Freed of other commitments, the new manager prioritised a top backroom group and a good pre-season. Now he and the team are on their way
Tom Creedon 40 years gone but never forgotten: ‘I think about him every day, he’ll be on the front of my mind on Sunday’
“There are truths I can take from that. They mightn’t be eternal truths! But we as a management can say, ‘he’s doing fine on him’. ‘He’s going the right way’.”There are themes in Kevin McStay’s life and football involvement. His father, also Kevin, was from Galway but having moved to Ballina, an architect of under-age development in the local club. It’s where his son learned to play.
“The Army made me. Certainly, it finished off the excellent work that so many good people in my life had begun.” St Brigid’s goalkeeper Shane Curran and manager Kevin McStay celebrate in 2013. Photograph: Mike Shaughnessy/Inpho He brought with him a heavyweight crew of Stephen Rochford, Donie Buckley, Liam McHale and Damien Mulligan. As he said at the time, “We’ve coached or managed 14 senior intercounty teams and coached or managed 169 senior intercounty championship matches, which is a lot.”Media focus on Mayo has never been slow to spot comic potential and the blizzard of CVs and backroom team trumpery was instantly designated “a circus”, as the county took its time to make the right decision.
“I’m retired from the Defence Forces a good while now and I was essentially spending my time between media work and a maths school I set up. Fixtures to date have yielded two draws but in different circumstances – the opening night, against Galway, squeezed in as injury-time slammed shut and the second in Armagh, watching a five-point advantage burn in the closing minutes.
It could well have broken even the most resilient spirits in football had it been known that this creditable defeat by Cork 34 years ago was merely the first step on a via dolorosa that would entail 11 All-Ireland final defeats, two in replays, with no alleviation. “Anyway, at the team meeting the whole team is roaring laughing at this and Dermot Flanagan just lost the head with us. So did Liam O’Neill. ‘Ye find this funny,’ he was shouting. ‘Ye’ll always be losers’.”Gaps in the defence and resulting opportunities
Like Keegan, he was spoken to at length about staying on but as the prospects in either case waxed and waned, McStay and his management kept the players updated before the finality of both departures settled. “The minute they move on, we move on. Everyone in Mayo adores Lee Keegan and Oisín Mullin, and is so proud of them but they’re no longer in our group and players can see two gaps in the defence and the opportunities that come with that.
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