Malachy Clerkin: Mayo's decision to oust Kevin McStay was fair enough but the way they did it was foul

Irish Times

2 days ago

In one sense, relieved is the right word. When the smoke clears,
Kevin McStay
and his management team might well find themselves relieved to be
out of it
. Relieved to be unhooked from the
Mayo
county board, relieved to no longer have to report to a group of people who can't even find a decent way to announce the end of the tenure of someone who had very publicly stepped back for health reasons.
'A Coiste Bainistíocht Meeting of Mayo GAA was held in Hastings Insurance MacHale Park this evening, Wednesday 25th of June,' read the statement on the Mayo GAA website on Wednesday night. 'At this meeting a decision was made to relieve Kevin McStay and his management team from their roles with the Mayo Senior Football Team with immediate effect.'
And just in case you were in any doubt as to what had occurred here, the webpage itself had the headline "
Mayo Senior Football Management are Relieved from their Roles
" emblazoned across the top of the statement not once, not twice but three (!) times. The Mayo county board evidently don't want any confusion here – they're the boys who put an end to McStay, don't you worry about that.
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Kevin McStay relieved of his role as Mayo manager
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Managers come and managers go in all sports, all the time. But there's a way to do these things. In the
Premier League
, the world's most cut-throat, unfeeling sports league on the planet, seven managers (excluding caretakers and interims, etc) got sacked last season. Here's a flavour of the statements announcing their departures.
READ MORE
'
Erik Ten Hag
has left his role as
Manchester United
manager ...' '
Leicester City
FC has parted company with Steve Cooper ...' 'Southampton FC can confirm we have taken the difficult decision to part ways with Russell Martin ...' 'West Ham can confirm that Julien Lopategui has left the club ...'
Only once, in the case of Sean Dyche getting the bull's rush from
Everton
in January, was the phrase 'has been relieved of his duties' employed. And he hadn't even had a health scare. The Mayo County Board – sacking people with less compassion than 85 per cent of the softies in the Premier League.
Ah Mayo GAA never cease to amaze the good people.
Kevin & his backroom deserved better than that 💩 statement 🤯🤯🤯
— Lee Keegan (@leeroykeegan)
Were they within their rights not to go forward with a fourth year of McStay and Stephen Rochford and their backroom team? Of course they were. Nobody would argue that the three years so far have turned out the way they or anybody else in Mayo had hoped or planned.
When McStay was appointed, Mayo had been to two All-Ireland finals and a quarter-final in the previous three seasons. They got back to the last eight in 2023 but got blown away by what we now know was the last push of the great Dublin team. After that, they didn't make it past the preliminary quarter-finals last year or out of the group stage this year. The results graph has been pointing stubbornly in the wrong direction.
Ultimately, that's what has done the damage. Mayo haven't been a bad side under McStay but they made a bad habit of freezing at the most crucial moments and being heavily punished for it. In the past two seasons alone, they have been in position, late in games, to either win or draw against Galway, Dublin, Derry and Donegal. They didn't get it done. Not even once.
These were knife-edge matches with everything on the line. They led Galway by two in injury-time in last year's Connacht final and lost. They were ahead of both Dublin and Derry in injury-time later in that season and drew them both. The first draw cost them the week off and meant they had to play Derry. The second led to penalties and they were out.
This time around, they did all they could to respond to the witless defeat against Cavan by beating Tyrone in Omagh and fighting all the way back against Donegal. But as against Dublin and Derry, they couldn't win or slow or even interrupt a final opposition kick-out and Ciarán Moore put them out.
One last-minute killer score coughed up when the other crowd are on the back foot is a mistake. Three is a pattern. Bad enough that it's so completely debilitating in the moment but there's a knock-on effect too. Everyone knew that Mayo could be chased to the very last drop. They were always gettable. That's on the management.
So too is the fact that Mayo don't have a reliable scorer beyond Ryan O'Donoghue. Jack Carney, Fergal Boland, Bob Tuohy, Darren McHale – none of them have progressed beyond the realm of solid intercounty forward. Aidan O'Shea has had some of the best seasons of his career under McStay but it's been as a provider rather than a shooter. Losing Paddy Durcan for a year meant the scores from deep dried up. Jordan Flynn drifted out to become an impact sub.
You can blame each of them individually for not kicking on or you can question the environment in which they're developing. Were they given the tactical structure in which to flourish? Was the slow, passive build-up that so frustrated Mayo supporters to blame? Should management have taken more risks with what they had?
Of course, nothing is ever easy and you wouldn't call McStay's a lucky tenure. He lost Oisín Mullen and Lee Keegan before his team ever kicked a ball. The Galway defeat last year came down to some dicey enough refereeing calls. They won a league final in 2023 and lost another this year and got credit for neither.
Ultimately though, three years without notable progression is pretty damning. For the second year in a row, Mayo didn't play championship football in Croke Park. You have to go back to 2000 and 2001 for the last time that happened. In those circumstances, it's hard to have any massive issue with a county board deciding that time is up. The decision doubtless reflects the thinking of quite a chunk of the Mayo support base.
But you can be damn sure very few of that support base wanted it done in such a classless manner. That statement was the work of spivs and McStay deserved better.