A modest Christmas wish list for Mayo football

Santa, a chara, 

It’s that time of the year again.

The lists are being made. Expectations are being managed. And in Mayo, that usually means attempting to keep things simple and resisting the urge to get carried away. Years have a habit of doing that to you. They teach you what’s worth asking for and what’s better left unsaid.

So this is a Christmas wish list for Mayo football in 2026. Nothing extravagant. Nothing unrealistic. Just a few thoughts written down at the end of another season that ended in disappointment. We won’t labour the point. You know the background, as everyone does at this stage. This is just an attempt to put some order on things, to mark out what might reasonably be hoped for.

With that in mind, we’ll get on with it.

Our first ask: a Connacht title.

Nothing more than that, and nothing less. Five years without a provincial title would mark Mayo’s longest drought since the 1970s in the Connacht championship. And no county has the right to start talking seriously about greater ambitions when the basics keep slipping away.

This is where everything starts. Without a Connacht title, the rest of the season is just noise. Mayo can’t keep skipping steps and expecting the staircase to hold. At some point, you have to put your foot back where it belongs and see if the structure is still there. It’s the footballing equivalent of checking the foundations before you start arguing about the colour of the walls.

Galway are an aging team with great expectations – and that will surely start to weigh on them at some stage. Roscommon are also in transition under a new manager, which usually brings uncertainty before clarity. Neither situation guarantees anything, but both create a window. And Mayo has spent long enough watching those windows close to recognise one when it appears.

Winning Connacht won’t fix everything. But not winning it has a habit of turning the summer into a long walk towards inevitability. This isn’t about statements or dominance. It’s about restoring a habit and giving the year some shape. At the very least, it stops May feeling like a prelude to disappointment So that’s where we start. One Connacht title – basic, necessary and overdue.

Our second ask: two breakout forwards that can kick two-pointers.

We’re not asking for a new golden generation, We’re simply asking for two players who arrive from under-20 level and stay, two forwards who can kick two-pointers and look comfortable doing it. Because without that threat Mayo football now has a ceiling, and it’s a low one. Last summer made that painfully clear. You can survive without many things in the modern game, but you can’t survive without range.

Whether the absence of two-pointers in 2025 was a tactical choice by management or simply the edge of the squad’s ability is unclear. But the fact remains: Mayo were easy to contain once the shooting zones were closed off.

Mayo manager Andy Moran touched on developing young players in his recent sit-down with Anthony Hennigan of this parish, highlighting the importance of patience and accepting that young players will cost you something along the way, and that this is the price of improving over the next couple of years. He’s right, of course. Mistakes, at least, suggest someone is trying something new rather than repeating what no longer works. And nobody is asking for polish. We just want evidence of a functioning conveyor belt.

This isn’t greed. It’s maintenance. The team needs a sense of renewal, a sign that something is coming through rather than being talked about. Without that, everything starts to feel temporary, and Mayo football has had enough of that feeling for one lifetime.

Our third ask: a year without drama.

Surely it's not too much to ask for just a single season that runs its course without becoming something else entirely. Mayo supporters can live with mediocrity if it’s honest and occasional. What they struggle with is the sense that football is only part of the story, and it hasn't always been the central plot line. That has to change.

Other counties manage to get through a summer with remarkably little fuss. Training, games, recovery, repeat. In Mayo, there’s often an extra layer – a subplot nobody ordered, noise that serves no real purpose except to fill airtime and distract attention from what’s actually happening on the field.

By the end of the season, the sense can be that Mayo are contesting two championships at once – one on the pitch, and another everywhere else. This isn’t a call for silence or secrecy. The best teams don’t spend the summer explaining themselves. They let the work do that. And Mayo have had enough seasons where the talking lasted longer than the playing.

So that’s the ask – a single year where the focus stays where it should without sideshows or self-inflicted fires. Just football, taken seriously, from start to finish.

And finally, apropos of nothing, one small additional request.

If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, we’d appreciate it if the Australian government might take a renewed interest in residency requirements for professional athletes. Or perhaps they can set up their own version of ICE to send back all those foreign AFL players taking jobs from local players. Just a thought.

That’s the list. And we think you'll agree that it's all very reasonable. For big demands have a way of turning on you. Smaller ones at least give you a fighting chance of hitting your targets.

In any case, you know the drill by now. The milk and biscuits will be left out by the tree, the same as ever. That’s tradition. And in the spirit of tradition, you can be sure that we'll hit the road in 2026 full of hype and flasked tea, and will be back here this time next year overanalysing every bit of the journey.

Le meas, 

Row Z (on behalf of Mayo football)