Edwin McGreal
IT has been a turbulent few years for Mayo ladies football. Disharmony in the boardroom won’t always express itself in public ways, and might not always be obvious to the impartial observer, but it was easy to see all was not well in Mayo.
The low point was, arguably, the withdrawal of the Mayo senior team from the Connacht Championship by the County Board in 2010. Many of those players had won four All-Irelands around the turn of the millennium when Mayo was the benchmark in ladies football. If nothing else the decision to withdraw the team showed a lack of respect for players who had made the game what it was in Mayo.
But it was indicative of a game that was in serious trouble in the county. Harmony was non-existent, clubs felt disenfranchised and players felt helpless.
But last Friday night in the TF Royal Hotel in Castlebar demonstrated an altogether happier atmosphere. It was, in some respects, a PR exercise.
Sponsors like Supermacs and CBE and players were there with newly-appointed County Board officials and, while the idea was to showcase how everyone involved in ladies football in the county is now pulling together, there was no ‘acting’ taking place.
It was quite apparent that there’s a very good atmosphere around the place at the minute.
“I would get the sense this year, more so than any other year, that everyone is rowing in the same direction,” senior team captain Claire Egan told The Mayo News.
“I remember [Kilkenny manager] Brian Cody speaking last year and saying for a county to be successful you need everyone going in the one direction, your county board, your teams, your sponsors. I definitely get the feeling that this year this is applying in our case. It won’t guarantee success by any means but it provides the necessary framework for it.”
Her team-mate Cora Staunton feels the signs of progress are beginning to show at underage level too.
“There’s a huge amount of clubs and there’s huge work being done. At county level the U-14s won the Connacht final so they’re into an All-Ireland semi-final. That’s ‘A’ and that’s the first time they’ve won that in a number of years.
“We’ve had good minor teams in the last few years who probably haven’t reached their potential but I suppose the right management team has gone in now at each level, people that are interested and want the job.
“In the last number of years girls were told to come out to county training a week before they had a championship match.
“A lot of girls have been lost because of that. They’ve come and seen that the system isn’t right and the training isn’t right and they’ve gone and played other sports. We’ve lost a lot of girls because of that,” said Staunton.
The joint-managers of the senior team, Fr Mike Murphy and Jimmy Corbett, later single out the likes of Egan, Staunton and the older players for their loyalty during some turbulent years.
“I think that’s a measure of their commitment, the fact that they didn’t stop playing with their county because the way they were treated back then. If it was me, I would have walked away from it but they didn’t, they stuck in there, and that just shows you their commitment to their county and their love of what they do,” said Fr Murphy.
Jimmy Corbett describes the new county board as ‘brilliant’, saying that anything the senior team had asked for, they’d received.
They do have a Division 2 title in the bag but both management and players will realise that championship results are how they’ll be judged.
Mayo begin that leg of the journey on July 8 with a Connacht Final against old rivals Galway.
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