McStay reveals one of the big challenges he faces in Mayo job

New Mayo senior football team manager Kevin McStay has stated one of the big challenges facing him in the job is re-establishing the county as the leading force in the Connacht championship.

In an interview with the Irish Times, he elaborated:" It’s up to me to harness the talent and bring it all together and that’s what I intend to do.

"We weren’t in the Connacht final this year and that’s where we have to begin.

"I’ve always argued that the provincial championship is the best base camp for Mayo going into the All-Ireland series.

“James Horan’s teams became dominant in the province and then started to appear regularly in All-Irelands.”

McStay said he is also looking forward to the new championship format next summer, which will see the Sam Maguire Cup-competing counties divided into four round-robin groups of four teams.

“The other thing that I’ve been looking closely at is if not a paradigm shift in next year’s championship, a completely new dynamic in 2023. If we can get a strong panel together, that will favour our group.

“If you can dominate the province and come out as a number one or two seed, chances are you have a great chance of progressing in the round robin.

"Once there all you want to do is get back to Croke Park and see if you can exploit the situation created. That’s my view and what we’ll be saying to the group.

“The big challenge will be the creation of a formidable bench and getting that number up to 22, 23, 24.

"Nothing less and hopefully something extra has to be the impact when someone’s coming off the bench. We’ve work to do there. Our bench is not as strong as the other big contenders.”

He does not accept the suggestion that the Mayo team is 'in transition'.

"I don’t see any transition in Mayo. I just see that a lot of good, young players have come on and we drive it on.

"If there was a transition, it’s been pretty much done under James. He brought through a lot of good players in the last few years and we’ve to build on that a little bit but we have to stay competitive.

“There’s no question of us not being relevant in 2023.”