that is down to the level of professionalism the former boss brought to the Mayo camp.
In an interview with gaa.ie Higgins said “Being honest, up until James came in. I don’t know how to word this exactly,James put in a whole set-up that made it a lot easier to get the best out of players.”
“I probably wasn’t putting enough into it either. We would have had gym programmes and all that but you’d probably be thinking, some nights you’d go and some nights you wouldn’t, it was as simple as that. You’d go when it suited.”
Higgins won four Connacht titles in a row under Horan’s stewardship, and admits the increased commitment to training has helped to get the best out of him, but there was a time when he may not have been so keen to spend his evenings in the gym.
“When I came in first, it was a matter of train Tuesday, Thursday and play on Sunday. There might have been a gym programme, but it wasn’t exactly monitored or anything.”
You might go and you might not go and you might go down to the chipper one of the days instead!
“But James just came in and changed the whole mentality. The mentality changed, the lifestyle changed, the whole lot changed. Hopefully it’s still going in the right direction.”
Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes have come in to replace Horan for 2015 and Higgins revealed that there has been no major changes, just a few minor tweaks here and there.
One of their first moves was to give Higgins the captaincy, the same honour they bestowed on him when they managed the All-Ireland winning U21 side of 2006.
“They have fitted in handy enough in fairness. It takes a bit of getting used to at the start. When you are with James for so long, you get into a bit of a comfort zone but they have been taking lads out of that a bit hopefully and maybe making things a bit more competitive within the panel.”
The three-time All-star has been a key member of the Mayo hurling panel in recent years but took the decision to step away from the county hurling set-up this year in a bid to focus all his energy on football.
Given that I’m 30 years of age, it’s something that was always going to have to give. Unfortunately it had to happen this year. We’ll see what happens in the future.
Higgins was named at corner-back for Mayo’s Connacht championship semi-final with Galway on Sunday afternoon as the green and red ignite their bid to capture a historic fifth Connacht title in a row.
I was in Croker on Sunday screaming my throat raw for the Rebels, but hats off to the Dubs, they have a quality team. Some fantastic play and lovely scores out of them. Actually thought they had the winning of it till the sending off. Even then, they were dangerous till the end.
Look forward to seeing more of them next year.
my friend’s mother makes $83/hour on the computer. She has been without a job for 5 months but last month her check was $21383 just working on the computer for a few hours. Read more on this web site… www.Can99.com
Jokes on her, I make $84 an hour
Michele
If your friends mother makes that much money why you wasting your Time on the journal , wasting our time ..do us all a favour and get a real job,. Ps the journal should have sent you and your scam on your way .. Tool .. You add nothing to society..
So pleased Cork won. All this hype about Dublin teams gives me a pain in the colon::-)
John. With respect…you haven’t a clue about hurling…to make a comment like that…this year will be remembered ..in the same regard as the mid nineties.. ..a great year for gaa..
Did u read any of the papers that week,on the front page of the star there was an article about Dublin hurling and on the back page,it’s bias journalism towards Dublin gaa,always has and always will,when Kerry last won the all Ireland there was a two page article about Dublin football in the Sunday world,tell me any losing team in a final that gets more coverage than a winning team
Most of the media coverage this week has all been about Dublin hurling,people would swear that they beat Cork,teams that beat Dublin in hurling and football never get the proper recognition,
Im sure the rebels will get plenty of recognition if they bring back liam to cork town !
john so true! and same after the Kilkenny game but it doesn’t really matter when Liam comes home in Srptember!!!!
Really hope Clare win Liam now
This fella griffiths has ideas about himself. Lots of ideas
I thought it was more of a semi-colon, myself.