One step at a time on the road to The Promised Land for Kevin McStay

NOON had just passed and Kevin McStay was already five and a half hours into another day of being the Mayo senior manager. An early morning meeting with a player was followed by a management gathering at 10am before the launch of the Connacht Championship dragged him to the Connacht Centre of Excellence where a battery of interviews awaited.

Questions rained in and he answered each and every query with courtesy and positivity. It's easy to enjoy time spent with the genial Ballina native.

He was soon immersed in chats about New York, injury situations, Gaelic Park scares, golden memories and the enduring dream which drives everyone with a grá for the Green and Red.

“NOT only does everyone expect us to win in New York, we ourselves expect to go out and have a big performance. It’s the quarter final of the Connacht Championship and once the word ‘championship’ is mentioned everybody's lights go on. We know what the schedule is; we know what’s involved and we will use that to the utmost advantage. Our program reflects that. Our focus is totally on winning the quarter-final, getting back home in the best of health as soon as we can (on Tuesday morning) to prepare what lies ahead.

“It’s a fully-fledged championship game. I know there's expectation of a victory and we demand that of ourselves too,” he added before being reminded of the last time he walked the line in Gaelic Park during a Connacht Championship match.

McStay was the boss of Roscommon in 2016 when it required a last-gasp point from Senan Kilbride to see the Primrose and Blue escape with a 1-15 to 0-17 victory over the home side.

“I'm only out of therapy after that,” he joked. “It was a tough, tough game. Since 1994 every county in Connacht has won the championship and always in sport there’s a chance that the underdog will have his day. Remember London in James Horan's first game – anything can happen. If you take your eye off the ball and look a few fences ahead of yourself something unexpected can happen.

“In 2016 the expectation was that we’d go over to New York and take care of business, but when injury time arrived we hadn’t taken care of business and we were incredibly lucky to get out of it.

“To a certain extent that match has coloured my view about what’s ahead of us this year and I’ve been very strong within management and within the group about how we treat this game. Of course, there will be down time and fun for the group and we have a very exciting program in terms of football and various bits and pieces, but the focus right front and centre is the fixture at 3 o’clock on Sunday, simple as that. It can't be any other way.

“London beat us in the FBD at the start of the year. Don’t think that we lost that one because we sent out an experimental team. Go back and look at it. There were a lot of recognisable players out on the pitch that day. We were sure we’d get a nice run in the FBD, but we didn’t perform and London were well-coached, well-motivated and well put-together. They won it fair and square. You have to tune in to every challenge and if you don’t you’re in trouble. It’s the same for this one. It's the same for every game.”

GOLDEN MEMORY

“I love the Connacht Championship. There are so many special clashes we all enjoy - Mayo/Galway, Mayo/Roscommon, Mayo/Sligo. I’m from Ballina, so I always loved the championship games against Sligo even though I didn’t get to play in them too often.

“In my playing career the Roscommon fixture was kind to us, the Galway fixture wasn’t, but at the same time, I treasure the medals and the incredible memories I got out of it. As a young supporter I fondly remember going to the games with my father and the Stephenite lads and playing in it later was the ultimate.

“My best Connacht Championship memory has to be my debut in 1983 when I came out of nowhere to play in the final before I ever even trained with the Mayo team. That's how much times have changed.

“On the morning of that final I had never trained with Mayo, I didn’t know who I was playing with.

I had played a good U-21 match the week before and some fella said: ‘We might take a chance on that fella.’

“I was in The Curragh in the army at the time and I was let out at 10-o-clock that morning to go and meet the players before we played Galway in Castlebar later that afternoon. I shook hands with men I had never met before and then we played the game. Liam O’Neill was the manager – a great fella.

We lost that day and lost again in ‘84, but we won it in ‘85 and that's a really great memory.

I have a great grá for the Connacht Championship and what John (Prenty) does with it. Everything around it is fantastic.”

ANALYSING THE OPPOSITION

“In the world we live in, we can get a good pin on them. You can get video from previous years and video from when their fellas were playing with counties here in Ireland. That’s all out there now and shared widely, so we have people watching and reporting back and putting together as much data as we can. There will be no excuse. We'll be well prepared. We know what they have, and we’ll go after it.”

IMPORTANCE OF CONNACHT CHAMPIONSHIP

“Every manager and every player in the competition wants to win it. However, there's stepping stones to be taken before one even gets into the final and they have to be respected. Winning the Connacht Championship bestows obvious advantages in the All-Ireland series but the biggest and most thing is winning a provincial title.

“I cherish the few Connacht medals I have. I'm a big supporter of the Connacht Championship and hope it continues forever. Our players hold winning it very high up on their list of priorities. Of course it’s also very important in terms of schedule, rhythm, confidence, status and so on, but to get the chance of even playing to qualify for a Connacht final we have to beat New York and get home healthy. Then, start getting ready for the next fence and see where that takes us. All of that is somewhere down the road in the back of our heads and that's what a lovely season would look like, but to get there we have two fences to jump before we even get to the final. One step at a time – it's the only way.

INJURIES

“For some reason there’s a great anxiety in the public about injuries. Maybe it's because the season is so condensed but the update is everybody's fine. Everybody will train here tonight. There were knocks and bangs and bruises after the Monaghan game. Paddy (Durcan) got back and David McBrien got back and got good minutes on the pitch. We got James Carr in as well.

“Eoghan McLaughlin is also training and will be in championship contention. Diarmuid (O’Connor) is also back training and we expect him to be very close to being ready for selection for New York. We’d like to get minutes into these lads but we're not going to take any chances because the season is too tight on one level and yet there's also enough of the season left to not have to risk anyone.

“No matter what happens, we’ve at least three fixtures left in the round-robin and the ambition is to have another three fixtures after that. Throw in a possible three in Connacht so we could end up with nine in total, so why would we be risking Diarmuid or anyone else if they're not ready.

SQUAD

“We’ve built out the panel quite dramatically and 36 players have got game time in the league. We went back much later this year and we may see the benefit of that later in the season. They’ve got through a very tough pre-season. It’s heavy stuff. It’s hard going so to get through it without picking up and injury and then get used to the rhythm of national league isn’t easy.

“They come in to review meetings on Tuesday and they’re in for a preview on Friday and they’re looking at all the information – the tactics, the formations, the set plays, the det defences, the different tactics around different aspects of the games, the things that have to be learned – and they've all come through it brilliantly and will be the better for it.

“We have a young squad with an average age of just over 24. We feel we’re in a good place and have built out the squad with new players putting their hands up and other players coming back from injury at the right time. Last year, we didn’t get them back at the right time. Cillian was a bit later than we would have liked and we lost other fellas as the season went on.

“We’re in very good health right now and we hope it stays that way because the schedule is very unforgiving from here on in.

“We’re down to a squad of 36 now and they’re all going to New York which is great and proper. We’re a big unit. We all have to be together, that’s the nature of the team.”

BACKROOM

“We have a ‘performance’ side of the house which includes S&C, medical and mental skills and it's as good as any other set-up in the country. We have excellent physios working with the lads too and it’s a top-class situation as should be in a high-performance group. We challenge that every day and at the end of the league we have everyone out on the pitch which is a huge credit to them.

TOUGHER

“We took serious lessons from 2023. We undertook an expertly moderated review with the players and their feedback on every aspect on and off the pitch was looked for. Last year was a maiden voyage for every inter-county manager and management team in terms of the new schedule. Nobody knew what lay ahead and learnings had to be found. The key learning was the new championship is a two-week rhythm if you’re winning, but if you’re not the schedule gets even tighter, so a player getting a bad injury at any stage could rule a player out of the whole season.

KILLARNEY

“Last year’s championship win in Killarney, when taken in isolation, was a sensational performance. I was giddy that evening. You had to be. It was 30 or 40 years since Kerry were beaten there in championship. They’re top standard and when they're playing at home it's a different thing entirely. To do what we did that day was commendable and significant.

“However, I do remember very clearly speaking to the lads in the dressing room after and strongly challenging for a repeat performance. In isolation it wasn’t going to be enough. I asked for that performance to be backed up against Louth and we didn't reach the same peak at all.

“One of the lovely things about the game is that days like Killarney make you believe that everything is possible and makes you feel that the dream we all dream about is possible, but very quickly you’re knocked back to reality if you're not consistent in your performance and within games themselves.

“We paid a high price for inconsistency later in the year. I’ve said it before but at half-time in the quarter-final against Dublin we were alive, the All-Ireland was alive but it didn’t work out that way. We’re striving for consistency and now the rubber is about to hit the road as New York comes over the horizon.”