Edwin McGreal
Castlebar
OFFICERS of the Mayo GAA Board are due to talk to Mayo manager Mickey Moran later this week to discuss his position for the coming year.
However, his assistant John Morrison contacted the Mayo GAA Chairman James Waldron yesterday (Tuesday) to inform him that he would not be continuing on as Moran’s number two for next season.
Monday night’s meeting of County Board delegates in Castlebar leaves Mickey Moran’s future uncertain. The overwhelming majority of club delegates who spoke from the floor of the Failte Suite in the Welcome Inn Hotel expressed major reservations about the Mayo management in light of September’s All-Ireland defeat to Kerry.
“I cannot see why two people from Northern Ireland have to come down when we have ample people in the county good enough,” said Claremorris GAA club delegate Willie Feeley. “Mayo U21’s had Mayo managers and won the All-Ireland. Kerry, Tyrone and Armagh have managers from their own counties. Why are we looking outside?”
County Board Chairman James Waldron had opened the discussion on senior team management by saying that he had spoken to Mickey Moran on the phone on Sunday while Moran was driving back from the Mayo SFC semi-finals in McHale Park. However, Moran did not indicate his plans to the Chairman at that time.
“I haven’t got a definite indication from Mickey whether the intention is to stay or not,” said Waldron. “I feel that they are interested in waiting on. We will be talking to them later in the week with a view to getting a decision from them. They know about tonight and we will be relaying to them the feelings of the delegates.”
One delegate replied that: ‘surely the management shouldn’t be waiting for a reaction from here. I don’t think he is acting like a man who wants, or deserves, the job’.
Bonniconlon delegate John O’Malley asked if there was any truth in the rumours circulated in a national paper last Friday about players’ dissatisfaction with the Mayo management. “I spoke to a few of the players and that wasn’t the case,” replied Waldron.
East Mayo Board Secretary Vincent Walsh also took issue with the tone and content of John Morrison’s speech at the post All-Ireland Final banquet at City West on the night of the All-Ireland while Swinford delegate Peter Geraghty asked why Mayo were “not up for the All-Ireland final”.
Moygownagh delegate Padraig Staunton asserted that the management should be given another year. “We mightn’t always agree with their team selections or their tactics but they were put in a position to do a job. We gave them a two year term and I think it’s only right we put them back for the second year.”
