After knocking for the third time, the door to managing the Mayo senior footballers has finally opened for Kevin McStay.
While McStay’s candidacy was strong in its own right given his most recent achievements in Roscommon, where he guided St Brigid’s to an All-Ireland club title in 2013 along with winning a Connacht title while in charge of the county team in 2017, the strength of his backroom team bolstered his prospects significantly.
In his own right, Stephen Rochford would have been a leading contender for a return to the job he held for three seasons up to 2018 and so persuading him to come on board in a coaching role removed a potential competitor from the field while bolstering his own ticket significantly.
Donie Buckley remains one of the most sought after coaches in the game and someone who formed part of three different Mayo managerial set-ups, Rochford’s included, from 2013-18.
McStay has worked effectively with Liam McHale, his brother-in-law, in both St Brigid’s and Roscommon while Damien Mulligan is building an impressive managerial CV having steered Belmullet to last year’s county final.
And while the other candidates, Mike Solan, Declan Shaw and particularly Ray Dempsey, had also assembled high profile back room teams, McStay’s ultimately packed that little bit more punch.
Having missed out twice before, it was hardly surprising that he would leave nothing to chance when making another play for the job.
After his inter-county playing career ended prematurely due to injury in 1990, McStay was just 32 when appointed as ‘trainer’ under Anthony Egan, who served one season as manager in 1994/95.
Being part of a regime that oversaw relegation to Division Three and a decisive Connacht final defeat to Galway may not have helped McStay’s bid to succeed Egan, with the job going to John Maughan instead.
He later managed Mayo under-21s to a Connacht title in 2001 and Roscommon Gaels to a county title in 2004, all the while establishing himself as one of RTE’s leading football pundits.
Taking St Brigid’s from perennial Connacht champions to All-Ireland winners was an achievement that would have struck a chord in Mayo but his second stab at the job after James Horan stepped down in 2014 descended into a farce which he described as the “lowest point of my sporting career”.
“The interview I did, perhaps, I might have been too honest at it,” McStay said later.
“When I say the interview, it wasn’t really an interview because I had the job, because I was the only candidate.
“Yet, 24 hours after that interview, one or two friends of mine in Mayo were able to tell me, ‘You are not going to get that job’.
“That there are other people who are in the race but not saying it. That was very disappointing for me.”
Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes were appointed instead but only lasted a season after a player coup and while McStay subsequently did get a shot at senior inter-county management with Roscommon, he insisted that he wouldn’t work at that level again after stepping down in 2018.
That conviction diminished over time, however. Two years ago, McStay couldn’t rule out the Mayo job at some point when commenting: “There’s a part of me, having said everything I’ve said, sure wouldn’t you sit down anyway and listen to what they had to say.
“That’s assuming they’d even ask.”
They have asked and, at 60, he now has a shot at the job that he has long coveted.
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