Nothing to fear but everything to gain from asking hard questions

By the time you read this, Mayo may have beaten Tyrone, Trump might have stopped tariffing friendly nations and the housing crisis could be ended. Or maybe life just trundles on to its inevitable end where one group gets tired and opts out, allowing fresh eyes on the perpetual problems. Either way I’m not worried about the new rules, player burn out or three back at all times. No. I’m grateful I’m nearly 73 not 23 and that I won’t face decades of watching the world mess slide down the mirror in front of my eyes.

But a large part of me keeps a weather eye on all things GAA. We are currently in the ‘hey those new rules are great’ phase. Any dissenters are quickly flushed out but the inevitable creep towards those grey areas and loopholes that proliferate establishment Ireland are already being tested. Mayo took the view that an auld harmless gallop a few yards beyond the no go zone and not interfering with play by their designated three backs would merit a furrowed eye brow and admonishing finger. Two punishing frees later I wondered if Mayo had decided those rules will not be relevant come championship. Like the bold child being told that the fire burns, we had to put our fingers into it twice to find out it really does. Not good. It’s those small things we parcel as inches and discipline. We already failed the smell test.

We are all followers whether that be supporting the team through the gate, reporting and commenting on it, or, like myself, writing an observational piece. A few games in and it’s far too early to poke the entrails and ashes seeking signs of the future. However, there are certain traits in train that are relevant to where on the track Mayo wind up on. Things that have gone on years, things yet to unfold. Our national political layout sees an executive, legislative and judiciary landscape. Occasionally they merge into each other but generally they are there to keep the democratic wheels visible to those who underpin those three branches. The people.

Winston Churchill stated in 1947 this about democracy. ‘Many forms of government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time…’ Bluntly put, it’s the best of a bad lot, as millions of Americans and billions world wide are about to find via the Donald.

The GAA is an example of the perfect imperfections of democracy. That’s a compliment by the way. A kind of an Irish solution to an Irish problem-solving mechanism. Overall it tends to work, but to work better then all facets have to sign up for it.

As I see it in Mayo and indeed most other counties, we have a format of the nation’s political system as defined above. A central board is its executive, the clubs represented by the club delegates and the electorate, the fans, followers, consumers, customers, punters or whatever they are called nowadays, underpinning the lot. The county team is the equivalent of the nation’s GDP, the barometer of how the entire shebang works or doesn’t. Oh I forgot, it’s the followers and others under that umbrella that pay for the lot, a fact often forgotten.

Currently, and this is my own personal opinion, we, Mayo, are a few games away from Donegal 2023 and the Paddy Carr era, or maybe, in the long grass, we are a few games from the resurrections we saw in the 2016/17 seasons. Mayo being Mayo, the truth is we don’t know but one fact is for sure, come late June, we will know with certainty.

If I’m being honest, I see us more in the former than the latter and that’s not a fact for pleasure. How are we here? Back to English politics again folks, with apologies. English PM Harold MacMillan, on asked about what was a politician’s biggest issue, replied ‘Events, my dear boy, events’. Events play a part in Mayo football or the perception of it.

Accepting the executive, board, club delegates and county managerial set-up, can we say it’s a seamless perfect running motor? Bound in harmony and clear in its stated goals and aims? A unit where information, relevant of course, flows freely like a seasoned river? Or is it prone to hiccups and breakdown? I met a man recently and as life has it we chatted all things Mayo GAA. Fixing me with a steely stare he told me, ‘John, no one gives a f***k in the county about anything other than how the senior county team performs, everything else doesn’t bother them.’ That’s telling me. And perhaps he’s correct. Part of me says that’s the problem.

If we look back on the ending days of the previous managerial era, the months after our All-Ireland final no show against Tyrone, the sense of grey and dull in the county was palpable. It entered the very core of your psyche. This time we couldn’t blame a generational Kerry or Dublin team for beating us; we owned the blanks fired against Tyrone. I recall the disconnect that followed, the moody feeling around the county, airwaves and air streams. Furtive glances easily misconstrued as criticism. Ah, criticism. We can’t deal with it, me neither. It hurts, it stings, it makes you feel lesser but sometimes it’s needed. It can be cathartic. A fresh beginning.

Club delegates were asked to put their questions and concerns via email, if I gather correctly, that autumn regarding county issues. A guy called Michael Collins once signed a document in London 1921 and as his ink dried he noted with a keen prescience that it was his death warrant he was signing. A lesson many of future generations took on board in ensuring they signed nothing that could come back on them. I’m pretty sure not too many hard questions were asked via email. Sean Boylan and Mick O’Dwyer stood on a yearly basis in front of annual congresses, often under fierce personal abuse in order to be allowed another year in charge of their own county team. Nothing was a given bearing in mind that duo amassed a dozen All-Irelands between them. I’m sure they didn’t welcome blood on the carpet but they sure as hell didn’t back away from the hard questions.

After last season’s whimper, not making the last eight, a review took place. It seemed to last a long time. It took the form of the third secret of Fatima in its secrecy and the upshot was all was fine here folks, move along, nothing to see, look forward to the 2025 league. Everything is not done though. We seem in a spiral. Year three should have at least 10 or 12 spots locked down, a clear vision and version of a playing style, an end to round pegs in square holes. And yet, questions can be asked.

Most successful counties are built on a single name, be that Gilroy, Gavin, Dessie, Jack, McGuinness or McGeeney. The buck stops there. The backroom team is just that, a backroom. We seem a coalition. I wasn’t at the opening game this season against Dublin match as flu confined me to the telly but over the sound system I could hear a Mayo voice bellowing. It wasn’t the manager’s.

I wrote a few seasons ago that the departure of Liam McHale bode deeper than was assumed. Like the Clough and Taylor combination, some partnerships thrive on togetherness. Liam’s leaving, in my opinion, took some of that partnership with him. Maybe, maybe not, but McHale saw the times a changing and not for the better. We need a single voice. Joe Brolly, for all his gamesmanship, is astute and on the money. We may not like his view on us but strip away the comedy from his words and he’s often on the mark. On hearing the breadth of the announcement of the present Mayo backroom team, Joe quipped ‘and who’s the gynaecologist?’ For sure it pissed people off but I get what he was saying. Currently, to this writer, we seem a collective of a committee on the sideline. I’m not sure we can right this iteration of Mayo. One of the reasons is obvious: the pipe flow of generational talent between 2011 to 2020, Cillian, Boyle, Barrett, Clarke, Higgins, Keegan and Mullins has dried up. That happens. In every county. What should be done then is strip back the system to a basic and clear path of being hard to beat, tight and awkward. Watching Man United’s Amorim trying to turn players clearly unsuited to his ‘philosophy’ is painful. When the ‘philosophy’ patently doesn’t work, rip it up, go back to the drawing board, simplify the plan. Buy time.

We need a thicker skin. That starts at home. The supporter via the club delegate is entitled to air their concerns openly on the floor at monthly board meetings. Clubs and followers aren’t the enemy no more than the board and the team and its inner circle are the owners of the Mayo county team. We need leaders. The team management, like Boylan and Dwyer etc., should be present to defend or project their decisions. If we cannot take our own heat, heaven help us when external heat is upped. Last year’s All Ireland winning manger came close losing his job a season earlier. Many clubs weren’t happy with him but McGeeney faced them down. Were the clubs that opposed him wrong? No. Was McGeeney proved correct in the end? Yes. Did blood on the carpet meetings fuse the two sides and focus McGeeney and his team? Yes.

It’s good to talk and to challenge. That has to be our next step, bottom up but top listening.