Stephen Coen ready to face old college friend Con O’Callaghan

Leadership as a quality might be hard to define but in Stephen Coen’s case the facts speak for themselves. In 2013 he captained Mayo to both an All-Ireland minor title and three years later the same cohort to an under-21. For good measure, in 2018 he also led UCD to the Sigerson Cup.

Sensing that there may be small undercurrents running through those days in Belfield, questions are posed about whether he found the Dublin players stand-offish when it came to football talk for fear of giving anything away.

Coen appears perplexed by the idea that intercounty rivalry would in some way create tensions in the group and having been captain of the club, has happy memories of his time with teammates.

“When you play Sigerson, you might learn things from each other. It’s not a personal question: ‘do you do this, do you do that?’ It’s more what we’re going to do so it’s not a question of ‘is this what you do in Dublin?’ or ‘is this what you do in Mayo?’

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“In terms of bonding, when you’re at university level all that kind of rivalry stuff goes to one side. It’s a light-hearted competition – not in a disrespectful way; obviously everyone takes it very seriously but it’s enjoyable to throw all the pressures away and enjoy playing together.

“It doesn’t make it hard. If you’re friendly with someone, you’re always going to be friendly with them.”

He says that he was particularly friendly with someone he might be seeing a fair bit of this weekend, Dublin’s All Star forward Con O’Callaghan: “An excellent player but a guy I would have been friendly with. There’d be very strong mutual respect for each other. We would have had good fun throughout the Sigerson time and would stay in contact the odd time. Just a great fella.”

Agricultural science

College left its mark on him academically as well and he is currently pursuing post-graduate studies for a doctorate in agricultural science.

“Yeah, so I’m two-and-a-half years into a four-year PhD and six-and-a-half years in college - looking forward to finishing at this stage. I’m doing a PhD with Teagasc and UCD. It’s in the area of bovine nutrition and reproduction.

“My centre would have been in Grange in County Meath where there’d be more than 1,000 animals. I would have had my lab, the animals onsite and then my office.

“I would have done a lot of data collection and work with animals. Then once the data was gathered, I’d have to work on it in the lab, get my results and at the moment I’m interpreting them and writing up papers at home here.”

As one of the Mayo dressing-room’s middle generation - younger than lifers like Aidan O’Shea and Cillian O’Connor but older than the rookies introduced this year by James Horan - Coen’s exposure to the serial All-Ireland disappointments of the county have been limited to coming in off the bench in the 2016 and ‘17 finals, including the first year’s replay.

Now established at centre back, he’s looking forward to his first starting role on the big day albeit a fairly unrecognisable environment compared to capacity crowds, parades and associated hoopla.

He is adamant however that the team has been rejuvenated this year, as evidenced by a first Connacht title in five years.

“I think the big thing is that we’re focusing on ourselves and trying to improve all the time. We’ve got a lot of new players who are extremely exciting and don’t even think about results or the next game or two weeks’ time. They’re just thinking of the now.”

Benefits

He’s relaxed about the open access aspect of the semi-final win over Tipperary and echoes a theme in the panel of concentrating on their own strengths rather than obsessing over problems.

The strange year has delivered benefits in what would now be a frantic build-up to yet another All-Ireland in Mayo. Able to work at home, he contrasts his routine with the hectic memories of 2016 and ‘17.

“It’s nice to be at home. I remember in previous finals I was working in the bank in Castlebar during the summer. People came into the bank not to do business but to talk about the games so at home here with the animals, they don’t talk back.

“That way you can control your own thoughts and save a lot of energy that way. That has a massive bearing on prep for every game and is one big difference this year.”

One aspect of the pandemic and its restrictions that he dismisses is the idea that this year’s All-Ireland will come with a footnote.

“To be honest I don’t think there’ll ever be an asterisk on Sam Maguire. Everyone’s worked really hard and the biggest thing about winning titles isn’t the cup but the hard work you’ve put in come to fruition.”