Claims of Mayo ladies player power “rubbish”, says Cora Staunton

Claims of player power “rubbish”, says Cora


Daniel Carey

MAYO ladies football star Cora Staunton has denied claims contained in a report conducted by members of the Ladies Gaelic Football Association Central Council that senior players consistently tried to exercise control over the team.
The Carnacon woman described the claim as “an absolute load of rubbish”, and also rejected a suggestion that players had withdrawn from the panel because of intimidation, saying: “None of that has ever gone on”.
The report was carried out by Central Council officers Geraldine Giles, Gerry Doherty and Peter Rice, who investigated the issues surrounding Mayo’s controversial withdrawal from the championship earlier this year. It concluded that the situation was exacerbated “by the poor procedures adopted by the County Board in the appointment of managers” and set out ten recommendations.
County Board Chairperson Caroline Brogan said she was happy with the findings, telling Midwest Radio: “It’s not actually vindicating anyone in particular, and we were hoping that that wouldn’t happen. But we’re happy with the findings [and] we’re quite happy with the suggestions that they have made to put procedures in place.”
Caroline Brogan added that “quite a few” applications had been submitted for the position of Mayo senior manager. She said the County Board would “take up the suggestion” made by the enquiry team that Central Council or another independent body should assist them in appointing a manager, and said they were “in the process” of setting up an interview committee.
Many of the recommendations of the review committee will, if implemented, address long-standing grievances among players, according to Cora Staunton, who said players had been “asking for a lot of the things that are in it”.
But she added: “Things are as bad as ever. You’d think when we ended in August, and the report – as they told us at the Central Council meeting – would be out in September, that we’d have a manager, at the latest, in November. And we’re still here in December [with] not even an interview committee set up.
“It’s the same every year,” she concluded. “You come to a level where you’re fed up. At the end of the day, they’d probably love to see you finish. But that’s not going to happen. At the end of the day, we’ll keep soldiering on. If we get a bit of consistency in, a good manager with four selectors and a physio and a coach, hopefully things might move on.”