Time for McStay to delegate less and manage more

We go again. Fresh canvas and big dreams. The past is another place, the future bright. Well that’s the idea anyway. So, how will Mayo fare this next 2025 season? The truth being, we don’t know. What we do know is that potentially Mayo have 18 Class A games ahead of them, compressed between January and, hopefully, July. Seven league games plus one extra if we make the final. Three potential Connacht championship matches, if we make that final, then three round robin matches, possibly a preliminary quarter-final a quarter-final, semi and final-final. I’m already tired.

Today’s world of wall to wall sport, particularly soccer with its associated quasi political and monetary marketing driven main frame, has bleached much of the fun out of sport. The collective journey has been parked amid a world that somehow or other elevates the guy who gives the ‘assist’ with the goal scorer. The full back or centre half who initiated the move doesn’t get a mention. We are buried under a mass of statistics. The camera now picks out the coach who works on the free-kicks after a successful raid on the opponent’s goal. But weren’t goals always worked from free-kicks minus the off field drama?

I digress. Winner takes all essentially sums up the above paragraph. A manager with a one point win in an All-Ireland final is a sage and the losing manager a chump. The margin was a thin one, the fallout has mega consequences for both protagonists. So. Under the current system, league, the provincials, round robins, sixteen teams to eliminate just four, a team may have played fourteen of the requisite (for success) matches before jeopardy and sudden death arrives. That’s a fair amount of heavy luggage, expense and time to arrive at that stage.

As a mere interested observer with no privy to the inner workings of county teams, my take on the season ahead would be that retaining your position in Division One is no longer a priority. Your team can comfortably reside deep in Division Two, just stay out of the bottom three in that division. The last two All-Ireland winners came from Division Two, Dublin and Armagh. Both Derry in 2023 and Donegal this year gave solid All-Ireland semi-final performances from that division. Dublin, Derry, Armagh and Donegal did all their homework away from the prying eyes of mainstream media over the last two seasons before bringing their shows on championship tour.

As Mayo and Derry have both displayed, actually winning the National Football League left them drained. Hence the theory being that they both front loaded too early and left themselves short when championship came. I disagree. Since 2010 Cork, Dublin and Kerry managed to land All-Irelands and League titles within the same seasons. Why? Belief, trusting and using a deep squad. Not being burdened by signalling early season intent? I don’t know but both Derry and Mayo’s fall down the cliff after winning the league was startling. So, does a manager use the league to experiment, blood and try out new systems, or does he bed in his chosen 12 or 13 and experiment with two or three?

Then we rumble into the provincial championship. They matter but we like to pretend they don’t. Who are we to cock a nose at a silver cup? And yet we will have sticks rooting amid the embers and entrails trying to figure out whether exiting Connacht earlier might be better than actually doing what all winning teams do well, win the next game ahead of them. After that we stumble, dizzy, the league forgotten, the provincial box ticked, into a round robin where once more failure is like telling the entire Leaving Certificate class before their exams that none of them can possibly fail. Finally, sigh, we hit knock out territory, after a potential 14 Class A matches, most of them already consigned to history.

We are on stage three of the current experiment. Transition was inevitable. Taking a line from seasons 2011 to 2022, Mayo made the semi-finals apart from 2018 and 2022. The winning team of each year’s All-Ireland final in that era had to meet and defeat us on the way. That’s some legacy that in time will gain even more respect. Few counties apart from Kerry and Dublin could live with that record. The last two seasons, knock-out defeats were hard to take and the danger now is that they don’t become the baseline. Once upon a time, teams going into transition could do it with a certain amount of dignity. Less games meant less media exposure and expert panel borefests greased with online slubber. Now most teams are in the media’s and public’s crosshairs all season. Getting on with remedial and repair work away from the teeming masses no longer happens.

I’m not sure what season three will bring us. Season one stands out for me with the Loftus experiment at 6, an experiment I agreed with, a style I loved, but as the games piled on after the league final, that system clogged. Not Loftus’ fault, the fault of the system. The start of that season saw the dropping from the squad of Fergal Boland, a decision that wasn’t hard to understand given the player was peripheral under the previous two managers. What was interesting was that he was the only player of reasonable profile dropped. Though dropped from the panel, he wasn’t from the various commentary forums who championed his return.

Season two had the same two players as actors again. Boland was now back as a number 11 and playmaker, with some but not unqualified long term success. One could fairly state that over the season, Fergal did fine. The problem was that the forwards collectively didn’t fire as a unit. Loftus remained in limbo early doors but a player of his ability and undoubted versatility finally made a comeback mainly from the bench. Yet the sum of the team looked lopsided, over-stacked with the usual plethora of attacking half-backs without us ever looking solid. Midfield struggled and the half-forward line was predictable.

Also, last season started with this theme, that Aidan O’Shea should be used to finish out games, used strategically, brought on to boss the final stages where we historically struggle to hold a lead. Interestingly the season ended with the management getting stick for taking O’Shea off in the latter key matches. Who’d be a manager? And that leads to another conundrum. This season I think we need more of Kevin McStay as the figure head, his team, his tactics, his stamp.

Part of me, and I’m not against the idea, thinks McStay possibly went for a collective management team where he assumed the role of general manager, delegated the various roles and picked the team. That’s fine when it works and that possibly is where most sports are heading but winning GAA teams tend to come namechecked with singular managers. Micko, Heffo, Gilroy, Jack, Gavin, Dessie, Cody, Boylan, Páidí, Loughnane, Harte, Kernan… the supporting orchestra are just that, session men, easily moved on as the musical requirements need. Boylan, Cody, Micko, Páidí and Jack refreshed and refurbished behind the scenes quietly and effectively.

Personally, I’m not interested in the support acts. The headliner is the only man. I championed McStay years ago, certainly he earned a shot. My hope now is that he grasps that singularity that no doubt dwells within him and not depart wondering had he done something different, might it have worked. Another season like the last two will have the county casting its collective eyes across the province or eastwards for a new messiah. Part of me believes that if Kevin becomes McStay the man that drove St Brigid’s to the Promised Land, then we have a sporting chance.