Goodwill in short supply for Mayo

WHILE his players enjoy a team holiday under an African sun, Stephen Rochford will squelch on the sideline in Castlebar today.

The Mayo manager and his support staff have not travelled with the squad, choosing to start preparations for 2017 instead. They play NUI Galway in the Connacht League at the beginning of another season lit by an undying goal.

But Mayo’s season actually began a month ago, when Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly excoriated members of the panel in an interview. Holmes and Connelly were deposed 16 months ago and were entitled to have their say.

They should not delude themselves, though, thinking what they said was for the good of the county side. Their comments were selfserving and, in places, extraordinarily meanspirited. But Holmes and Connelly are merely two more grumbles in a Mayo history marked by plenty of discontent.

Rochford is the man who must deal with the consequences. A certain constituency, one that believes Mayo’s failure to win an All-Ireland is attributable to character failings and Twitter, welcomed the Holmes and Connelly screed, and now wait for Rochford (below) to try and prove them wrong.

Winning an All-Ireland does not settle this argument, however. In fact, Rochford and his men showed their mettle in bringing Dublin to a replay and a point of extra-time last season, and in doing so the players justified their insurrection against the previous management.

But last year’s efforts will count for nothing as old failings are flung at Rochford and his team.