McStay could manage again – if Mayo ask him
KEVIN McSTAY has revealed he would consider doing a U-turn on his decision to quit management if Mayo ever asked him. McStay had ruled himself out of a return to management after stepping down from Roscommon after three years in charge in 2018, but has admitted that if his native county ever came calling, he would seriously consider it. ‘Supposing Mayo rang tomorrow morning, there’d be a little fella on my shoulder saying, “Of course you can do this now. You’re well rested now, you’ve loads of experience”, and that’s the easy thing to think but the reality is, I’m in my late 50s now. ‘I’ve gone through an awful lot the last 10 years and if you don’t have the energy or the enthusiasm or the fire, the want for it, you’d be at nothing. ‘And yet there’s a part of me, having said everything I’ve said, sure wouldn’t you sit down anyway and listen to what they had to say,’ McStay told a Roscommon
People podcast. The RTÉ pundit – who also managed St Brigid’s to an All-Ireland club title in 2013,
was famously snubbed on two occasions by Mayo – the latest in 2015 when he was favourite to succeed James Horan after the latter completed his first tenure – and then went on to lead Roscommon in 2017 to a first Connacht title in seven years.
In a frank discussion, McStay admitted that his one great regret was the fracturing of his friendship with Fergal O’Donnell, who he invited to jointmanage the team with in 2016, before deciding to go it alone.
‘We don’t have a relationship now really but we would have had great respect for each other,’ he added.
‘That was my fault. I was the one who put it together and I was the one who had to put an end to it. And I felt awful, I felt really broken. I really found that very difficult because I really liked the guy.
‘I have a lot of love for him. He is a great fella. I have nothing but good things to say about him.
‘The only problem was, it wasn’t working as a management team.
‘That is the only regret I have. We did not have a row or anything, we did not shout at each other, we shook hands over at the county board office and I have not seen him since that day essentially.
‘That is the downside of this level of the game.
‘You fall out with people or people take a different view of matters.
‘It would be lovely in life if we were all happy clappy but it does not work that way.’