'Some of the other lads, they really did feel suffocated' - Lee Keegan interview
Declan Bogue
FOUR YEARS AFTER retiring from Mayo duty, Lee Keegan is still in the public eye and still everything he was as a player: forceful, positive, interesting and smiling.
He tells you that there are hundreds more interesting people to talk to. We don’t buy it. In this interview, he dissects the world of punditry, the weight of expectation on his Mayo side, why the wider world is obsessed with Mayo, and who will win the All-Ireland.
Throw the ball in and tear away, as he liked it.
Declan Bogue: In your latest column, you say Armagh will beat Kerry. That’s ballsy. How do you like doing the column and punditry since retirement?
Lee Keegan: I enjoy it, actually. I am a funny creature. Not the greatest lover of football but I actually really enjoy games and I could take or leave the rest of the stuff.
But I enjoy writing about the games because I like putting down what I see. I like writing about football, but it doesn’t mean I love it to bits. The current climate of the game, compared to when we played it, it gives me a bit of excitement to see different teams and what they do, how they set up.
When you play football, you are so engrossed in yourself and your teammates, you don’t tend to look beyond that. I just find the transition from playing to looking at other teams really fascinating. It gives you a broader idea of what they do to make themselves so good.
With the whole Mayo crusade that we had so long, that was the only thing that mattered to me for so long.
It’s been an easier side of life to see it that way.
DB: You are still playing away with Westport…
LK: I am the club captain. Like the old grandad around the place. There are a lot of 20 and 18-year-olds and I half mad, doing the runs and trying to keep up with them.
But I love playing.
DB: Surely you are filling your boots with two-pointers?
LK: I play centre-back, like a quarter-back. I haven’t scored a whole pile (of two-pointers) to be honest. I think I have two of them over the last two seasons.
But our club love it (the new game). We have a very young cohort at the moment and I would say I still play the old-school football. That kind of man-to-man, aggressive stuff. So I probably need to play more to the new rules if that makes sense.
I like to get my head up for a kickpass if I am fouled, rather than to run into someone again.
We were a funny team with Mayo in that we went man-to-man everywhere. There was a lot of risk in that. I find this whole 11 v 11 in the middle of the pitch, is much more demanding.
I am a bit older, 37 this year, and it takes a lot more for me to get up to that level of athleticism. I don’t have it any more. So I find myself playing more of the old rules in my head a little bit.
DB: Was the man-marking roles, such as with Diarmuid Connolly, your favourite type of game?
LK: That’s why I played football.
People are very quick to remind me of the All-Ireland medals that I do not have and that’s fine. If I am perfectly honest with you, I sleep perfectly at night. It doesn’t keep me awake.
But I look back at the good stuff we did, what we were involved in, that’s enough.
The Diarmuid Connolly battles, Con O’Callaghan – a couple of goes at him – and then Ciaran Kilkenny, Sean Cavanagh, that’s the reason I played football, was to play against the best and see where I am myself.
But also, not to be afraid of it. I was always a bit different, I wasn’t an over-thinker on the game. If James Horan or Rochy (Stephen Rochford) told me I was marking Diarmuid Connolly, they wouldn’t need to talk any more to me for the week.
For me, if was always a brilliant sign for me that I was trusted with that. I was so excited about the games.
There is always a flip side, a little bit of anxiety because you never know, they might slip you for a goal. But for me that was why I wanted to play football at the highest level.
I miss that with the new game – we don’t have those one to one battles. I suppose I had too many over the years. But I loved it, it made me go to the well.
And Diarmuid especially, you never knew what he was going to do, and that kept you on top of your game and made you strong. He had two good feet, he could hit you, he could take off running, all that stuff made me really tidy up my game and whoever won the battle went a long way to winning that game.
DB: You talk of the ‘Mayo crusade’, but is it too much to suggest the support, expectation and mania weighed heavily on the group?
LK: I think in some regard. Especially when we were told not to go out in public, keep yourself to yourself.
But like, that’s not how you live life. If I wanted to go down to the shop for a bottle of water or a paper I would just go. I am not going to hide.
But you couldn’t get away from the fact it is the top topic of conversation around Mayo. There was always a question waiting for you about who was injured, what were the plans for the weekend, what time are you getting the bus, that sort of thing.
For a lot of the lads, Mayo football was what they grew up with. I didn’t have that. I lived in Cavan for years, I played rugby, I didn’t have the same upbringing so I didn’t have that pressure. It was easier for me.
I played minor, U21, I wasn’t that good at it, but I didn’t have the backstory, the culture. I was always more freelancing.
For me, it was a game of football. It wasn’t going to define me one way or another. All-Ireland finals were just another game of football.
Some of the other lads, they really did feel suffocated. It probably lent itself in the finals when we didn’t reach the peaks compared to maybe the quarter-finals and semi-finals.
And the reality is we didn’t get over the line. I am not here to say supporters cost us, but the only conversation around that time was Mayo football, Mayo football. It did take over everything.
You can see why. When you are chasing that Holy Grail and going so close each time, it is always going to be there.
Personally, I never bought completely into that. Life is pretty black and white from my point of view.
DB: Some pundits find it difficult to criticise their own county, but you made a savage assessment last year when you said that Mayo were addicted to airing their dirty laundry in public.
LK: You agree though? You agree, don’t you?
DB: I just wasn’t sure on the specific examples?
LK: I’ll put it this way. If Dublin were playing Mayo at that time, who are you finding out about quicker?
DB: Mayo.
LK: Mayo.
Team selections would be thrown out. You try to get something about Dublin, you wouldn’t hear boo.
That’s the type of thing I was talking about. But also the stuff around Kevin McStay. It was so publicised. We allowed that to happen and we never squashed it before it got to the public eye and then it’s another narrative, one about Mayo in the public eye.
DB: And so, I was surprised when Roscommon beat Mayo this year, that you said you wanted to talk about the Rossies rather than Mayo. Is that not your job to look at Mayo?
LK: I deliberately didn’t talk about because what was the focus after that game? It was all about Mayo.
Who was talking about Roscommon? Nobody.
So it wasn’t to do with not wanting to talk about Mayo, because that’s where all the talk was. Nobody said, ‘Well actually, Roscommon were brilliant.’
Why aren’t they getting the positive talk? Because Mayo were shite, like.
I felt I wanted to be there to talk about Roscommon but we had over-talked about Mayo. Someone needed to say that Roscommon were damn good on that day.
DB: Is there a chance that the general public are just as obsessed by Mayo as you are about yourselves?
LK: I think so. It’s one of those things that when you are in the bubble so long, you want to keep everything tight. But I just always found that everything that gets out becomes a national story with Mayo.
For years it was the same. Maybe you might disagree. I felt Mayo were an easy target and it is very easy to dial into it. The whole stuff around Ewan MacKenna and the finances, you are kind of waiting for the next scandal. It could be anything relating to Mayo.
It was easy because of what had happened over the years and we couldn’t get over the line, blaming this and that. It’s always easy to write about it. What do you think?
DB: Well I would say that of all the teams of the last 20 years, the Mayo team had more column inches devoted to them. Which is odd.
LK: Yeah!
DB: It’s like even Internet clips of yer man Jimmy Sloyan. That stuff doesn’t get off the ground in other counties. It does in Mayo though.
LK: This is the thing. For some reason in Mayo we cannot ignore things. It’s oversold and then a laughing stuff or a topic of conversation.
Sometimes I think if you say nothing, it’s better than a thousand words spoken. We over-talk the silly stuff.
Someone sent me a piece there recently about all the Twitter stuff and Jesus Christ, it’s shown up in the data that Mayo have been talked more about than anyone else. The comments are just bananas.
I find that interesting in itself.
DB: OK, pundit hat on again. Who wins this All-Ireland?
LK: It’s funny. I think Armagh will be very upset with how the way they let it go against Louth. I had an argument with Sean (Cavanagh) about this over the weekend.
Like Armagh should have seen that game out at the weekend. Turnovers that you would never associate with them. I said to Sean that they are one of the lead teams at the moment. You would expect them to see it out and they couldn’t and Louth got the lucky goal.
It’s brilliant for Louth, but for me, Armagh will see that and know they should have seen it out.
I don’t think it is all doom and gloom for them, going down to Kerry. I think they will enjoy this game to be honest.
I think there will be questions around, say, people are saying Kerry’s main lads are coming back, but they haven’t been road-tested enough. Armagh came through a tough Ulster campaign, taken to extra-time in the final.
But I think Armagh will be happy in terms of where they are and not afraid of Kerry. I actually have Armagh as favourites for the All-Ireland. I think they are going to win on Saturday.
They have had adversity and they have their All-Ireland and an Ulster. They can go out and play more freely.
They have changed their tactics in games. In the first half they were afraid to kick the ball. In the second they created chances and have another dimension.
Kerry are going to get their purple patch, but we don’t know what the injured lads are going to be like when they get on.
DB: Married to Aoife with three girls, can you tell us how difficult it is to play intercounty with a family?
LK: I had a lot of people doing a lot of work for me in the background. We had two girls in Covid. The year we lost to Tyrone, I had a bit of college work around that time, I had a lot of stuff going on.
I said after 2022 that there would be a shift in management. And when that happens, you don’t go in for one year. It’s a three-year thing. I just felt I had my time done and wanted to spend a bit more time at home.
And, you are just busy.
I am home more in the evenings. Club training is ten minutes away. Home, club game in the evening, can give a hand out in the evenings, more able to enjoy general life.
It’s nice to be around your kids and they grow up fast. The years don’t be long going in.
I actually really like club football as well. I like the freedom of it. OK, last year didn’t work out but the craic we have with it, the enjoyment, meeting guys in the pub. I really enjoy that and Pat Holmes is our manager the last couple of years, so… He’s tied in with us and his kids are here too.
I had my time done. I am a simplistic character and don’t like to complicate things. I am still playing, still kicking a ball with the club.
I felt I had a good innings, I give it my gut for 11 years and had some great stories, great days, some brilliant learnings. I got everything I wanted and walked away happy and in good health and I am still playing at a reasonably high level as well.
DB: Your fitness was notable in your prime, so how do you train and keep the body right now?
LK: I am a high-functioning personality. I would be really energetic although I am very chilled out in terms of never getting stressed out about stuff.
I have high energy and have to divert stuff. I train twice a week in the gym. The thing now is that nobody is making me do it. I do it because I want to do it and I have the freedom to do what I want.
With Mayo, I was out the door at half five and not back to half ten. Now if I go to club training, it is at half six. I leave the house at ten past six and back in by half eight.
So I don’t have to pack and prep like before. Not to the same degree. But I love doing it, it is good for my head and I need to burn stuff off as I am no good to anybody if I don’t.
My father-in-law would say, ‘Look at this head the ball, doesn’t know if he is coming or going half the time!’ But I love training.
When I was with Mayo, I was training to the absolute limit. I always wanted to do that. Over the years I was extremely fit and strong but I also had that pig in me that I wanted to keep going and going. James Horan used to say when the oxygen was getting thin, I was enjoying it a little more in a sadistic way.
The whole thing about sport is pushing yourself to the limit if you want, or stay comfortable. I loved going to the limit of my body and seeing what it could do.
I don’t do that so much now. As you get older it gets harder but I am training to the best of my ability, what that is now.
I’ve been lucky because we had really good people involved in Mayo on the S&C side. Barry Solan who moved into professional sport, Conor Finn who is back in. We have Aaron Lohan helps with the club, he is from Galway and has that new App, ‘RYPT’ that Rob Finnerty was promoting.
Even after 20 years playing football I am still getting an education from the S&C people.
DB: Does that competitive nature bleed into punditry? You see some pundits desperately trying to make a winning point in a debate.
LK: I wouldn’t watch a game back. Even analysis, I think if you have played or you are current with the game, you can see things. I couldn’t go back to look at stats, kickouts, all the analysis. I struggled with that when I played and I am not going to look back over hours of footage.
If you told me I was marking Diarmuid Connolly, I might have done ten minutes on him, and that was me for the week.
I kind of brought that to punditry. If I am watching a game, I will see it through the lens of my own eyes. I don’t need to look at every focal point; kickout this or handpass that.
I just pick up the main aspects of what the game is about and I feel I should know because I played long enough at that level.
For example for me, take the Tyrone-Mayo game at the weekend. That was all about Mayo’s lack of ability to see out the game. I know it’s simple but it’s the story for the last four years; they don’t see out games when they have the opportunity.
The game itself, I keep it very simplistic. If that is good analysis or bad, I’m sure somebody will tell me.
I don’t worry about it. If people want the opinion I will give it, but I won’t overkill it. I like to keep it very simple, very basic, like I played my football as well.
Maybe that’s different. I like a story, I think it’s important to go there and enjoy the games rather than analyse it to death.
DB: If I am watching a Mayo game and you are on, I want to hear an anecdote about Andy Moran to give an insight into how he operates and thinks. How do you think he has done so far?
LK: The thing is, Andy is a good coach. I think he is getting a brilliant education about the managerial stuff this year.
Like one big thing for me the last day, Mayo’s performance, I thought defensively it was our best performance for a long time. But there was one obvious change that Andy, or Paddy Tally or Colm Boyle, should have seen and that was to put Eoin McGreal on Darren McCurry.
Eoin had already clamped down Eoin McElholm and kept him out of the game.
You could see that Jack Coyne was struggling with Darren McCurry. For me, it was the more obvious change that could have seen them over the line.
And the other one was, should you have handpassed the ball over the bar like Sam Callinan, or do you go for the kill?
You have to go for goal. All day, every day. All day, every day. I don’t care if you miss. But it meant nothing in the context of the game to Mayo.
I would defend Aido to the hilt. But in a game like that when you have Kobe, Darragh Beirne, Ryan O’Donoghue, Jordan Flynn… You do not take that shot. And not only to kick it, but not kill it.
He has played over 100 games, his experience should know that too.
But the narrative will be, ‘Oh, Aidan O’Shea…’ That’s just one part of it. The main thing was the goal chance. I do not care after that. Your goal kills that game. You get yourself to the quarter-final and you tick that box.
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