But not Pádraig O’Hora. After an injury-disrupted start to 2023, he craved minutes more than a break.
And so, before he knew it, he was togging out for Ballina Stephenites.
“It was a Sweeney Cup game against Belmullet,” he recounts. “There were two more of the [Mayo] lads who haven’t played . . . the lad that lined out beside me just looked at me and goes, ‘F*** sake, it’s a Sweeney Cup game, lads!’ Sure look, it was a bit of craic. We needed football, needed to train; we needed to not take the foot off the gas.”
Mayo didn’t set out to lose their Connacht opener – and they might well have won it, if only those two early goal chances had been taken. But defeat, coming when it did, offered a chance to reset.
Some even viewed a six-week window to the start of their Sam Maguire campaign as a blessing in disguise, but that theory will be fully road-tested in Killarney this afternoon.
“Now everybody is recalibrated, refocused,” says O’Hora.
The 30-year-old may be a late inter-county bloomer, but even his time under James Horan underlined the swings and roundabouts that come with life in the full-back firing line.
He went from an All-Star nominee in 2021 to chasing David Clifford’s league final shadow in 2022. When a video clip of O’Hora engaging in verbals with his Kerry rival later went viral, there followed another onslaught – this time of online opprobrium.
Pádraig O’Hora of Mayo and David Clifford of Kerry jostle during last year’s league final — © SPORTSFILE
“I think it just got blown out of proportion,” he now reflects. “It didn’t put me up or down too much, to be honest. It didn’t bother me, because what you’ll always see is real footballing people or journalists involved in sport that actually understand the game, and players – they are not going to be the ones running with slating a man for very little.
“Like, me and David just went at it, and we went at it in the first minute of the game until the end. That’s just the nature of it.
“If you played GAA before and haven’t seen lads banging into each other or getting under each other’s skin, then I don’t know what game you’ve been playing. But it just blew up, people took a lot out of it and it didn’t really concern me a whole pile, to be honest. I don’t pay too much heed to the Twitter comments and all that jazz.”
O’Hora was speaking to highlight SuperValu’s ‘Community Includes Everyone’ campaign as part of their All-Ireland SFC launch. Appearing at the same launch was a certain reigning Footballer of the Year. “Me and David have only had one or two battles and it’s obviously my hope that we have plenty more over the next number of years, all going well,” says O’Hora.
“You’d like to dislike him but you can’t dislike him, because he’s a decent bloke . . . and I’m glad that we get to partner up on this because it is an important area.”
Question is, though, will O’Hora have a chance to ‘partner up’ with Clifford this weekend, given that he’s named in the subs?
Ankle surgery over the winter delayed his opportunities to impress McStay. He was back for the latter stages of the league, coming off the bench against Donegal before starting against Monaghan only to run into an inspired Conor McManus. There followed an injury-time cameo in the Division 1 final against Galway, but he didn’t see game time against the Rossies.
“I am getting back motoring,” he assures. “These few weeks give me, on a personal level, a good chance to really put in some ground work and try and compete again.
“This year has just brought its own new buzz,” he expands. “You feel like you can go out and enjoy your football. We have been for pretty much most of the year.”
O’Hora openly admits that he’s not a man for video-analysing his own performances. “I play a lot of chess and I’d analyse every single game I’ve ever played. So like, I’m kind of arguing with myself,” he muses.
“I personally don’t think it needs to be dwelt on. If you want to get a little bit of information on a player, maybe, there’s probably value in it. For management to understand how other teams set up and their structure, I’m sure there is [value in it]. But I spend a lot of time playing football and a lot of time preparing for football. It’s not really the first thing I want to do, to go back watching what happened . . . I don’t necessarily think you can do it with such a dynamic game.”
Now a father of three, O’Hora can empathise fully with his former defensive comrade, Lee Keegan, on his decision to call time on Mayo.
“He’s right too, if he wants to spend more time at home,” the Ballina man says. “He spent a lot more years at this than I have. He’s given his life to it. Hopefully, all going well, I’ll be able to give it another couple of years and then bow out.”