at Mickey’s plans
Mike Finnerty
THE first clear sign that Mickey Moran is set to continue on as Mayo manager emerged last weekend when his assistant John Morrison sent a text message to the entire county senior panel reiterating their commitment to the group of players.
Mayo GAA Board Chairman, James Waldron, told The Mayo News last night that he had spoken to Mickey Moran on Monday afternoon. He added that while no decision had yet been taken on the Derry native’s future, he was 100% behind Moran’s return.
“I think like all of us Mickey needed a few weeks out to have a think about things,” said Waldron. “I am expecting both himself and John [Morrison] in Mayo next weekend for the county semi-finals and we [the County Board] intend to sit down with them then to talk about the situation.
”Judging from a text message that John sent to the players last weekend I have a feeling that they are interested in staying on next year. Personally, I don’t think that changing managers will help things. What happened against Kerry is something that we just can’t figure out. We were blown away in the first ten minutes and it’s impossible to know why that was.
“I would feel that the management issue would need to be resolved inside the next three to four weeks as a weights programme needs to be put in place for the county squad ahead of the start of the 2007 season.”
The Chairman went on to say that he has a major announcement to make at next Monday night’s meeting of the Mayo GAA Board regarding plans to improve the preparation of county teams for competition.
“I have enlisted the help of a number of people to work on some proposals and initiatives that will allow us to do something different in terms of the way we prepare teams,” said Waldron. “I would certainly like to see some changes in terms of the way young footballers are coached and prepared and the whole area of weight training and conditioning is something that needs to be addressed.”
MEANWHILE, an online poll of Mayo News readers has found that 80% of them think that Mickey Moran should stay on as Mayo manager. The poll ran for almost five days.
