Kilgallon criticises Mayo underage structures

Kilgallon criticises underage structures


Daniel Carey

FORMER Mayo star TJ Kilgallon has described underage structures in the county as “very poor” and says there is “little or no work” being done in football in many Mayo schools.
Praising the “great structures” in place in Roscommon, where “a lot of work” is “going on behind the scenes”, Kilgallon added that Sligo’s Summerhill Colleges reached eight Connacht ‘A’ finals this year. He noted the efforts of Sligo footballers Charlie Harrison and Mark Breheny in Summerhill, and said Mayo must introduce “outside coaches” if they’re to keep pace with schools elsewhere.
“In general, you won’t get teachers doing the work that they did in the past,” said Kilgallon, himself a teacher in Swinford for 20-odd years. “There’s little or no work going into most of the schools – with one or two exceptions –   [St] Colman’s put good work into it, and Joe McCabe, Martin Connolly and people like that … But in general, the work is not going in in the schools in Mayo, and unless Mayo County Board get a hold of that, I think they’re going to slip.”
A former Hogan Cup winner with St Colman’s College, Claremorris, Kilgallon is “a huge fan” of schools football, but fears that “the likes of Tyrone are leaving us miles behind”. Mayo still have “decent footballers”, he says, “but they need more structure” or the county “will slip further down the pecking order”.
Endorsing an idea put forward by Liam Horan’s strategic review committee, Kilgallon said there was a need for a Director of Football Coaching in Mayo. Such a person would examine schools and keep in contact with players heading to college.
“You’ve got to keep an eye and liaise with [those students],” he said. “That’s not being done enough, and we’re probably losing players as a result. There is a tendency, because we’re a big county, [to say] ‘it doesn’t matter if we lose A and B, we still have got C and D’. Roscommon lose nobody, I would say. They hold onto every crumb.”
With no Mayo team having won the Connacht club title since 2007, and the county’s under-21s and minors both beaten at the first hurdle by Roscommon, it falls to Mayo seniors to make a bid for provincial silverware this summer.
“In fairness to James Horan, Mayo’s such a big county, he’d a lot of players to check out,” says Kilgallon. “I think he discovered that a lot of them were not not up to the mark, really. Whether the best 20 he has at the moment are good enough, I’m not convinced. But I hope I am wrong, obviously. I’ll be rooting for Mayo big-time.”