Andy's energy is just the tonic for Mayo GAA

A great footballer does not guarantee a great manager.

Current All-Ireland winning manager Jack O’Connor had no county pedigree as a player. Jim Gavin won an All-Ireland with Dublin but as a workmanlike wing-forward and will always be remembered more favourably as one of the best managers of all time. 

Jack O’Shea is one of the game’s best-ever players but, as we found out in Mayo, it did not translate to management. Denis ‘Ogie’ Moran found eight All-Irelands as a player was no insulation when things went south for him as Kerry manager. 

Crossing codes, poor Steve Staunton’s exceptional playing career with Ireland, Liverpool and Aston Villa has been greatly tarnished by his disastrous time as Ireland manager.

So it is a risky move for anyone moving from being a great and popular player to a manager. Players often get the credit for victories and the management the blame for defeats. As Páidí Ó Sé famously said, there is only 18 inches between a slap on the back and a kick in the arse!

That Andy Moran is willing to cross that threshold tells you his pride for his county and his ambition and belief as a manager. Himself and Colm Boyle who, along with Paddy Tally, were announced as part of the management, are two of the most popular Mayo footballers of their generation.

Moran’s incredibly positive outlook and enthusiasm, allied to his resilience, talent and ability to adapt and become Footballer of the Year aged 33 marked him out. Boyle played with an edge, a fearlessness and a bravery. He had no respect for reputations or tradition and claimed four All-Stars and a fearsome reputation for himself.

Both inherently understood the importance of a vocal, passionate support. Colm Boyle has mentioned the boost it gave him on the field.

Andy Moran caught the zeitgeist of the decade when he declared ‘we’re Mayo, we’re in this together’ after Mayo’s qualifier win over Fermanagh in 2016. Such nods to the Mayo support only further cemented their status as fans’ favourites.

And their popularity among Mayo fans has explained the largely favourable reception their appointment has received this week. It is timely because Mayo support has been on the wane in recent years.

The 2021 All-Ireland defeat to Tyrone was a fork in the road for the mood of many supporters, one All-Ireland defeat too far. More pertinently, while the 2016 and 2017 final defeats to the great six-in-a-row Dublin team were heartbreaking, there was a huge sense of pride in the herculean efforts those Mayo teams produced.

However, the Tyrone defeat left a lot of recriminations at the door of players and management after Mayo produced a sub-par display when the feeling was that the final was there for them if they could deliver an eight out of ten performance.

Results since have only served to manifest the reality of an ever-increasing disconnect among many Mayo supporters.

No Connacht title has been won since ‘21. Mayo exited the championship meekly at the quarter-final stages in 2022 and ’23, the preliminary quarter-finals on penalties to Derry in 2024 and in the group stages in 2025. That all points to regression.

Such results will always see a dwindling of support, but there was a real sense of apathy this year, arguably not helped by Mayo’s often passive style of play and a worrying trend across the past two years of almost always coming out the wrong side of close games.

So the appointment of Andy Moran, Colm Boyle and Paddy Tally has been a shot in the arm for Mayo fans. But Moran and Boyle will know popularity will only get you so far in management. It is a commodity with the potential for a perishable shelf-life if other things do not go your way.

What I’m looking forward to seeing is not how Andy Moran and Co engage with the fans because I am confident that will be well managed.

It’s how they explore the county for new players and develop and nurture them, how they develop and improve existing players (Moran, winning Footballer of the Year so late in his career, is the epitome of continuous improvement as is Boyle who, cast aside in 2008, went away and came back three years later a different physical specimen and became a Mayo great).

How do they set their team up defensively? Paddy Tally has been involved in All-Ireland winning managements in Tyrone and Kerry, with his focus trained on the defensive side of preparations.

How will Moran – as the only forward in the ticket – seek to set up his team offensively? Can he unearth new forward talent in the county? His clubmate Kuba Callaghan looks ready for a proper look to see if he can step up. Will he seek to bring back players who stepped away in 2025 like Cillian O’Connor and James Carr?

Will he add to the ticket? Particularly in the forward department because while Moran has already forged a reputation as an impressive forwards’ coach with his time as Leitrim manager and Monaghan coach, managing Mayo might restrict the amount of work he would like to do on the training ground. But then if there is any man with the energy to pull it off, it’s Andy Moran.

How will this management ticket adapt and evolve with the new rules, the full impact of has still to be felt?

And where is the group of footballers he takes over from currently at? They could, should, have won the last two Connacht titles and had close shaves in their championship exits in the past two years.

So do they just need a little one or two percent more or have those defeats implanted huge seeds of doubt? Time will tell.

The biggest positive for me is that Andy Moran and Colm Boyle were two of the most significant players in driving a seismic cultural change in Mayo football under the initial leadership of James Horan.

You only need to talk football with either for a few minutes to appreciate just how razor-sharp their football knowledge and insight is. Their pride and passion for their county is beyond doubt.

They are au-fait with the high standards required to compete at the top table consistently.

They are the first players from that group to take the reins. You can only but wish two proud Mayo men the very best of luck.