Mayo players and management let down by state of the pitch

The Mayo League/Mayo FC will have to up their game considerably, when their senior men’s team eventually gets into the Airtricity League of Ireland. But that’s all right because they have some time on their hands. However, they will have to be better prepared for home matches than they were last Sunday week, for their only home game in the regional section of the Oscar Traynor Cup.

READ: Mayo denied win by late Galway goal

The grass on the normally shaved, Umbro Milebush Park, was way too long for competitive matches, and it is difficult to work out why another match was played on the same surface, immediately before the big game.

Mayo, under Joe Kelly, play a very predictable game. They sit back, invite the opposition on, and hope to hit them on the break. The Mayo wingers, Ben Edeh and Jason Hunt, are fast, and they move the ball along the ground. Jordan Loftus and Mark Cunningham, too, move the ball quickly along the surface. You need short grass, to move the ball quickly, otherwise there is drag, or to give it it’s technical term, surface friction. The Mayo League/Mayo FC committee know this. Yet, on Sunday week, the grass was long and didn’t facilitate moving the ball quickly.

Longer grass can result in increased risk of injuries to players, too. The committee engages external workers to prepare the pitch for matches. I’m sure there are many considerations as to when the grass-cutting is carried out. But for a match as important as the one against Galway, it’s difficult to see why arrangements weren’t made to have the pitch at its best. It shouldn’t be about what is handy; it should be about the match.

READ: 'It's sickening to concede a goal in the 96th minute' - Mayo manager Joe Kelly

To exacerbate the problem for the Mayo team, the youths game was played on the pitch, immediately before the Oscar Traynor Cup game. Why was this? Surely that match could have been played on the adjacent plastic pitch?

There were divots all over the pitch after the youths’ match too, as was to be expected. No attempt was made at the interval between the games to repair them.

All this might be okay in a lower-league fixture, or if the team was away from home and had no control over these matters, or if it was tactical. But none of these was the case.

Mayo got to the final of the Oscar Traynor Cup last year, and Joe Kelly and his squad have ambitions to repeat that achievement next spring, or maybe even go one better. The management committee should support that objective with action rather than a shrug of the shoulders. I am not suggesting they should cut the grass or roll the pitch themselves. But they should co-ordinate these matters better, and they certainly have no excuse for putting the two games on, back to back, on the one pitch.

Last year’s achievement came as a surprise to everyone. The team did much better than was expected. So you could excuse the fact that the committee didn’t have a dedicated set of shirts for the team to play in, maybe, to some degree at least. But it’s a different story this year. This team has nothing to prove to the people of Mayo or to the Mayo League. They deserve better that was on offer, last Sunday week.

Jordan Loftus, one of the best players the Mayo League has ever produced, and the current team captain, has stated on more than one occasion, that the playing area in Umbro Park, is too big; that it should be shortened and narrowed, and that it is unreasonable to expect amateur players to play on such a big pitch. Has the Mayo League committee considered this statement and have they investigated it, or responded to it?

Additionally, and I’m told this is down to the Connacht FA, the fixture wasn’t up on the FAI Connect App. Why not? Other Oscar Traynor Cup games that were played on the same day, were on it. Doesn’t anybody in officialdom care? Finally, to add insult to injury, the tricolour was missing too, for the national anthem.