The name Paul Cunney may not be one so well associated with Mayo football at present, but in Swinford he is remembered as the man who captained the club to long-awaited Intermediate success in 1994 . The former Mayo senior is now secretary of the club and filled Hogan Stand in on his time as a player, what he thinks of the Westerners' chances of success this year and his work as a practicing solicitor with the firm P O'Connor & Son located in his home town. Mayo GAA may have seen its fair share of disappointments down the years, but that All-Ireland final of 1996 is one that still sticks out in the memory of so many of the Heather County's faithful today. Paul was a member of the panel on both occasions at Croke Park that September as Sean Boylan's Meath snatched a late draw and won the replay by 2-9 to 1-11 to take their sixth Sam Maguire crown and continue Mayo's All-Ireland famine. This decade Mayo have twice demonstrated all the attributes necessary to get back to the main stage but the lack of a performance, along with the arguable point of meeting the same awesome opposition on both occasions resulted in further heartbreak in their quest to reach the holy grail. Ten years after their replay defeat to Meath, the Westerners met Dublin at Croke Park, where another All-Ireland final place was at stake - two years after they had flopped against Kerry in the decider. Propelled by a shot at redemption, Mayo took the game to the fancied Dubs at GAA headquarters and came out on top in one of the most memorable All-Ireland semi-finals of all time. Most of the crowd in Croke Park that day including Cunney himself waited on in the stands after the final whistle out of pure exhaustion and in reverence to what was the best game he had ever seen at the venue. The result had an extra special meaning for Cunney. "I had been living in Dublin for a couple of years and in 1999 I decided to transfer from Swinford to the St Jude's club in Templeogue," explained Cunney. "I transferred because I was still an army officer at the time and travelling back and forth from Dublin to Mayo for training and for matches with Swinford had just become too much. I was living near to the club and it just made sense to try it out for a few years, and it ended up being very enjoyable." During his time with Jude's, Cunney helped the club to a county senior league title in 2000 their first ever silverware at senior level and also earned him a Dublin Blue Star award in the right corner-back position that year. After breaking out of minor, Cunney established himself as a regular on the Swinford team by the time the 1990s came round. A strong defender, who could adapt to almost any position on the field, he was also called into the Mayo minor panel after impressing with Swinford's senior team at the tender age of 17.In 1991 he played right half back on the Mayo minor team that lost narrowly to Cork in the All-Ireland final in a team made up of future senior players such as Kenneth Mortimer, Kevin O'Neill, Fergal Costello and Ronan Goulding. Three years later, Swinford were climbing up the intermediate ladder, while Mayo reached an Under 21 All-Ireland final only to be beaten by guess whoCork. The following year, Cunney would rue another loss to the Rebels when UCG were pipped by UCC to deny him a Sigerson Cup medal. Although just developing, Cunney's playing career was showing early signs of being starved of any relevant silverware. All-Ireland Minor, Under 21 and Sigerson Cup final defeats were tough ones to take at such a young age, but in 1994 he would finally be at the forefront of some glory. Senior status had eluded Swinford for long enough. By the mid-90s Cunney's club would be a senior outfit once again when they captured the county intermediate football championship title come the close of the '94 season - led by their inspirational skipper, who recalls the achievement as one of his best during his playing days. "I've had the honour of playing for my county and winning a league title outside Mayo as well, but when you captain your club to a championship title it is special," he said. "I suppose there was pressure on us to win a county title and we were a relatively young team but with youth you have no fear and on the day we played as a team and deserved our victory' "It's tough trying to narrow down what my favourite memory as a player would be, but captaining Swinford to an intermediate title would certainly be up there." Months after helping his club to intermediate success, Cunney received a call into Anthony Egan's Mayo senior panel, which he graciously accepted. He played during the National League for the Heather men and in the Connacht championship of 1995 where he lined out as right half-forward in the defeat of Roscommon at Castlebar and in the Connacht final where Mayo succumbed to a superior Galway side in Tuam. "I was only just out of Under 21 when Anthony Egan brought me into the Mayo senior panel, so it was a huge challenge for me at the time," said Cunney. In October 1995, while playing for the Defence Forces against the Bank of Ireland in the representative series, Cunney broke his ankle and was only brought back into the Mayo panel the following spring when by that time John Maughan had taken the reins in Mayo. At this stage Cunney was seen as more a forward than a defender but he was not convinced. "I always felt a more natural defender and had played all my football at underage for the county and at University as a wing back but competition was keen and everybody was willing to get behind the one cause in the hope of bringing Sam Maguire west of the Shannon," he explained. After taking Connacht, Mayo shocked Kerry with a 2-13 to 1-10 defeat to advance to the 1996 All-Ireland final against a Meath team which had came out of nowhere to win Leinster and thump Tyrone in their respective semi-final. Cunney had to watch from the sidelines on both occasions as John Maughan's team let the prospect of a first All-Ireland title since 1951 slip from their grasp. "Obviously, 1996 was a huge disappointment," he explained. "Ultimately, we should have seen off Meath on both occasions and it cost us an All-Ireland title. It's difficult to say exactly where we went wrong between the first day and the replay, but I know it took a while for the lads to get over it." The following year, Mayo were back in the thick of things and hungry for more. Cunney saw his season cut short by injury in early '97 and, as it turned out, he wouldn't don the green and red jersey again, with injury a constant plague to his latter years. Maughan's men regained their provincial title before disposing of Offaly and meeting Kerry in the final, where once again they would come out on the wrong side of the result, losing to the Munster champions by 0-13 to 1-7. The point scored by Maurice Fitzgerald from the sideline under the Hogan stand late in the second half is a score Cunney feels will never be repeated. Since that time, the Kingdom have still proved to be a task to difficult to conquer for Mayo in an All-Ireland final, as 2004 and 2006 saw them on the receiving end of master classes from Colm Cooper and the likes, but Cunney thinks that mentality had a lot to do with Mayo's problems on both occasions. "At the time, a lot of people thought that the Kerry team which Mayo had come up against in both finals were 'awesome' and couldn't be stopped," he said. "I think it was a case that Mayo just didn't have the tactics to play against them, but Tyrone certainly did. Tyrone came up against, effectively, the same Kerry team in 2005 and last year, bar Seamus Moynihan, and had the strength to beat them in both finals when everyone said they were unbeatable." As for this year, Cunney has been impressed with Mayo, but still thinks that they are a couple of attackers short from being genuine All-Ireland contenders like Tyrone or Kerry have been for the best part of a decade. "I think Mayo may be just lacking two or three scoring forwards to bring us back to another All-Ireland final this year," he said. "I hope I'm wrong and with the influx of young players like Aidan O'Shea and others coming through hopefully Mayo are building for the future. "True, we got to an All-Ireland minor final last year, but that doesn't automatically mean glory will come. We got to a minor final in '91 and an Under 21 final in '94 and a lot was expected of us but we never delivered an All-Ireland. Let's hope this group of players can," he added. For five years now, Paul Cunney has been working as an associate solicitor with the P O'Connor and Son Solicitors in Swinford. Established way back in 1900, the firm employs over 20 full-time staff, with Paul dealing mainly in litigation and court work. "I was very fortunate to be offered an apprenticeship with P O'Connor & Son when I retired as an Army officer and have gained invaluable experience both in training and now as a practicing solicitor. Being back in Mayo also allows me to get back involved in the club and at this stage it is nice to be able to give something back," he stated. Cunney is very aware of how important the GAA has been in his life. "Sometimes it is easy to forget those who influenced you from an early age in fostering a love of the game and for me in addition to my older brother," he said. "Fr. Dan O'Mahony, who was a priest in my home parish of Killasser when I was a very young age, trained us in the skills of the game at a time when we did not even have dressing rooms. Thankfully, facilities have improved since then but without the likes of these people promoting our game at grass roots level the organisation would not continue to prosper in the way it has." Paul would like to wish the GAA a happy 125th anniversary. Tweet

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