Oisin McConville reckons Kevin McStay’s Mayo backroom team may be “a wee bit overloaded.”
McConville was part of the Ray Dempsey ticket that recently lost out to McStay for the Mayo job. McStay’s backroom team includes former Mayo manager Stephen Rochford, renowned coach Donie Buckley and Liam McHale.
Armagh All-Ireland winner McConville, who recently took over as Wickow manager, reckons Dempsey’s straight talking nature would have been the right fit for the Mayo job. Former All-Ireland finalist Dempsey led Knockmore to back-to-back Mayo senior titles in 2020/21 and is a former Mayo minor manager.
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“He (McStay) definitely had a strong line up, I’ll give him that,” McConville told the BBC’s GAA Social Podcast. “But I think Ray Dempsey would have been a better choice for Mayo, genuinely.
“I found Ray Dempsey very direct, very honest and I don’t think there is enough of them people around any more, especially in management. I think he would have been a good fit for them (Mayo).
“I think that’s maybe exactly what Mayo need, but lookit, it’s Kevin McStay and he’s got a star-studded backroom team. He had put a good package together.”
McConville continued: “The experienced managers I have spoken to have all said about the importance of keeping it (backroom) fairly tight. That’s not a tight backroom team that McStay has. It feels a wee bit overloaded if I’m honest.
“Backroom teams that are hefty in number even, rather than faces, it’s so difficult to manage them. You are trying to manage players but also trying to manage backroom teams.
“A lot of times a lot of the egos can be in backroom teams as opposed to I suppose the players on the pitch.
Twenty minutes before the Mayo GAA meeting to ratify McStay began, McConville received a call from Dempsey.
“I think the words said to him (Dempsey) were, ‘the County Board have decided to go in a different direction.’
“I thought it was just garbage. Mambo-jumbo, but again it doesn’t really matter what way you say it, you are not getting the job and that’s it.
“That was it and to be honest I was probably more disappointed than I thought I would be.”
McConville says that at the time he was “rejuvenated,” by the prospect of becoming involved with Mayo.
He continued: “I definitely was excited about it because you want to work with the top teams.
“Ray Dempsey, when he first rang me, I said I don’t think there is a team I have seen more of than Mayo in the last 10 years.
“I felt as if every time I seen them I wanted them to play a different way, and I had that in my head.
“When the phone call comes you think you are going to get the opportunity to change things and I wasn’t going to be in there on my own or anything and Ray was going to be the man.
“Still, I had a fair idea of the way I wanted them to play and I thought the opportunity was real, and I was reinvigorated.
“Then the mindset changes because you think, I am ready maybe for a step up from club football, and then the Wicklow opportunity came at me.”
Forty-eight hours after he learned Dempsey wasn’t getting the Mayo job, Wicklow were on the phone to McConville, and after talking it through at home, he met Garden County officials.
“(I) met them twice and was excited by what they had to offer and excited by the fact it is quite obvious they are punching well below their weight at this stage.
“There is serious change has to happen - don’t get me wrong, a cultural change.
“It took 48 hours to get all the answers and we were good to go. It’s early days but they have been brilliant in tying things and getting things done.
“The secretary, Chris O’Connor, she is on it, all over everything, so it is good to have someone like that who can answer those questions you need, because questions are coming up in my head every couple of hours.”
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