Despite their All-Ireland final replay defeat to Dublin, in October, there is a sense of optimism in Mayo football. A sense that Stephen Rochford can drive them that one extra step in 2017.
It is odd, then, for dirty laundry [from 2015] to get an airing as the current year winds down.
Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly were ousted from their position as joint managers of the Mayo team in 2015 after just one crack at the football championship.
The Mayo players took a couple of internal votes and it was decided, after much hand-wringing and consternation, that Holmes and Connelly had to go.
That they did and Mayo looked to be suffering from it earlier in the 2016 championship only for the squad to be galvanised by their journey to the final via the qualifiers. They almost had Dublin [twice] but lacked that killer instinct as Jim Gavin’s men triumphed.
Holmes and Connelly had kept quiet on the player revolt that cost them their jobs but there are silent no more. The Irish Independent’s Martin Breheny sat down with both men for a 5,000-word article on 2015 [the good, bad and ugly] and how Mayo have moved on since then.
Both men claim a small cadre of players are the main influencers over the wider squad. They comment:
“If a small group within the squad are allowed to dictate the way they tried when we were there, it’s not good for Mayo football. If that situation is still there, the likelihood is that they will win nothing. That’s the bottom line as we see it.”
Speaking, again, as a pair, Connelly and Holmes believe the players should concentrate on football and leave managing to the coaches and backroom staff. They also claim players are having their heads turned by “outside influences”.
“If they don’t [keep those influences away], it’s unlikely they will be successful.
“Mayo have been in ten All-Ireland finals since 1989 and won none. That won’t change until attitudes change.”
Many thought that Rochford had revived Mayo. Others feel the county is one free-scoring forward away from the Sam Maguire, their first since 1951.
Raking the coals on this old feud will help matters little but perhaps both men felt it was better to speak now rather than forever hold their peace.
