Mayo senior team boss adds more fuel to the fire
BY AIDEN HENRY
WHEN it comes to problems in ladies Gaelic football, Mayo is right up there.
As everyone knows, there are ongoing problems in the Mayo Ladies County Board, which at present is being run by the chairperson, Yvonne McEvilly, as the rest of the committee have stepped aside until problems regarding the board's finances for 2019 are sorted out.
Now manager Peter Leahy announced last week that any of his senior panel will have to make their minds up to play with their county fully or play AFL Women's in Australia.
If any Mayo player wants to play the AFLW in the winter months they can now wave goodbye to their chances of playing for their county.
This means the likes of Sarah Rowe, Aileen Gilroy and Niamh and Grace Kelly, who played in Australia last winter and who returned home last month, will not be able to go Down Under in the future if they want to continue to be part of Leahy’s senior team panel.
What an awful position these women seem to have been put in, especially in this present climate.
Before this bombshell by Leahy, he came out and said there should be no inter-county action this year due to the coronavirus.
Yet he is denying Mayo players the opportunity to play professionally later in the year. These ladies, like their counterparts in every other county senior team panel in the country, put in the same effort as their male comrades, with a lot less perks.
To deny any player in the country the opportunity to play professionally during the winter months is very unfair, in my opinion.
The AFLW starts in late October and finishes at the beginning of April.
In Ireland, the Ladies National League starts in February but Leahy himself has said in the past that his main interest is in the championship and he sees the National League as an opportunity to blood new players.
So one wonders where the big problem is in allowing some of his players, who are fortunate enough to get contracts, to play professionally during the winter.
Does he not think the time and effort these players have given to their county since they started playing at underage level deserves any little reward they can get, especially as it is not going to affect Leahy’s main objective – to do well in the championship?
I have no doubt this latest announcement by Leahy is going to cause more problems and more than likely more divisions in his senior team squad.
Rowe, Gilroy and the two Kellys are going to be deeply hurt by Leahy’s recent ultimatum.
After what happened to the 12 players who left Leahy’s panel in 2018 and never returned, this is going to make it very difficult for any of them to make up their minds on what to do next - take up an offer from Australia or stay to guarantee a place on the Mayo squad.
Going back to 2018, Leahy always said that he would make Mayo great again.
But the fact of the matter is that in the last three years he has won nothing. Another fact is that since the 12 players left his panel in 2018, Mayo have not beaten arch rivals Galway in seven attempts.
Not a great record.
Leahy might well say that he has given numerous players throughout the county a chance to show their worth.
While that is true, many of the players he has given the chance to show their worth have been given very little game time, especially when on the big days.
For Mayo ladies Gaelic football, maybe it is time to move on and go in another direction.
There is a wealth of talent in Mayo ladies Gaelic football but we may never see its true potential as long as the present regime continues in the county.