Mayo Gaelic football – A story of mediocrity, banality and failure
by Dr. Richard Martin
An interesting proposal was made at the Mayo GAA convention last month.
A delegate representing Westport GAA – Willie McDonagh – proposed the motion that the winners of the Primary Junior ‘A’ Championship should be allowed to compete in the Exclusive Junior Championship for one year only.
The current situation is that there are two junior championships.
The first is called the ‘Exclusive’ Junior Championship which is for teams who have no intermediate or senior status. Basically, their first team is a junior team - clubs like Ardagh, Killala, Ballycroy and Ballycastle.
The second junior championship is called the Primary Junior ‘A’ Championship which caters for big urban clubs like Westport and Castlebar, who have senior status and large playing numbers.
Basically, the old junior championship has been partitioned into two separate groups. Presumably the idea is that this will protect the ‘smaller’ clubs who are ‘struggling’ to survive.
The idea for partitioning the junior championship is to allow the ‘smaller’ clubs to survive and thrive as rural Ireland is in decline.
But is rural Ireland in decline?
We are a country at full employment. We have Allergan, Baxter, Coca-Cola, Hollister, Fort-Wayne Metals all embedded in our county.
We are not living in the 1950s anymore where there was no future, and the only future was the boat to England.
The motion was rejected resoundingly by the delegates.
The delegate representing Ballycroy is the respected journalist Michael Gallagher.
He said: “It took years to get the junior championship made exclusive and to get a level playing field for junior clubs in rural areas who are hanging on.
“It’s the most important competition in the world to the smallest clubs in Mayo.”
This begs a question.
What is a small club? Numbers? Mindset?
Crossmaglen is a town with a population of 1,600 people. The Crossmaglen Rangers have won six All-Ireland Club titles and 11 Ulster championship titles.
Achill has a population of 2,345 people and they are a perennial junior club. But why can’t they play at intermediate or senior level?
Swinford has a population of 1,400 people. There’s no valid reason why their GAA club should be playing in the junior ranks.
Ballintubber has a population of 1,600 people, yet they produced one of the most dominant senior teams in Mayo’s history over the past decade. Five county senior championships?
Why? Culture. Hunger. Desire. They worked hard developing underage teams and they reaped the rewards.
Every club (rural and urban) should look at what they achieved over that decade and heed the lesson. Gaelic Games are above all else tribal – Ballintubber understand that.
Every junior and intermediate club should look at Ballintubber and ask themselves how can we replicate what they achieved?
Bernard Tracey, representing Castlebar Mitchels, opined that the Mitchels had only won the competition four times in 150 years – the clear implication being that the Mitchels were never a dominant team at junior level.
Castlebar Mitchels is a senior club; its focus will always be on its senior team.
Any serious player in the club is interested in one thing and one thing only and that’s representing the senior team in championship football.
Certainly, the Mitchels will always field a competitive junior team, but rarely will it produce a winning junior team.
Because of the large playing numbers – 40 plus - Mitchels want and need a challenging environment for the players who aren’t involved with the senior setup.
Currently, Castlebar Mitchels ‘B’ team is playing at intermediate level. They are strong enough to be competitive in that division.
If the Mitchels were to lose their intermediate status, they would end up playing in the weakened junior division and there would be an immediate drop off and enthusiasm from the players.
No one wants to play in a substandard non-competitive tournament.
The club could lose up to 20 players, which is bad for the club and county.
The same would apply to Westport and other urban teams.
Because the junior division is partitioned, Mayo GAA is going to haemorrhage many quality players going forward because the players aren’t playing at a proper standard.
That’s wrong and unjust.
It’s vital that the age group between 18 and 22 are kept interested and that they don’t move towards playing soccer and other sports where they will be properly challenged.
If you nurture young players in competitive junior and intermediate divisions, they will eventually develop and become strong senior standard players. We have seen that with Castlebar Mitchels time and again, Ray O’Malley being a classic case in point.
David Hickey once described Mayo football as a ‘tragic outfit’.
Mayo people were incensed. How dare he and so on.
But it might be no harm to pause, look at the cold hard facts and wonder if he is right?
Mayo have appeared in 11 All-Ireland finals since 1989 and lost all of them. Zero wins. Two draws and 11 losses. The best that can be said is that it is not a good record.
David Hickey played in the great Dublin team of the 1970s and won three All-Irelands and two All-Stars. He is also a world renowned and respected transplant surgeon.
Personally, I’d be inclined to take whatever he has to say seriously. Anyone who is prepared to engage the brain can see that there is something fundamentally wrong with Mayo's approach to Gaelic football, based on our record.
Senior team manager Kevin McStay and company got the gig when Horan left in 2022 and predictably it’s going nowhere.
Same old same old.
Too many cooks spoil the broth. Four cooks will have the broth on the floor.
Rochford was there before. Donie Buckley was there before. They’ve tried and failed.
It was time for something new. The culture in Mayo football is all wrong. Mediocrity and banality rule the roost.
You didn’t hear Castlebar Mitchels complain when Richard Feeney was dropped for the 2013 All-Ireland final. It was a disgraceful decision.
The club never asked for an inquiry. It never got answers. It’s over 10 years ago now. It will take another 50 years to get over it properly.
You didn’t hear the Mitchels complain when they were an intermediate club.
They were relegated in 2001 to intermediate status for the first time in its history.
They had to fight to get back to senior status, which they did in 2005.
Did Mitchels go to county board meetings and complain that they were too ‘big’ a club to be playing intermediate standard football?
No.
Did the delegates care that Gaelic football was at an all-time low in the county town?
No.
The club just got on with it and the journey wasn’t simple or straightforward.
Underage teams had to be nurtured and cultivated. Bottom line is – they had to help themselves.
Are the clubs in the ‘Exclusive’ Junior Championship helping themselves?
I felt and feel it was a grave mistake for the delegates to oppose the motion.
They’re being short sighted and selfish. Life is competitive. And sport is competitive.
Do these clubs in the ‘Exclusive’ Junior championship want to win a weakened non-competitive competition or a highly competitive competition where they take on urban teams and defeat them?
Winning the ‘Exclusive’ Junior championship is like winning a Blue Peter badge.
Where is their ambition? Where is the hunger?
Are they content to just sit in the lower tiers of Mayo football?
Or do they want to win and progress through the tiers up to intermediate and senior levels and compete with the best in the county?
More competitive competition produces higher quality players. Having club competitions of a high standard will develop players for the county panel.
It’s about equality. Players from every club are entitled to play the game at a level which is commensurate with their abilities.
It states clearly in the GAA strategic plan what the values of the association are.
Here are but some of those values:
We provide a games program at all levels to meet the needs of all our players.
We provide the best playing experience for all our players.
We structure our games to allow players of all abilities to reach their potential.
Have the delegates read the strategic plan? I wonder?
Are they aware that the standard of Mayo senior club football is at an all-time low.
Between 1990 and 2005 Mayo clubs won nine provincial championships.
From 2005 to the current day Mayo clubs have won three3 provincial championships.
Castlebar Mitchels in 2013 and 2015. And Ballina Stephenites in 2007.
The statistics don’t lie.
I do feel however that divisional teams should be set up for junior clubs where clubs could amalgamate and compete in the senior championship.
In Kerry they have a divisional system. It allows outstanding players from junior clubs to play at the highest level in the county.
If it’s good enough in Kerry maybe we should take heed and try it. Half of Mick O’Dwyer's great Kerry team came from junior clubs. Paidi. Spillane. John Egan. Liston. All icons. All from junior clubs.
One thing people know in Castlebar Mitchels is that it’s far, far harder to make the county team if you wear the Mitchels badge.
Mayo football is funny. For some it’s easier to get into the panel than to get out.
Some lads have spent 10 years on Mayo panels and produced nothing for their clubs. In Kerry you have to earn the right to be there.
There’s no real edge or intensity in how we go about our business.
Too many Mayo players are slaves to the altar of data science. Possession - lateral pass - possession - backwards pass – no penetration, flair or individuality.
After a game a player could’ve had 40 possessions and 90% passing accuracy and in real terms no impact on the game. As a county we have a very poor understanding of how to play football – winning football, that is.
The Castlebar Under 21 team won the county championship recently. The team included some of the best talent to have come through the club since the era of Henry Gavin, players capable of representing their county in Croke Park this summer.
Croke Park is no place for old men. It’s a place for youth and pace.
Let’s hope the current Mayo management recognises and rewards their obvious talent in the years ahead.
As for the Mitchels, they are not going away, you know!