Enjoy!!
Old thread here......
https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2057962937/mayo-gaa-discussion-part-4#latest
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Green Peter - Permanent
Man Vs ManUre until 9/05/23
Yes maybe I don't disagree with that .
I was calling out a poster who was putting DOC,Leeroy and Hennelly in the same bracket as regards stepping away simply because they're a similar age.
I think Kevin Mac will go and maybe Jason,that'll be it.
Although it feels like the end of an era with James going we have a young team with a lot of older experienced guys.We have a team good enough to win the All Ireland with all the long term injuries back.
Same
Never go back
Rochford was let go too soon as I said at the time
But we need to move on now .
and not to Jim Gavin as some have suggested !
When should we expect a new manager?
With the county club season upcoming would he be in place for the start of that so that he can have a look at who is out there.
Or would it be a case of letting the club season run and at the end see if anyone emerges as a strong candidate that was not in the frame already.
I actually think the fact that he's just come back from the ACL injuries this year makes it more likely that he'll stay on, I think he'll want one more full season after putting in all the effort
Jason has come back from 2 acls in his 30s,not many guys in any sport can do that and perform at previous levels,he's not the player he was unfortunately and wouldnt be surprised to see him step away.
Keegan is one of the best players in the country and in a rich vein of form.Hennelly is getting better with age and on current form is the best keeper in the country.
The fact that they are all 32 is irrelevant.
I'd say any retirements might be dependent on who the new manager is. If it's someone good, players who were thinking of packing it in might be tempted to stay on (if they're wanted). I think Keegan, Hennelly, AOS, Doc & McLoughlin are all around the same age (32-ish) - the last two maybe the most likely to retire but I think they'd stay on if the manager wants them
Yeah he's not that old either, but hasn't been the same since the 2 ACL injuries.
jason is 32, the same as keegan an hennelly
Im lost in your first paragraph, are you in agreement that you are slating using form as a performance indicator, and then yourself using form as an indicator? but because he was better than some of the others doesnt mean he was good. I can criticise for the black card. Commentary at the time was due to verbals, for which this is a sanction. other players werent black carded. doesnt make it right, but thems the rules.
Is the process still that every club can nominate to the county board their pick for manager as long as he allowed his name to go forward? Then it's the county board to organise the interviews.
Go back an re read what you replied to. I wrote “some gobsh*te within the county board” not “the county board”. The “county board” are not a hive mind all agreeing on everything. To have had talks with said individual in the first place there has to have been at least a couple of people within the higher echelons of Mayo personally behind the plan who subsequently felt marginalised when it became clear he was a knob, That some of these people would have “scores” to settle is not beyond the realms of possibility. And look at the type of personal information spread by the individual about some people within the Cb. That suggests it ultimately is coming from an individual or faction with an agenda, and access,
Yeah, even though I respect what Rochford did I think this rethread manager merry go round needs to stop.
Maughan was replaced by Holmes, who was replaced by Maughan, O'Mahony had two stints, Horan was replaced by Holmes, and Horan appeared again.
I would have been keen on Rochford myself until very recently, maybe as recently as yesterday but I think it would be a case of deja vu deja vu...
A fresh start is needed
I think you could be right that Malachy O'Rourke might be a good outside manager to have. I also found him really good but outside managers rarely work. Rochford's value has taken a dive with Donegal's performances and will it be like deja vu. Solan at least won an All Ireland.
Horan had gone soft and not just stale. Players like AOS/Coen would have been benched during his first stent. He has done loads for Mayo GAA but we just don't have enough quality and lack consistency in the newer guys. COC is too slow now, the best player ever to play for us will most likely bow out(keegan). Mcloughlin is done, doherty is done, AOS is done, Doc is just an image of what he should be and has been for a while now.
We have loads of panel players who are stuck in no man's land Carr, Boland, Mchale, Orme, Moran, Coen etc etc.
The new guy has a rebuilding job on his hands, be under no illusion as he will need to clear out some of the names above as I expect some won't go. We will never win the big prize with any of the above (except Keegan) and that is the harsh reality.
What do you mean a serious clear out is required? There actually aren't many old players on the panel. Keegan and Hennelly are 32 but both still in really good form. O'Shea 32 this month, not as central a player as previous but can offer something. Cillian just turned 30 and still recovering from a serious injury. Definitely has something to offer if he gets a clear run of fitness next year. Doherty and Kevin McLoughlin probably the most likely to step away.
Nobody else is near retirement age.
You mention Galway, but Paul Conroy has been their star man this year. He's 33 and around since 2008, longer than any current Mayo player.
Some people are just hilarious.
So the CB the same CB who got lambasted here a few years ago for NOT getting into bed with that eejiit are now somehow in cahoots with him bringing down Horan.
Seriously?
If nothing else he could give us a daily count of the number of mayo players in the ICU 😂😂😂.
I'd agree there, last year's all Ireland loss was definitely the waste of yer best opportunity to win a senior all Ireland, possibly ever. That was a poor enough, but lucky Tyrone team.
Obviously you know you own panel best, but outside looking in, ye are heading for a transition period and a serious clear out is required.
Galway probably about the right age to do a few years dominating connacht. Roscommon definitely gone into transition too.
You'd have to feel a bit of sympathy for Horan just behind the gratitude. Last year's final was probably the lowest moment a lot of us had following Mayo, imagine how he felt? On another day we could have easily won it and I've always said that the player's really needed to look at themselves after that defeat. We played within ourselves and I don't think that can all be put at the door of Horan.
This year he didn't have any luck with injuries. We were a diminished team going into yesterday and despite that, we still had the chances to ask serious questions of Kerry only for some woeful shooting and decision making. Again, you can't put all of that on him.
I do think it had gone stale though. That was evident in all of our Championship games. You looked at the team before the game yesterday wondering where we were going to get scores from. I think a new system is needed. We all loved the running game when we were at our peak but it seems to be the hard way to do things these days. I'd love to see a forward line being a proper unit and offering a serious threat. Hopefully the new management can develop something different. I think the days of packing the forward lines with runners/midfielders and asking your backs to contribute heavily to the scoreboard has had its day.
I think there's plenty of talent in that squad and there's more coming through. It might be an end of an era but we're by no means going away anytime soon.
____
I wouldn't pay much heed to that. Looking at Horans post match interviews yesterday you'd have been leaning heavily towards the idea he was going.
Fair point, you'd hope that it will be transparent
The right candidate is difficult. The right process is not.
From Midwest Radio "
Ray Dempsey has been installed as the early favourite to become the next Mayo Senior Football manager.
The back to back county title winning Knockmore manager is the 2/1 favourite with Paddy Power to replace James Horan as Mayo boss.
Horan stepped down earlier this evening less than 24 hours after the eight-point loss, bringing to an end a second four-year term.
Former All-Ireland U21 Winning Mayo manager Mike Solan is 9/4 to succeed Horan.
Elsewhere, the bookies have both Maurice Sheridan and Jim McGuinness installed at 4/1 to become the next Mayo manager.
Other names mentioned for the position are Sean Deane, Kevin McStay and Malachy O'Rourke".
Lots of comments about the county board which is understandable tbf but when we talk about them getting the "right candidate", who are you referring to? There are no real (realistic) stand out contenders imo. The bookies have the odds as:
Dempsey 2/1
Solan 9/4
Sheridan 4/1
McGuinness 4/1
Deane 10/1
McStay 10/1
M O'Rourke 12/1
Rochford 12/1
Andy 14/1
C Mac 20/1
Boyler 20/1
Out of those, I'd probably have Malachy O'Rourke or Rochford as my top pick but all of them have question marks against them to a greater or lesser degree
Sad to see James Horan departing without landing the big one; he gave us many many more good days than bad and I suspect we'll only really value him when he's gone.
When I've listened to people giving out about him over recent years, I often think about this article from September 2010 and where we could have ended up:
Lyons T for Trouble? Mayo’s D-Day is Here – An Spailpín Fánach (anspailpinfanach.com)
The reaction in Mayo to what is expected to be a rubber-stamping of Tommy Lyons’ appointment tonight as the new Mayo senior team manager by the Mayo County Board has been varied.
Storming the Bastille
On the one hand, there are those who wish to storm An Sportlann, headquarters of the Mayo County Board, just as French stormed the Bastille in the name of liberty, before they made their way to Killala to spread the same gospel of freedom here.
And on the other hand, there are those who just want the pain to stop, like that clapped-out boxer on the telly who yearns for the old one-two that one only gets from Uniflu™. Think of the prisoners on the Moorish ships in Chesterton’s Lepanto, who find their God forgotten and seek no more a sign. You get the idea.
There are very few who welcome Tommy Lyons’ appointment and the one emotion that the Bastille-stormers, busted boxers and prisoners-broken-by-years-of-adversity share is a deep and dark dread towards what the future may hold under a Lyons stewardship.
It’s not about Tommy Lyons personally, although it can’t be said he helps. Mouthy metropolitans are seldom welcome back the heathery mountain. The big problem that people in Mayo have with a potential Lyons appointment is the way the appointment was made.
Heartbreak and Bitterness
After the heartbreak and bitterness of John O’Mahony’s Second Coming the Mayo Board was in humour to salve wounds. They promised a process through which a new man would be appointed, divisions healed, new processes set in place and the Good Ship Mayo pointed to a brave new tomorrow.
Everyone who got involved in that process now seems to have been sold a pup, as horse-trading went on behind the scenes. The result is Tommy Lyons. The stories about the nature of that horse-trading vary, but the bottom line is that there are very real fears that the Lyons appointment will happen for reasons other than what is best for the county team.
Liam Horan has been put in charge of a Strategic Review Committee but Horan’s first job as chairman of that committee will be to explain how exactly it’s the case that Tommy Lyons has a better chance of having a Mayo team still playing football in September than James Horan, Denis Kearney, Anthony McGarry or John Maughan. Or Mick O’Dwyer, if it comes to that. Because it’s not at all easy to see right now.
A lot of this has to do with the responsibility of the County Board. What is their duty? Is it towards the clubs, the debt on McHale Park, or have they also a duty to field the best team they can in the senior inter-county football championship?
There is no doubt – except, perhaps, in the addled minds of the GPA – that if there were no clubs there would be no GAA. But the county team cannot be treated in so cavalier a fashion as to appoint a manager for reasons other than his being the best man for the job.
In Memory of Our Fathers
People live and die by their county teams. This is true for all counties, of course, but – and An Spailpín must confess a certain bias here – it seems especially so in Mayo where the people are so defined by what the football team does. The very notion of the team, of a Mayo style, of the unique colours, has a resonance for people that transcends a game or an organisation. The notion that there is a Mayo team out there, playing football, is a part of people’s souls. It helps people understand who they are.
For instance: a great and good friend of the blog was at the 2004 final, and he got talking to the man next to him. The guy next to was from Limerick, but he had hunted down a ticket and come up anyway, because of his father.
His father was a Mayoman and had died earlier that year. The son was making a vigil to Croke Park to do honour to his father’s memory, to see a Mayo victory that was no longer possible for his father but that would have meant so much to him had he lived. The Mayo GAA scene meant nothing to this Treatyman, but the very idea of Mayo was vivid and clear in his head.
He went home disappointed, as did we all. But that man, whoever he is and where-ever he is now, deserves better than this. He did honour by his late father’s memory, and he deserves better. The poor deluded fools who travel on Sundays for FBD League games and National League games as well as the glamorous Championship games of high summer deserves better than this.
The gobdaws and buck eejits and helpless innocents who daydream at least once a week about what it will be like when Sam returns to Mayo deserve better than this. The ludramans and the mentally unbalanced who compose greatest-ever Mayo teams drawn from men who never played senior club football in their heads to pass the time deserve better than this. Or else it’s time for us all to wonder just why we invest so much emotional energy to just get smacked around by an ungrateful lover. Again.
The Eleventh Hour
Today the eleventh hour, but it’s still not too late. The Board can still turn away from the Lyons candidacy and appoint James Horan, one of the stars of the first John Maughan team of the mid-nineties and the current manager of Ballintubber, now contesting a county final for the first time in their long and proud history. Horan has galvanised the anti-Lyons feeling and become the people’s choice. It’s up the Board tonight to do the right thing. God be with them.
the ideal managerial candidate for Mayo now would be the Dalia Lama, divine inspiration is what's needed...
Or player group?
Last year was soul destroying surely and we still haven't recovered.A fresh start will help that process.
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