"We've obviously met and cajoled him and coaxed him and got him into headlocks and kicked him and did whatever we could with him. But it's a big decision for him."
Mayo manager Kevin McStay made it very clear to RTÉ Sport earlier this month that the idea of a Mayo dressing room minus Lee Keegan was not a reality they wanted to contend with just yet.
The heartbeat of the Mayo story over the last decade, 33-year-old Keegan was admired and revered the length and breadth of the county, and further afield too. It's unlikely that there has been a more popular player amongst neutrals in modern times than the Westport running man. His retirement on Monday robs us of one of the game's most exciting talents.
For 31 counties – okay, maybe including Galway is a stretch – more often than not, All-Ireland final days since 2012 have centred around hoping Mayo end their wait, curse, hoodoo – whatever you want to call it - as they tried to lift the Sam Maguire Cup for the first time since 1951.
Too often they looked set to do so, but dreams remained dreams and reality only brought heartache. Pain was felt for a county, but none more so than for Lee Keegan.
That was nothing compared to the pain felt by the Westport man himself.
His contribution to six All-Ireland finals – seven including replays – painted a mosaic of ranging emotions.
Hope: His low swerving shot to the net in the 2016 final replay against Dublin and his 2017 high finish past Stephen Cluxton – the latter putting Mayo a point ahead with less than 20 minutes remaining.
Frustration: Appearing to throw his GPS tracker at Dean Rock as the Dublin forward kicked the winning free in the 2017 decider.
Acceptance (maybe): Sitting on the Croke Park turf with Tyrone’s Peter Harte after the Red Hands had won the All-Ireland in 2021, Keegan’s daughter Lile and Harte’s daughter Ava nearby. Wry smiles rather than tears the currency.
When all was said and done, and having left a firm imprint on the modern GAA, Keegan exits the inter-county scene with no All-Ireland title to his name.
Keegan scored in five of those seven finals, hitting 2-04 in all, as Mayo suffered two five-point losses, one four-point loss, three one-point losses as well as that 2016 drawn encounter with Dublin.
Unfortunately for him, he has a very strong case to present on the debate over the best player never to win an All-Ireland.
He had it all. If a laboratory was asked to create the perfect footballer for today’s game, Keegan would be the blueprint.
Ridiculously consistent, the energetic defender could do it at both ends of the pitch. He scored 8-71 in 140 appearances for his county while in more recent seasons, he demonstrated his man-marking capabilities on opposition dangermen.
He had a bit of bite too. Yellow, black and sometimes even red cards arrived his way. The physical stuff never frightened him, perhaps his hard edge chiseled growing up with rugby as his primary sport until his latter teenage years.
Football came first in the end, and how Mayo were grateful for that. His performances were rewarded with five All-Star awards, the first arriving in 2012 and the most recent coming in 2021. He also collected the Footballer of the Year crown in 2016 and was in the three-man shortlist again five years later.
In 2020 the public voted on an All-Star team of The Sunday Game era and Keegan was named at centre half-back with Dublin’s Jack McCaffrey and Kerry’s Tomás Ó Sé either side of him.
No other Mayo player featured. Yet he was the only one on the team who didn’t get their hands on the famous trophy.
That particular pain game was not exclusive to Keegan though, and in the late, great Dermot Earley snr, the GAA had another star who performed heroics but saw his dream of an All-Ireland title unfulfilled.
He played Gaelic football for his native Roscommon for 20 years from 1965 to 1985 and won two All-Stars as he pushed the county towards glory, where small margins would ultimately get in their way.
Five Connacht titles were collected, but only one of those led to an All-Ireland final appearance, although the 1977 one-point replay loss to Armagh rankled.
While they felt they should have progressed in '77, they got revenge on the Orchard County three years later when the Ulster men were looking good for another tilt at Sam. Earley scored three points as Roscommon produced a marvelous second-half performance to turn a five-point interval deficit into a six-point win.
Kerry produced the opposition in the final and John 'Jigger' O'Connor’s goal after 35 seconds helped lay the platform for a five-point advantage, but the Kingdom reeled them in.
A talented hurler, Earley was also Roscommon’s highest scorer in the National Football League with 17–316 (367).
Timing is one of the greatest factors in sport and in that sense, Ciarán Whelan can feel hard done by.
‘Whelo’ made his county debut in June 1996 in the Leinster final against Meath. One year before his first start, his county lifted Sam Maguire. Two years after his 2009 retirement they’d win another crown, the first of eight in 10 years.
A two-time All-Star, he saw All-Ireland dreams shattered by the finest of factors.
Take the 2001 All-Ireland quarter-final saga with Kerry (he scored in both games) or the All-Ireland semi-final a year later when he raced through and crashed a thunderous shot past Benny Tierney in the Armagh goal before Ray Cosgrove’s last-gasp free rebounded off the post to give the Ulster side a one-point win.
A replay quarter-final loss to Tyrone in 2005 and narrow semi-final losses to Mayo and Kerry in 2006 and 2007 respectively were other near misses.
It just never happened when it needed to for Whelan despite some incredible attacking midfield performances.
In more recent times, Monaghan’s Conor McManus is another man who springs to mind.
The Clontibret man remains possibly one of the most underrated forwards in the country over the last 15 years, and winning three All-Stars, despite Monaghan not even reaching a final, speaks for itself.
Monaghan’s top scorer in National League history and probably their greatest ever player, closely followed by fellow three-time All-Star winner Eugene ‘Nudie’ Hughes, McManus has produced heroics since someone had the bright idea of converting him from a wing-back to an inside forward.
If there is one bright note for McManus, it’s that the door hasn’t completely shut as he has signed up for another season under new manager Vinny Corey. Maybe his career can have the perfect ending.
Keegan didn’t enjoy that luxury, although helping Westport to their first-ever Mayo SFC title in 2022 will have softened the pain somewhat.
Whatever his club career holds from here, he was a reminder on the county scene that players are not entirely defined by Celtic Crosses.
Lee Keegan’s absence to Mayo will be felt immensely. Indeed, it will be felt immensely by all those who watched on hoping that he’d finally get that richly deserved day in the sun.
