O’Shea confident Horan will stay on as Mayo manager

O’Shea confident Horan will stay


Edwin McGreal and Daniel Carey

JAMES Horan looks set to stay on as Mayo manager for 2014, according to county midfielder Aidan O’Shea and County Board secretary Vincent Neary.
The Ballintubber man is due to meet the principal officers of Mayo GAA Board tonight (Tuesday), with Neary expected to be joined by chairman Paddy McNicholas, vice-chairman Mike Connelly and treasurer JP Lambe.
Aidan O’Shea is very confident that Horan will remain in charge for the 2014 season, and feels it’s a good sign that the manager hadn’t yet spoken publicly about his future.
“People are saying that he [James Horan] has to come out and say something,” O’Shea told The Mayo News after his club Breaffy beat Charlestown in the Mayo Senior Football Championship last Sunday. “I don’t think he needs to say anything. I think the fact that he has two more years left on his term is enough. If he has anything to say, he would have come out and said he wasn’t staying.
“I’m fairly confident. James is his own man but I know he gets huge enjoyment out of being involved with us. We as a team have progressed hugely under James. I’m pretty sure that at the next County Board meeting or whatever, you will hear that James is involved again for 2014. I don’t think there’s anything to be worried about there,” he concluded.
Meanwhile, Vincent Neary said whether James Horan remained as manager was ‘entirely his call’, but he expressed confidence that the two-time All-Star will return for a fourth year in charge.
“James Horan is the manager and that’s the way it is until we have that meeting, and I’m sure that’s the way it’ll continue after that, too,” the Bonniconlon official told The Mayo News.
“We don’t know what his plans are yet, but obviously all will be revealed, and we have to all move on from the All-Ireland final, and this is the first step … No one is rushing anyone into any decisions or anything like that, but ... it’s just nice to establish contact again and see where we’re going from here.”
At last week’s County Board meeting, Ballintubber delegate Ollie Dillon proposed that James Horan attend the next Board meeting to discuss the fallout from the recent All-Ireland Final. Dillon said there were many issues that need to be addressed and the manager should come in and answer questions from delegates.
East Mayo Board chairman Vincent Walsh opposed the idea, saying he would regard it as a form of court-martialling for Horan to be brought before the delegates. Other delegates also spoke against Dillon’s proposal and after a show of hands the proposal was defeated.
Meanwhile, Aidan O’Shea admitted the players had had ‘a hugely difficult couple of weeks’ for the players since the All-Ireland final defeat, but looked forward with optimism to 2014.
“It was a hard loss, something we’re not going to just get over overnight, but when we knuckle back down to training, get back in together, we’re one of a couple of teams that can win an All-Ireland,” he told The Mayo News. “We’re lucky to be in that group and we’re just going to try and push on again for next year and see where that takes us.”