Managing Mayo will not be simple for McStay
By Aiden Henry
MAYO finally have a new senior Gaelic football manager following Kevin McStay’s ratification at a county board meeting last week.
While it was a very long, drawn out process by the Mayo GAA County Board, we can all now wait to see what impact James Horan’s successor has on the fortunes of the inter-county senior team going forward.
Mayo GAA County Board chairman Seamus Tuohy thinks the appointment of McStay is special and the time frame it took to get Horan’s successor was correct.
He said: "There’s a lot of logistics involved in the process. For me as chairman, I have to say, it took time. It took time just to get it right. We set a time frame and a target with the clubs that we’ve have this in place before the start of the club championships.
"We’ve achieved two things. We have it in place two weeks before the start of the club championships and we’ve achieved something really special for Mayo football."
With the county board delegates giving McStay the thumbs up, it seems everything in the garden is rosy for the future of Mayo senior inter-county senior football.
Or is it? Like every true Mayo Gaelic football fan, I would like to congratulate McStay on his appointment and wish him every success as he plots the county's next chapter. Although McStay wasn’t my choice to get the manager's job (I would like to have seen Ray Dempsey get it), he was the one that the powers that be felt was the right person and we will all row in with that now.
It is not that I think McStay doesn’t deserves the chance to manage Mayo. After not getting the Mayo job in 2014, he said he felt that if he had, he would have won an All-Ireland title. Now he has the chance to do that.
However, he has a bigger task on his hands than he might think as not alone will he have all the players to manage, but also the backroom team he has assembled. To me it looks like there are far too many chiefs and this could prove troublesome for McStay down the line. As the old saying goes, too many cooks spoil the broth.
Since his appointment last week, McStay has talked about staying competitive and being in transition (or not, as the case may be). He stated that one of the first things he wants to do is to make sure Mayo stays competitive.
Well, Mayo have been competitive for the past 40 or 50 years bar the odd year here and there. If you look back at the last 10 years, one thing you cannot say is that Mayo were not competitive.
He has also stated that he does not see any transition. "I don’t see any transition in Mayo. I just see that a lot of good, young players have come in and we drive it on. If there was a transition, it’s been pretty much done under James (Horan). He brought through a lot of good players in the last few years."
If that is the case, does the new manager think Mayo do not need a new full-back, a centre-back, a midfielder and at least two forwards to compete with the big boys? I think he certainly does, and you could throw in developing a good bench to the mix, which is now crucial in today’s game. Realise it or not, Mayo are in transition.
While I do believe we have to give McStay plenty of time to stamp his footprint on the county senior team, I feel he and his backroom team need to start looking for some new talent. That should get underway this coming weekend with the opening round of the club championships.