Since very early in the season, rumours have abounded of unrest within the Mayo camp.
They went into overdrive two weeks back when Aidan O'Shea composed a provocative tweet suggesting that logic and Mayo GAA were strangers to one another.
The dissension is out in the open with the news breaking this morning that, following a team meeting in Breaffy, the Mayo players voted no confidence in the present management. Holmes and Connelly were informed of this at the weekend by the team captain Keith Higgins and vice-captain Cillian O'Connor.
Annoyingly for Mayo supporters, the news breaks just as Kevin McStay, an unsuccessful applicant for the job last year, is set to be appointed Roscommon manager.
We spoke to the Sports Editor of the Mayo News (and Sky Sports commentator) Mike Finnerty about developments within the county.
As far as we have ascertained, the Mayo senior football panel, or at least the vast majority of the 2015 Mayo senior football panel met on the All-Ireland final weekend to discuss some issues they had with the team management. At a meeting a vote of no confidence was passed with the vast majority voting no confidence in the joint managers, Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly. My understanding is that Noel Connelly was out of the country on holiday and it wasn't until last Sunday, that the two players representatives met with the managers in Castlebar to relay the decision of the playing group
Finnerty told us that rumours of discontent first surfaced as far back as the defeat to Dublin in the League.
There had also been rumours of discontent at one stage earlier in the season, particularly in the aftermath of Mayo's defeat to Dublin in the National Football League back in the spring. Very heavy defeat, very poor performance, but when you're talking about a team like Mayo, in the top 3 or top 4, when there is a systems failure of that size, there's always going to be whispers that all was not well. But my understanding of the situation was that a training camp in Portugal before the start of the championship had seen a lot of the interests addressed. There were clear to air meetings on all sides and Mayo came back from that training camp ready to go.
Listen below:
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