An 'outside voice' or not, that's the big question facing Mayo GAA

by Aiden Henry

ALTHOUGH there is no white smoke yet in relation to announcing of a new Mayo GAA senior football team manager, and the successful candidate is unlikely to be announced for a number of weeks, speculation still continues as to will be given the job.

That speculation will go on until such time as the person chosen is announced and put to a full county board meeting by the Mayo GAA hierarchy for ratification.

But as the wait goes on, the interest level rises. One of the big questions doing the rounds is whether the new Mayo boss will come from inside or outside of the county.

I have felt from day one that the Mayo County Board will on this occasion go outside the county to get a new manager, and that their number one target is Tony McEntee from Armagh.

I am also sure they have other outside candidates on their radar if McEntee isn’t available or is not prepared to take on the challenge.

However, the latest speculation is that former Mayo senior player and former Leitrim manager, Andy Moran, is putting a team together and going for the job.

As we know, there is a growing trend in Gaelic football for counties to favour selecting managers from outside the county, though this is far from a 100% preference.

Historically, counties often looked within their own ranks, but a shift towards external candidates has been observed.

Some counties have seen success with outside managers, while others have reverted to internal appointments.

But as a number of counties have seen positive results with outside managers, there is a growing view within the Mayo GAA executive committee that someone from beyond the bounty borders might be beneficial for the team.

However, what do some of the staunch Mayo supporters think?

Over the past number of days, I decided to contact some of those supporters to see what direction they felt the Mayo County Board should take in selecting a new manager.

In all, I spoke with 12 supporters from across the county – three from each divisional area (east, west, north and south). I was a little surprised with the results.

The first and main question I asked of them was did they think the county board should go for an outside or inside manager on this occasion.

It may come as a surprise to many that 11 of the 12 felt that an outside manager should be brought in.

While each had their own reasons for this, the most common point of view was that a person from outside the county with no ties to any player(s) would be able to start afresh and build his own team without any inside influence.

Other reasons given were that a new face in the Mayo senior set-up would be essential, and that the new manager should be given time to build his own team and get them accustomed to the style of play they wanted.

Basically, the supporters I spoke to generally felt that Mayo’s style of play was outdated, especially over the last number of years, and that they had fallen behind many other of the top counties.

Indeed, they particularly cited Mayo’s negative style of play in many of their games under the new rules this past year.

When asked why a new face from within the county could not change the present style of play, most of them felt that at present there wasn’t anyone in Mayo ready to carry this out.

The name of Andy Moran came up after his exploits with Leitrim and with Monaghan for the past year.

While they saw the Ballaghaderreen native as a future Mayo senior manager, they felt the timing was not right currently.

This was on account of the fact that he would still have a number of players with whom he played in the Mayo squad, and that it would not alone put extra pressure on him but on the players as well.

Another main issue among those I spoke with was the large number of backroom staff that managers now have.

They felt that having the equivalent of a full match day playing squad (26) as your backroom staff was way and above what was needed.

The general consensus was that having to manage anything between 30 and 40 players was hard enough besides throwing in a backroom team of an extra 20-plus members.

On that note as well, most of these 12 random supporters I spoke with felt that there were plenty of times over the past three years when they weren’t sure who was fully in charge.

This time around they want the new manager, be he from within or outside the county, to be the full boss – the one that everyone answers to.

Overall, the general feeling among them was that Mayo now needs to be taken in a new direction. They also felt the Mayo style of play has to change, and that the current squad has to be strengthened.

They also felt that an approach should be made to those players who took this year out from the senior set-up.

Finally, the full 12 were in total agreement that a lot more needs to be done at underage throughout the whole county, and that the development structure needs to be upgraded.

They felt the time for change within the whole Mayo GAA set-up has arrived, and that every effort should be made to get the county back up among the best in the country so that those supporters who have dropped away from supporting the senior team in recent years might return for the 2026 season.