Mayo manager Kevin McStay talks football, retirements, and new rules ahead of 2025 season

AT the end of a season when Mayo footballers mixed it with the best before being edged out in the closing moments of big games, Kevin McStay sat down and put words on the past, present and future. The senior team manager spoke about late losses, learnings, an evolving squad and the promise 2025 brings with it.

CHARITY GAME

WE’re going to play Monaghan in Castlebar on Saturday, January 4, and we’re really looking forward to it.

It’s a charity match, raising funds for the Mayo Motor Neuron Disease Association and the game will be the first big exposure to the new rules. We have a great sense that there’ll be a lot of enthusiasm around and the Mayo fans will come out in big numbers as they always do.

We want to give back to the charity and give back to the community. It’s a big part of what we’re about as a group. We’re very conscious of the support we have in Mayo and this is our small way of giving back a little bit.

THE PRESENT

WE’RE back in full collective training since the beginning of December and we had a very robust pre-season effort too with our pod training that most teams engage in. We’re happy with how that’s going and the general commitment to improving ourselves and getting better and that whole attitude of every day being important.

We’re really revved up for the beginning of the season and that focus now, of course, is Croke Park and Dublin in the first round of the league at the end of January. It’s a crazy, competitive Division 1 and the best way we can approach that is game by game.

THE DEPARTED

A number of lads have left the panel and it’s only right that I’d mention that. They put so much into it and I’m not sure some people understand the effort they put in to be part of a Mayo senior set-up, some of them travelling from Dublin all their young lives. The camaraderie that they have when they’re in among us as part of the group – it’s hard to leave that behind. The joy of putting on a Mayo jersey and playing for Mayo is a huge part of their lives and all the excitement that comes from being with a top-level county in Gaelic football. I respect all those decisions and I wish them well. They have given so much for many years.

Sport moves on and this is a big tanker we’re all in. Every year there’s a new panel. Players come and players go and my job as manager and our job in the backroom team is to make sure 2025 is the group we’re concentrating on and steering towards the beginning of the National League.

REVIEW OF 2024

THE review is a piece of work we do every year and that’s what a team focused on improvement in a high-performance environment is going to do. We had an internal review and the key focus was identifying marginal gains and where are the things we can gain slight improvements on and then we look to go after those in our training sessions.

The players were hugely engaged in it and out of that, we set our plans. We took some great learnings from the review but it’s all about how we execute those learnings now. We think we can improve but the test will happen when the ball is thrown in in Croke Park.

The main takeaway is there are a huge amount of areas where we can improve but the same can be said about every team. Whether we were Connacht champions or All-Ireland champions we would be sitting down to do the exact same thing and this is what any high-performance group will do and the best players to tell us are the players who are experiencing these big moments out on the pitch.

So many points came up in the review, and one of those is the frustration of not closing out some of the bigger games. Of course, we can do better in this regard and that will be a focus, among many others. We’ll take the learnings from that and the big test will come when we’re asked to implement them. I’m sure we’ll have big moments again in 2025.

INJURED PLAYERS

THERE’S going to be a lot of bangs and bruises at this stage of the year. I expect the vast majority to be back for the beginning of the league and one or two to return for the third round. Of course, Paddy Durcan, our captain – his return is further in the distance but he’s progressing really well.

Paddy is hesitant to commit to any particular date because there will always be little setbacks along the road but he’s doing very well and we’re happy with where he’s at. He’s a super athlete and applies himself particularly well to what the rehab program is and we’re expecting to see him before the league is out.

Aidan (O’Shea) had a ‘tidy-up’ procedure and is fine. We’ll see him in the early rounds of the league. We won’t see Tommy (Conroy) in the earlier rounds but I’d be very hopeful of seeing him before the league is out.

NEW RULES

MY opening position is that I’m pro them until I see otherwise. I was lucky to be involved in the FRC/Railway Cup games so I got to see them first-hand and got the various briefings. Perhaps, it’s a new game and perhaps it’s not. We’ll certainly know when the rubber hits the road in Croke Park at the end of January and all the teams will be the same.

Our job in management is to identify where we can make gains with the new rules while being conscious that there’s an opponent on the other end of the field. We’re looking forward to the new rules and we’re training hard with them and that will continue right up to throw-in against Dublin.

It’s an exciting time for everybody. We’re all pretty open-minded about them and of course, there’s that end-of-the-year tweak, so that’s a safety net for all of us if anything doesn’t work but I think we’ll all approach it positively and the new rules are well worth trying.

I don’t think referees will have any major problem with them. I was at the FRC games and the refs seemed to get on very well with them.

The big test for all of this is the league where everyone’s trying to gain an advantage, fair or unfair, and I think the referees are looking forward to this whole thing as much as we are.

PERSONAL LEARNINGS

EVERY day is a school day and the margins out there are very tight. I learned Mayo are very close. We’re there or thereabouts, but we didn’t win Connacht, we didn’t win the All-Ireland, we didn’t get any silverware, so what I’ve learned is that we must be better in 2025. That’s why the review was such a critical piece of work because it has focused us on the bits and pieces that we need to improve.

The league and championship are wide open. There are so many teams who will be bullish like we are here. In Mayo, we think we’re right up there with anyone else and we have to prove that now. Last year, we had big moments in big games - Dublin, Galway, Derry especially come to mind, but they’re gone now and all we can do is learn and be better in those critical moments. Next summer we’ll know whether we’ll be better in those moments. My expectation is that we will be.

APPROACH TO 2025

IT must be game by game. We haven’t earned the right to look beyond the opening round of the league on January 25. The eight teams in it are highly competitive. We have four games at home and three away, so we expect to be hugely competitive in the league and we’ll see where we are then. Right now, we’re nowhere and the fight for the ranking points begins on the twenty-fifth of January, and it’s my job to ensure there’s nothing in the way of our players other than focusing on what’s ahead of them. It’s all about 2025. It’s just the nature of the environment we’re in now. We’ve identified our learnings and we’ll try to execute them while moving on with the squad that we have, with the group we have, with the fixtures we have, and stay on point for the Dublin game. We will take it game by game and anyone doing anything other than that will soon get found out.

CILLIAN O’CONNOR

HE was a double minor and did 14 years with Mayo seniors and that’s half his life. I’m going to respect whatever decision he made, but in our discussions, I strongly encouraged him not to retire and give himself the option (of playing again). I would never put an end to any guy’s ambition to play for Mayo. Teams evolve and move on and we will move on too, but I would never put a timeline on anyone’s career. There will be plenty of people out there who will retire you when the time comes. Stay open to the possibility (of playing) as long as you can.

ROBBIE HENNELLY

ROBBIE put in a huge effort in pre-season to see if could he make it work this year again. He was in great shape, he had put in a huge effort and was pushing hard. However, he has a very busy career and a baby on the way so when the reality of what was ahead of him might have dawned when we brought him out to Belmullet, four and a half hours away from Dublin.

He was a huge character in our dressing room and I wish him nothing but the very best of luck in everything he does.