Kevin McStay has vowed to dedicate the next four years of his life to the Mayo cause.
McStay met the media at MacHale Park last night on an evening when three-time Irish Olympic team psychologist Niamh Fitzpatrick was unveiled as part of the Mayo set up.
The former Roscommon boss also revealed that he expected injured forwards Ryan O’Donoghue, Tommy Conroy and Cillian O’Connor to take a full part in their pre-season training.
McStay said: “The workload is outrageous. I am at a time of my life where I am essentially retired and I have the time to give it.
“Myself, my wife, my family, we agreed I would dedicate the next four years of my life to this challenge and so I have the space to do it.
“I had some people in mind on a page particularly this man Stephen (Rochford) and I teased it out through a third party and you had a sense this could happen.
“Then I had a list of backroom guys I wanted to have with me and there wasn’t a Plan B on that list.
“So once he (Rochford) said yes and a few more joined the team we were all in and that was very quickly, perhaps within two weeks.
“Collaboration. That’s the way I’m going to go about it. I would be daft not to use the experience and knowhow and knowledge around me.
“I feel we’ve been able to get a very strong group into the same room at the same time to drive this on now for the next four years.”
McStay admitted that he felt the Mayo job would never come his way.
“I’m 60 now,” he said. “I’d had a few goes at it (going for the Mayo job). I had no sense there was going to be a vacancy.
“I thought James (Horan) would stay on for another year or two. He was doing really good work.
“Okay, they had a season that they would have wanted a bit more out of perhaps, but he was doing a lot of transition with young players. The squad was getting strong again.
“Mayo lost two games in the championship, to Galway and Kerry, so it’s not like they are out in the desert wandering around or something. There is still a very strong group there.
“So I didn’t see a vacancy in it and I was kind of moving on with things.”
Once the job became available McStay said it had “a massive attraction” to him.
“It’s my county, it’s where I was born,” continues.
“I always felt I could bring something to it. I didn’t want the job just so I could say I was the Mayo manager.
“I want the job because I feel I have a lot to contribute and I feel I can make a difference, and the guys I have around me I really feel we can make a difference.
“We feel we will make a difference. That remains to be seen. I can’t tell the future.
“But what I do know is that we are going to dedicate a big portion of our lives to giving this a massive shot.”
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