Pressure was ever present for McStay with Roscommon

AFTER TALKING the talk in an RTE studio for many years, Kevin McStay did what many of his fellow analysts have repeatedly distanced themselves from by patrolling the sidelines as Roscommon Senior football manager from 2016 to 2018.

He has since returned to our television screens after stepping away from the role with one Connacht title to his credit, and the heightened perspective that comes from being so heavily involved has given him a better appreciation of the inter-county scene.

And in McStay’s memoir, ‘The Pressure Game’, he confirms that being in charge of a team at the elite level can be a very lonely experience, especially when results weren’t going to plan in a football-mad county.

The son of Galway parents, who was brought up in Ballina and played in the forwards with Mayo for many years, McStay is a long-time resident of Roscommon town, where he raised his three daughters with his wife, Verona.

Having said that, he readily acknowledges that most of the work in that regard was carried out by his other half, as he was often absent from home for long stretches as a result of work commitments with the army, or his involvement in football either as a manager or

TV analyst.

The fact that McStay was twice overlooked for the top job in his native Mayo is something that clearly irks a man who played in their 1989 All-Ireland Senior final loss to Cork.

His army colleague and former team-mate, John Maughan, got the nod ahead of him in the mid-nineties, and many years later he thought he had the job before disagreements in relation to the budget he outlined led to

Stephen Rochford’s appointment after the first departure of James Horan.

McStay had a long association with the Roscommon Gaels club before guiding St. Brigid’s to the All-Ireland title in 2013 along with his sidekick and brother-in-law, Liam McHale, the man who will always be associated with his dismissal against Meath in 1996.

That gave him a sound working knowledge of the players available to him, but it’s clear from the memoir that he quickly realised they hadn’t enough quality to make that giant leap to the elite level.

His neck was on the block before the Connacht final of 2017, so to defeat Galway in that game was undoubtedly the highlight of his time at the helm.

It ended on a low note, of course, as he was serving a suspension for his final Super 8 game in charge against Dublin in 2018, and watched it from the corporate box of team sponsor Seán Mulryan in Croke Park.

That ban arose after he had words with a linesman and then lobbed a football which landed among the officials as they left the field at half-time in the previous outing against Donegal.

The book begins with McStay trying to explain his thought process as those incidents unfolded, and it’s a fitting example of how the pressure of being an inter-county manager can often push incumbents over the edge.

And it ends with a man who is clearly happy to have left that particular stage, with a couple of health issues convincing him that he was making the right decision in stepping away.

Whether one agrees with McStay’s television views or not, he cannot be accused of not knowing what he is talking about. ALAN AHERNE

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