Mayo ‘well set up’ for championship, says Stephen Rochford

Remember all that talk about the Mayo backroom team? It was not long after the defeat to Derry, when Mayo GAA’s high-summer silly season was in full flight with a full six months of road ahead of it before any member of the management team opened their mouth in public.

It began in July 2023 when Liam McHale walked over unreconcilable differences with his fellow selectors over the way Mayo were playing.

In October, he was replaced by Joe Canney, who was branded a ‘strange’ appointment by ex-Mayo footballer Colm Boyle.

Ten months later, the post-championship murmurings turned to grumblings when an article appeared in the Irish Examiner claiming that top Mayo GAA officials were ‘understood’ to want changes to Kevin McStay’s backroom team.

A long-awaited season review - the subject of heated debate at the September county board meeting - eventually took place. Some new people were brought into the Mayo backroom team, but key figures like Canney, Stephen Rochford, Donie Buckley and Damien Mulligan remained in place.

Then everybody sort of calmed down. But all the clamour and kerfuffle about the Mayo senior backroom team seemingly bypassed the very people at the centre of it.

“I wasn’t familiar with any article that the board were looking for changes, genuinely,” Stephen Rochford, Mayo’s former manager-turned-assistant-manager, told The Mayo News when we broached the topic at the Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence last Friday.

“That isn’t the sense that I’ve got from any of my interactions with the board. But at the same time, all of our jobs was to serve the team and serve Mayo football as best we can. We are all very committed and invested in putting the team out for each game on a front foot. We believe that we are trying to do that. We’ve brought a lot of young players through over the last two years and we feel that we’re in a good position to not alone be competitive but put ourselves in a strong position this year.

“Our job, as I said, is to serve the team, but then to support each other and support Kevin, support the other coaches that are there, support the wider environment and I’m really enjoying that.”

LEAGUE LEARNINGS

THEN it was time to talk football. We begin by asking about the league (not the final, as you’ve already copped).

“We probably reflect on the season versus what were our objectives when we sat down in December to look at the season ahead, and I think we’ve achieved broadly what those objectives were.”

Go on.

“They would have included their Division 1 status… embedding the new rules - they’ve had some tweaks along the way - broadening the depth in the squad so, along with a number of other aspects.”

So where did that leave Mayo two days before a league final and nine days before the Connacht championship?

“I won’t say we’re content, but on an overall basis we’re probably happy with where we’re at,” Rochford told The Mayo News.

NEW RULES

THERE were disappointments, of course, particularly the Galway game in the early stages of the league. Rochford notes that that game would have finished 0-14 to 0-10 in old money.

This brings us to the new rules, an irresistible topic for journalists, but one that players and managers don’t really obsess over - at least not in public.

“You go from game to game to see where the opportunities lie in teams. Are the new rules having an impact on where you see opportunities in the opposition? I’m not so sure that’s where our focus has been,” said Rochford.

“In regards to ourselves, we know that the team has got great athleticism. We’re trying to play the game at a fast pace. Just because we want to play a certain way the opposition will also look to blunt that. I do think, though, that the tweaking of some of the rules… the job that the FRC have done has been in an overall context, has been really really good and really positive. I think, as well, their willingness to address some unintended consequences after round five has been positive as well for the game, and I think we are well set up for the season ahead to go toe to toe with any of the teams that are there.”

Let’s see how Sunday goes so.

READ: Kevin McStay names Mayo team to face Sligo in Connacht championship opener