John O'Mahony was manager of the Mayo team that defeated Tyrone in the 1989 All-Ireland semi-final.

That was the last time the two counties met in the penultimate round of the race for the Sam Maguire Cup and the Connacht champions won by 0-12 to 1-6, reeling off the last six points without reply, to qualify for their first final in 38 years.

"Back then Mayo had drifted," O'Mahony says in The Irish Times. "The county didn't win a single Connacht title in the 1970s and although a couple followed in the 1980s, there was a culture to the effect that winning the province was the realistic height of ambition for Mayo. We set out to challenge that.

"Tyrone were favourites and had been in an All-Ireland in 1986 when they were seen to put it up to Kerry. In a way, that created an advantage for us.

"I remember seeing t-shirts among Tyrone supporters with 'Unfinished Business' printed on them. We clearly got the impression that Tyrone were looking ahead to Beecher's Brook before they'd got over us.

"We'd great confidence that we had actually succeeded in raising the bar for Mayo and Connacht football and we ground out a result. We'd a couple of important things going for us: Liam McHale was excellent and we had a really good free taker, Michael Fitzmaurice.

"It was quite a confined panel so we ended up playing four midfielders. As well as Liam McHale and Seán Maher, Willie Joe Padden was at centre forward and TJ Kilgallon at centre back - they had been the regular midfield partnership but we had to deploy them in the most effective way for the team.

"We travelled to Dublin for the final by air from Knock so there was this snowball effect, which didn't help low-key preparations. Mayo learned from that in later years and it's come right around now with a team and manager in James Horan who are comfortable being favourites." Tweet

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