Roscommon will take on Leitrim in the semi-final of the Connacht Championship on the 18th June. Kevin McStay will be hoping for a better performance than he saw from his side in the league this year - Roscommon finished bottom of the Division One.
Unfortunately for McStay, he faces into the championship without some high-profile names. Senan Kilbride, Geoffrey Claffey, Cathal Cregg, Donie Shine and Neil Collins have all left the team.
Speaking on Tuesday's episode of Second Captains, the Roscommon manager clarified why Neil Collins and Cathal Cregg are not part of the panel for this year's championship.
McStay found it strange that a number of journalists had written about the absentees but never sought reason from the players themselves as to why they're not playing for the Rossies.
According to McStay, if they had gone directly to the source, they would have discovered that Collins was not with the panel this year as he has taken up an opportunity to work in the fashion industry in New York.
Neil and I have an outstanding relationship. Lovely young man, we get on great. He has an excellent relationship with Liam McHale. There is no issue whats so ever, I have met him three or four times in the last seven or eight months, tried to twist him and turn him and say, 'I know you have great ideas for what you want to do with your life, but would you not just give Roscommon [a go].' And his thing is, ‘If I don’t do it now Kevin.'
He got an opportunity in New York, in the fashion industry, that’s where his life is leading him to.
He would be mad to play for Roscommon. His biggest fear was, a very simple one: if I stay in Dublin, in the fashion industry in Dublin - and he had some leads in that - he said, ‘I know I’m going to be lured by the primrose and blue. I’m going to start driving up and down three times a week and now I’m not focusing on my career.'
There came a moment for him, he got a horrible injury last year, that kind of Paul O’Connell injury, you know hamstring off the bone. It just was a horrible injury.
So there’s no issue there whatsoever, he is one of the nicest young men you could deal with. Life has got in the way of him playing for Roscommon. And I can’t... I wouldn’t change that. If that’s where his focus is now, his focus wouldn’t be with me and Roscommon.
McStay added that he would love to see Collins, 'a serious footballer', return to the panel for next season.
He also clarified that Cathal Cregg opted out of the league due to 'personal reasons, academic reasons and work reasons.'
Cregg is currently in the middle of completing a PhD, something McStay stresses that he fully supports and understands.
I have certainly never down any PhD work, I know how hard it is to write thesis, and to get into the flow of it. When you’re in the zone, you’re in the zone. And that’s exactly where he is. He wants to take time out now to finish it, he is having a run at it, and he wants to get it done and out of the way. I suppose these things, if you don’t hit them while the iron is hot, they tend to go on and on.
So do Roscommon intend to see him next season? Of course! But again, that will depend how Cathal feels on it. I can’t drag him into a Roscommon set-up. He as made his decision and that’s fine, again it was all on good terms. There was no issue, no row, I didn’t beat him up in a toilet down in French Park or anything. There was cordial relationships, there was conversations about it, and it just hasn’t worked out.
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