"They have every right to get excited" — RTÉ's Up for the Match host Dáithí Ó Sé backs Mayo fans

“Hats off to the Mayo fans, and they have every right to get excited. I think Andy Moran was 100 percent right to knock down any kind of journalists who were sniggering at Mayo people getting excited about going to the final. Of course, they are!”, O’Sé says.

He believes counties across the country would envy the depth of support and commitment Mayo fans give their team, and thinks the players draw real energy from it. Despite the county's long wait for All-Ireland success, the fans keep coming back year after year — a loyalty he says deserves real respect.

“There are 32 counties, and New York and London, who would love to be there to have that level of excitement coming up to the match.”

READ NEXT: INTERVIEW: Lee Keegan on marking Clifford, GPS trackers, and All-Ireland final day

He recalls going to a league match in Castlebar in February 2023 — a wet Saturday night, with a throw-in at around 7pm, nothing at stake beyond league points — and still roughly 15,000 Mayo fans turned out. For a second-round league fixture, he says, that kind of crowd is simply on another level.

The popular broadcaster spent four years in Mary Immaculate College in Limerick with the current Editor of The Mayo News, Michael Duffy.

Dáithí will present Up for the Match, live from Croke Park on RTÉ One this Sunday at 9.30pm, alongside Jacqui Hurley and Louise Cantillon.

Scramble for tickets

The scramble for tickets is even fiercer than usual this year, the television host explains. A friend who works at the county board told him Kerry were down roughly 900 tickets on what they received last year.

Closer to home, a Mayo neighbour of his has told him she'll travel to Dublin for the match even without a ticket, planning to watch it in a pub if she can't get in — and if Ó Sé secures a spare, it's hers.

“There's a lady who lives two doors down from me here in Galway. She's from Mayo, and if I do get a spare ticket, she'll get it because she goes to all the matches, and she said she's even going to Dublin without a ticket so hopefully we'll be able to get a ticket for her as well,” the popular broadcaster told The Mayo News.

Moran ‘brings people with him’

On the football itself, Ó Sé is enthusiastic about Mayo's young forward line, singling out emerging talents Kobe McDonald and Darragh Beirne alongside Ryan O’Donoghue, who he feels has gone under the radar precisely because of the attention on his more high-profile teammates, plus a core of more experienced heads.

He also spoke warmly about meeting Mayo coach Andy Moran for the first time a fortnight ago: "I just think he is just such a nice guy," he said, recalling that Moran spent half an hour talking hurling with his son.

Moran “brings people with him and belief”, O’Sé says and notes that "a lot of people wouldn't have seen Mayo in the final, Andy Moran certainly did."

READ NEXT: INTERVIEW: RTÉ's Teresa Mannion on Mayo, retirement and a life spent telling stories from the west

Anticipation

Both the best thing and secret to Up for the Match for O’Sé is that by going out the night before the big game, “everybody still has a chance to win the following day, and their hopes are high, and that's the excitement, and that's part of the GAA as well.”

Capturing the excitement in the build-up to Sunday, he says that “that's what these days coming up to the All-Ireland final are all about: the excitement, people talking about the match. The teams will be known shortly — this person's in, that person's out. Why is that person on the bench? Are they injured? Will they actually start on the day? Is there a bit of black magic going on here? That's part of the fun.

"The only thing is, with it being early this year — for the last couple of years, we've always had that excitement in September when the schools were back. That's one thing we miss, that intensity and a bit of fun in the schools. We don't have it, because the schools are out. But it's in every other corner — it's on every post office, in every shop, on every street in Kerry and in Mayo. It's just great to be involved at this time of year."

Match fit

Presenting Up for the Match is a bit like his preparation for the Rose of Tralee, Ó Sé said — he starts getting ready earlier in the year so he's mentally and physically in good form for the big live broadcast.

“When I'm feeling good, my mind is good, the body is good, and you're just going to show it and like up for the match in great form altogether because like these are these are the days to be enjoyed,” he tells The Mayo News.

The experienced broadcaster also relishes the electricity of live shows as “with the way television is going, there aren't many other big live shows like the Rose of Tralee, The Today Show and Up for the Match, and to be part of it is just great fun because a lot of times you know doing studio shows, they're racking and stacking, you’ve done three or four a day, and you know it's very hard to get into the the flow of it.”

The Dingle man remembers first going to Croke Park in 1997 to see Kerry play Mayo and says that the “magic has never worn off” every time he has been back since.

Whether it be full with 82,000 fans inside for a match or other work occasions where Dáithí, two camera men and a sound man would have been the only ones there, he says that “there's just something about the place. It's the history of the place.”

Looking at different parts of the field evokes a famous Kerry goal from Mike Sheehy in 1978, Jack O'Shea's goal in 1981, David Clifford's point going into halftime last year, the two-pointer in the final, “all that kind of still comes back to me,” O’Sé smiles fondly.

Up for the Match airs live from Croke Park on RTÉ One this Sunday at 9.30pm, ahead of the All-Ireland football final between Kerry and Mayo on Sunday, July 26.