JP’s approach an example to O’Leary

IT’S just one thing after another with Mayo GAA isn’t it? And fair play to them they nearly always give us something to talk about. Some of it is self-inflicted, more of it is outside their control, but one way of another Mayo will find their way into the headlines. From (drawn out) manager sackings and player coups to the dramatic journey their brilliant team – and let nobody take that away from them – who have tired and failed and failed better and failed worse in their quest to bring cannister west of the Shannon for the first time since 2001, Mayo generate more headlines than Donald Trump and we love them for it.

Probably it’s less fun for the people of Mayo and for the officers of the Mayo County Board. It certainly can’t have been much fun for them over the winter months as the Tim O’Leary saga played itself out. Certainly a lot of the worst of the fall out from that was self-inflicted, it was a bit of a PR disaster truth be told. Still though if any county was going to get itself entangled with such a colourful character as O’Leary it was going to be Mayo, wasn’t it? Mayo County Board’s decision to fully distance themselves from O’Leary following a series of tweets last weekend was probably a wise course of action. O’Leary tweeted that Mayo should remove James Horan as manager following defeat in Clones (“#Horanout”) and later apologised saying that he “had a few too many pints”. If that doesn’t raise a chuckle we don’t know what will.

We don’t know if O’Leary and Mayo GAA can mend relations, but we would suggest that if O’Leary does want to stay involved that he take the example of JP McManus as a guide. There have to have been times over the years when McManus was frustrated by the way things were going on Shannonside. Not once, however, did he ever say a word publicly. Instead he did what he could, when he could, behind the scenes. You won’t catch JP on Twitter. There’s a reason he’s as successful as he is.