It's been a hectic month or so for new Mayo manager Stephen Rochford. The Crossmolina native who resides in Ballinrobe was appointed as the Mayo senior manager at the start of December and since then it's been all go for him. The Mayo Advertiser spoke to him this week and asked him has it been what he's expected it would be so far?
The 37-year-old replied saying, "Genuinely, I probably haven't the time to sit back and reflect on what I thought it was going to be. Things have been pretty helter-skelter and are still, you can appreciate I was appointed the first week in December I was appointed. Then your trying to pull players together and Christmas running into the middle of it, I certainly haven't had time to reflect on it. I knew the job was going to be a big challenge and there's a vast amount of work to it, look the same way with any management it's all based with the people you have around you and thankfully those people aren't shy of a bit of work."
Last Sunday was the first time that Rochford and his management team put a side out on to the field in competitive action, one of his key men Donie Buckley is still away for a few weeks yet, but they are still in touch regularly, Rochford told us. "Donie is out in the US since early November, he'll be back at the end the end of the month. Between, Whattsapp and email and one thing and another and on the phone and that's increased more in the last few weeks, we're touching base twice a week now."
Rochford has brought in Sean Carey and Tony McEntee along side him this year and so far it's been so good with the sessions they've been doing with the players "The feedback has been positive from the couple of sessions on the field. The bit of freshness and the voices that they aren't use to between myself and Sean and Tony are there, but we'd like to think we'd have created a nice balance between the medical team, the strength and conditioning team and Donie from the coaching aspect that were there already."
We asked him was it a relief to actually get to the brass tacks of actually playing football last Sunday rather than everything else that goes with the job. "I wouldn't say it's a relief, but it is a welcome change in focus and objectives, it's moved away from organisational stuff, which we spent a lot of time bogged down in and still there is a good bit of that on going. But it was good to get back on the field in the last week and you know, it was good to go and play a game of football, because at the end of the day, that's what it's all about."
As for the performance itself on the field and what they can learn from it Rochford said, "We're 48 hours since the game the game, Tony has watched it, I watched the first half twice and pulled bits and pieces out of it. It was what it was, it was stop start for us, we got out of the traps slow and kicked five points against a strong breeze, I was happy with our fittness levels and the way we went five points up in the second half, maybe two three weeks down the line we'd have finished the game off and took the chances or half chances we created, but we didn't do that and we left NUIG in the game and they came back and punished us, that would be disappointing if something similar happened this week if we wouldn't be able to deal with it better. But we're all on the learning curve, we gave five competitive debuts to guys, we had five guys there that played against Dublin last year, there was a lot to be got out of it more than just a result."
Rochford hopes that after giving five players their debut for Mayo last weekend, he'll be able to give a few more faces a run this weekend against IT Sligo, but that all depends on how things went during the week he explained. "That would be the hope, that would be dependent on availablity, we didn't have any more than 23 guys to tog last week. We'll be reviewing the couple of knocks and bangs that were taken when we assess the team and see the numbers that were left with. We've three involved with colleges, nine with their clubs and then you have your normal injuries and early season stuff."
With a number of big names out with injuries, Rochford won't be rushing guys back for the sake it of it, it's about them coming back in full fittness he told us. "At this stage of the season, when we get guys back the important thing is that they are right. You've got to try and balance that with the importance of the national league, we're very much focusing on Cork and rolling into Dublin and balance that with trying to get games into young players and all those things. We're feeling our way though on a week by week basis as the more experienced players come back we'll deal with it. We can't say that so and so will be in for X game and he'll be in for Y game, we're letting the medical team work through that for the next few weeks, but we'll know a lot more come February 6."
