Westport United boss slams Mayo League fixture schedule

Kevin McNamara, the manager of Westport United, has voiced his anger with the Mayo League fixtures scheduling which sees his side due to play this Thursday and again on Saturday night, after playing on Thursday last at Claremorris and on Sunday at Conn Rangers.

Speaking to The Mayo News on Sunday night, McNamara criticised what he sees as the impracticality of the schedule:
“We can't even train this week,” he said, “the fixtures leave no time for adequate preparation. This lack of training time hampers the team's ability to perform at their best. I can’t prepare a team for two matches with just one training session. We have only Tuesday to prepare for a cup game on Thursday night, and a key Super League fixture on Saturday night. Ballina Town, our opponents, don’t have a game on Thursday night and they didn’t have one last Thursday night either. They are bound to be a lot fresher than we are.”

McNamara’s comments highlight significant concerns about the fairness and feasibility of the current schedule for his team, when others in the league have less games played and are still not expected to play four matches in nine days.

“There’s no time for players to recover from knocks or injuries,” he said. “We had this before and it damaged our campaign. We have no game scheduled in a couple of weeks; the cup game could have been played then. We thought, coming off the pitch today, that we had no match until the weekend. Now we find this evening, that we have to go on Thursday as well. This is very unfair,” he said.

McNamara’s comments echo similar sentiments from Kiltimagh Knock United boss James Costello at the end of April. The Mayo News understands that no fixtures were originally scheduled for Thursday nights, when the list was originally published, and that the Mayo Oscar Traynor side did much better than expected by getting to the final, which meant that some of the original schedule of domestic games was lost. March was a very wet month and games were lost due to pitch issues as a result.

An argument could be made that the Mayo League’s policy of running the league and cup competitions off, between March and August is unrealistic and too compressed. Part of the problem is that the Mayo League is out of alignment with other leagues in the country as a result of playing it’s programme over the summer. The FAI and Connacht Cups kick-in in September and make a smooth end to the domestic season difficult, if the Mayo season extended that far.

Shortage of referees is a problem in Mayo too, with Martin Regan the latest addition to an injured list that includes, Kevin Cox, Martin Halligan and Eric Eaton. The Mayo League was unavailable for comment on Sunday night.

READ MORE: Are there too many cups on the Mayo League dresser?