McStay comes under attack from ex-Roscommon boss

FORMER Roscommon football manager Gay Sheerin has launched a scathing criticism of the county’s league displays and claims the blame for many experienced players opting out should be “laid at Kevin McStay’s door”.

Speaking on Shannonside Radio after defeat to Mayo on Saturday, Sheerin vented his fury at the likes of Niall Daly and Neil Collins not committing under McStay’s regime.

The team’s form has nosedived since last year’s league, and Sheerin has questioned the former Mayo AllStar’s motives for remaining in charge when a vote of confidence from the squad was split after joint-manager Fergal McDonnell walked away.

“Mentally they’re going to find it very hard to lift it. That’s where the experienced players turning up to training on Tuesday night would give the whole lot a lift again but that’s not going to happen,” Sheerin said.

“It’s wrong and it shouldn’t happen – and I’m laying the blame at Kevin McStay’s door. When you look down on the sideline and you don’t see a Roscommon person there. . . if there was a Roscommon person there a lot of those players wouldn’t have walked.

“Fergal O’Donnell got a lot of abuse last year, and I questioned a lot of Fergal’s tactics, but at the same time Fergal is a Roscommon man and wants Roscommon lads playing and they would be down on the bench tonight or playing, and they’re not.

“The retired lads, there’s nothing you can do about that but the other guys who aren’t involved in the panel, they aren’t involved for a reason and I’d like to know what the reason is.

“I’m going back to the 49pc that the chairman quoted – there was a 51pc vote of confidence in Kevin McStay; if Kevin McStay had any sense. . . I don’t know much about him but I do know he hasn’t got experience of managing at inter-county level.

“If you were going into a job and 49pc of the panel said ‘we don’t have confidence in you’ would you take the job?”

Sheerin also believes McStay was shooting Roscommon’s chances in the foot with comments before the league started.

“Any team management who comes out and says that we’ve no work done for the first round of the league, why isn’t there some work done? He said on the television that it doesn’t matter if we go down to Division 2,” he said.

“I’m getting phone calls from people in America asking ‘what’s happening to our Roscommon team?’ I say ‘I don’t know what’s happening’, the players aren’t there and 49pc of them don’t want the manager and he takes the job. . . I can’t see the reasoning.

“All those players that were let go, that let themselves go for a reason. You need that experience when you’re operating in Division 1.”