Mayo players in the firing line again... this time from within
THEY don’t want it and it’s hard to know if they deserve it anymore, but you really would pity Mayo. Their footballers, their people, the ground itself.
As if the hurt of another All-Ireland Final defeat - it’s up to eight now since 1989 - wasn’t enough to haunt their footballers and followers through the winter, they now have to feel their way through the radioactive cloud left by the fallout from the Holmes/Connelly interview.
There are two very clear lines of thought on the interview given by ousted Mayo joint-managers Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly in last Saturday’s Irish Independent: that the pair were justified in throwing some Mayo players under the bus after they themselves were heaved from their positions 14 months ago, or that the two men engaged in spiteful revenge that could easily sabotage Mayo’s All-Ireland ambitions for a few years.
Whatever one’s view on the motivations for Holmes and Connelly doing what they did, the first thing is that it made for fascinating reading. The first sound Martin Breheny heard when he turned on his dictaphone to transcribe the interview what the sound of a pin being pulled. The grenades were lobbed many and often thereafter.
“We’re doing it because we sincerely believe it’s in the best interests of Mayo football. Also, Mayo football people deserve to know the complete story,” are the first words attributed to Holmes in the extensive interview.
In light on the complete absence of specifics as to why the players wanted their joint-managers removed within days of the 2015 All-Ireland semi-final loss to Dublin, the Mayo football people may well deserve to know the complete story. Or at least the jilted duo are entitled to give their side of the story and attempt to repair the damage they feel was done to their reputations as football managers.
Fair enough. But doing it in the best interests of Mayo football?
“As for speaking out now rather than any other time, we didn’t do it during the year because we didn’t want to impact in any way on Mayo’s chances of winning the All-Ireland,” Noel Connelly said. “Now that it hasn’t happened, we think it’s time to speak out.”
So, the pair - with the best interests of Mayo football at heart - decided to give the players, under new manager Stephen Rochford, one season to end the 65-year famine before switching on the flame-thrower and torching everything. Ah, lads.
Hell hath no fury like a Mayo football manager scorned.
The devil, as always, is in the detail, and if one takes everything the pair say as gospel then collectively and (in some cases) individually the Mayo players don’t come out of this in a great light.
As best they come across prima donna-ish; at worst they are portrayed as egomaniacs who orchestrated a heave against one management only to come up short - again - under the next.
The truth of it surely lies somewhere in between.
There’s no doubting, as the players put it in their own words, “the experience and knowledge gained by the players from competing at the highest level in this sport over five years” or that “the players have set ourselves extremely high standards in the context of our individual and collective approach, and also in terms of team organisation and management.”
Just as there’s no disputing the fact that in the last three Championships this Mayo team has played out a draw with the eventual All-Ireland champions, only to lose all three replays - two semi-finals and this year’s final.
There’s only so much a management team can do once their players cross that whitewash.
Indeed, there’s a fairly revealing paragraph in the Holmes / Connelly interview that if taken at face value is a damning indictment of their predecessor, James Horan, who, by most accounts, was hugely respected and loved by the Mayo footballers.
‘Before the start of the 2015 championship, Breheny writes, Holmes and Connelly met senior members of the squad to get their perspective on why they believed that they had failed to win the All-Ireland in previous attempts.’
“They told us that tactics and match-ups were wrong, opposition analysis was poor, there was a lack of adaptability and they had no defensive plan. They also highlighted some errors for goals and also occasions when they had turned over the ball too easily. Apart from the last two points, the losses were attributed to factors outside their control,” is the response from one of the pair.
Quite what Horan makes of that would be interesting to know, never mind Donie Buckley who has worked as team coach alongside Horan, Holmes/Connelly and is still involved as a senior and respected member of Rochford’s management team.
If Holmes and Connelly are being totally accurate in the re-telling of that player meeting then it will make for an uncomfortable first night back training for the players and Buckley. If they are being mischievous with their version of events then ‘the best interests of Mayo football’ rings even more hollow.
Either way, last Saturday was another bad day for Mayo football. Apart from making for a great read for the public and a fleeting sense of vindication, one assumes, by Holmes and Connelly, a public washing of dirty linen like this can hardly serve much good.
As has been the case for some years now, anything less than Mayo bringing the Sam Maguire across the Shannon is a failure.
They’ve done the moral victories to death. They’ve repeatedly reached the Rubicon, dived in, swam for their lives and drowned every time.
They’ve been everyone’s second favourite county for some time; the team you want to win the All-Ireland if it can’t be your own.
They’ve been carried to Croke Park on a wave on national support on more September Sundays than they will care to remember, and been soothed through the winter by a tsunami of national sympathy after coming up empty handed in ten finals since 1989.
But the public’s sympathy could be wearing thin. Everyone roots for the underdog, but now the stories are emerging that the dog might have fleas. All bark but no bite when it comes to the big days. Always chasing parked cars.
And yet there are elements of what Holmes and Connelly exposed last weekend that are manifestly unfair. Whatever about maintaining the dressing-room code of omerta after you’ve been booted out it and had the door slammed in your face, the pair could have pulled back on a couple of things. In the best interests of Mayo football, like.
Apropos of Seamus O’Shea, is there anything wrong with a midfield expressing a preference for one goalkeeper over another because he has a better feel for his club mates’s kickouts?
Apropos of Alan Dillon, aren’t managers always telling us they like to see players disappointed when they are dropped or not selected as it shows they really care.
Apropos of Aidan O’Shea, is there much difference between a player wanting to take part in a television programme during the season and going for a promotion in work in May or choosing to get married in August? And would a manager intervene in either of the last two scenarios and warn a player off doing them?
Unfortunately for the Mayo players, they pressed the nuclear button last winter in their heartfelt belief that they needed something - someone - new to help them over the winning line. Alas, between them, Rochford and the players hit the self-destruct button again and must live with the fallout and another winter of discontent. At least they get to pull on the boots again next month and go in search of their holy grail.
As for Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly, their time has come and gone. With Mayo at least.
Perhaps they felt other managerial job opportunities wouldn’t be forthcoming as long as their reputations were under question. Perhaps they were justified in clearing their names, as it were.
“Anything that happens which reduces the chances of Mayo winning an All-Ireland title saddens us,” Holmes says. “I can’t see how turning on the management after just one year could be good for Mayo.”
We’re not sure if turning on the players can be good for Mayo either.