When a team loses it’s easier to begin the blame game than look at what actually happened.
Last week Kerry lost the All-Ireland final to Dublin and immediately Kerry supporters looked at the decisions Eamonn Fitzmaurice had made during the game.
Perhaps he made some incorrect calls, but when players cross the whitewash it is up to them solely to attain the result. The manager can make changes, but Brian Cody has never won an All-Ireland for Kilkenny with what he did on the field of play as boss.
It’s his preparation in the killing field of Nowlan Park that took care of that.
In Mayo, a county starved for success, every management team that fails is held up to the light and examined for any cracks.
And unfortunately this season they have resembled a cheap knock off rather than a perfect Ming vase.
But what of the players? Why do they get off scot-free? Maybe management should have had their own vote of no-confidence in some of their charges after they failed to close out an All-Ireland semi final, twice.
Or a vote inspired by the crime of kicking the ball into a goalkeeper’s hands from 30metres?
The news today that Mayo captain Keith Higgins, and vice-captain Cillian O’Connor delivered a vote of no confidence in the management of Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes should not be a major shock. We’ve been down this road before after championship defeats.
Clare dumped Mike McNamara when his methods were deemed not suitable for the players’ needs. In Waterford both Justin McCarthy and Michael Ryan have fallen at the hands, and hurls, of player power.
Cork and Limerick have had various bust ups under numerous managers, sometimes resulting in all out strike. However today’s news shows that Munster counties don’t have a monopoly on player disputes.
There have been murmurings all season that Mayo’s players were unhappy with the approach and methods of their dual overlords, Connelly and Holmes.
Reportedly some of their training methods did not meet with the approval of players, while supporters expecting a new approach were disappointed in a National League showing that was limp to say the least.
But championship as ever was where Mayo would be judged, and their cruise through Connacht and their impressive win over Donegal, with the new wrecking ball of Aidan O’Shea in full flow, was the electrifying moment of the summer.
It seemed as if O’Shea was the secret to ending the famine and it was these two men that had figured out how to best use him. James Horan couldn’t decide how best to use the Breaffy bulldozer and look how close he was to an All-Ireland title.
When you’re winning everything is rosy, but when the victories dry up and the flowers wilt and die, then expect to be criticised for your less-than-green-fingers.
Twice Mayo could and maybe should have beaten Dublin over the course of 140 minutes. Why they didn’t is a failure of not only the management but the players also.
Let’s deal with the players first.
In the closing stages of the drawn semi-final a shot was blocked down by Mickey Sweeney as he aimed for a point. Unforgivable.
Andy Moran dropped a ball into Stephen Cluxton’s hands towards the end of the game too. Unforgivable.
In the replay Seamus O’Shea, harshly penalised for dragging Jonny Cooper to the ground, received a black card. Silly.
Rob Hennelly will never again mess with his gloves for a kickout after conceding a score, while any future Mayo sweeper will go to the Cian O’Sullivan school of hard knocks for a expert tutorial ahead of 2016.
Just a few examples of player mistakes that each individual has a winter to think about in a game littered by bad decision making from Mayo forwards.
Bad decisions on the field mirrored by bad ones off it too.
There was a sense, especially on day two, that the Mayo’s players and management had learned next to nothing from the drawn game against Dublin.
What could be done in six days you may argue? Well not a lot, but a seeming failure to do anything at all is negligent in the extreme.
Everyone expected Mayo to push up on the kickouts, use Aidan O’Shea more effectively and be more dynamic in their play from the half-forward line.
But none of that materialised. Stephen Cluxton was still allowed play the game on his terms, O’Shea was left alone in the tundra that is the Dublin full back line, and Mayo collapsed mentally and physically.
The disappointment afterwards was heightened by the imponderable question: Would James Horan have made the same mistakes?
Rewind 12 months. Kieran Donaghy did for Mayo in Croke Park, and in the Gaelic Grounds, Mayo still had no answer to the Austin Stacks man.
Kerry bullied Mayo, they played cynical football at times, and as serial winners they knew exactly what it takes to win. Is that the fault of players or management?
Mayo in 2014 had two chances to beat Kerry and failed. Mayo in 2015 had two chances to beat Dublin and failed. Different management, but same end result.
It is no shame to lose to the eventual All-Ireland champions in successive years, two of the best teams of the last five years or so. Teams littered with medal holders at various grades and coached to within an inch of their life.
But to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to lose once may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose twice looks like carelessness.
Perhaps ultimately this vote of no-confidence could easily have been given last year when the two men were appointed. The process was described at the time by a Mayo county board official as a ‘sham’, with Kevin McStay treated poorly in his quest to manage his native county.
Perhaps then Noel Connelly’s and Pat Holmes fate was sealed.
They came into a set-up that had been used to life under Horan but already, before a ball had been kicked, it seemed that the county – and no doubt some players – was unsure whether the right men had got the job.
If the reports today prove to be true it is hard to see them being in charge come February.
But when the dust settles spare a thought for the next man in and how they deal with a group of players who, perhaps instead of playing the blame game, need to face up to their own personal faults.
