John O'Mahony will be the first to admit that it just wasn't good enough, the county in general welcomed his appointment as manager back in 2006 and with some good reason he had brought Galway to two All Ireland's and done great work with Leitrim before that. But the way this championship went was just horrific, to loose to Sligo and no disrespect to them was very disappointing, but to loose to Longford in the manner we did was just something I'm in disbelief off. It seems that since the National League final defeat against Cork, the belief just drained out of the players and apart from Alan Freeman and Alan Dillon there's not one player who could hold their hands up and say that they preformed well on the day against Longford. I don't think that Mayo has seen any darker days on the football field.
As for the future I think that Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly should leave their phones on over the next while, they have had a great run of success while involved with the u21 side for four years and won an All Ireland title with a lot of the players who will be left around for the next manager to pick from. But it's important that the next manager is picked quickly by September or so, because they have to get to see the guy's there thinking of in action in the club championship and see what there really made of when things get tough. I believe that the chairman of the county board will be stepping down at the end of this year, but I still think that the county board need to make the decision before the end of the year, so the decision doesn't get dragged out and time lost for the person who takes over at the helm.
We need a whole new approach to football in the county right from the very top to the very bottom, I've said it before but it's something that we have to start and put in place. We need to have a strategy rolled out to produce players and ensure that everything is being run as well as it can, that's not just on the football side but on all other sides of the GAA in the county, with every year a review of how things were handled and things worked out carried out. Performance indicators need to be identified and it needs to be ensured that they are reached by everyone involved.
When it comes to the football we can't continue to act the way we have been and keep our fingers crossed that we'll keep getting a good batch of underage players every few years that will keep us ticking over, proper structures need to be put in place for the future. The lack of proper coaching structures in the county at the moment is terrible and it's essential that this is changed as soon as possible to make sure that we don't end up as low as we have right now again.
