Search Results for 'Stephen Rochford'

The long road home from Cork gave Stephen Rochford plenty time to think over what had just happened in his first game on the road in charge of Mayo after he watched his side get beaten out the gate by nine points in their league opener.

There’s nothing won on the last day of January of note, but Mayo will hope that this will be the worst day they have this year as Cork ran riot on Leeside. Every game is different and Mayo came into it shorn of a number of key men that will surely be big players later on this year, but it still must be taken on its merits as a contest over 70 minutes and in this contest Mayo were so far second best that they game was never a contest from as early as the 20th minute when Cork put themselves three points clear.

Mayo get their National Football League campaign under way on Sunday away to Cork in Páirc Uí Rinn, and for new manager Stephen Rochford it is going to the first major test of his side's credentials in the new season. Rochford will be dealing from a slightly rigged deck when he makes his first team selection, with no players from Castlebar Mitchels available to him, or from Hollymout-Carramore and Ardnaree who have booked their places in their respective All Ireland club finals.

With the greatest respect to the pre-season provincial leagues, they are really what they are, challenge matches with large attendances. They are a means to an end, to prepare you for the competitions that matter, the National league and the championship. They are to build up fitness, improve your football skills, and try to unearth a player or two that might make a difference in bigger more important games. Unlike some folk out there, Mayo’s defeat by Roscommon in the final group game in the FBD league does not bother me in the slightest. After all Mayo, like most, were experimenting and playing with a very under strength team. There are two matters that do concern me however; firstly the delay in appointing Stephen Rochford means Mayo are a full month behind the other counties in terms of work done, and secondly the number of players Mayo have out injured for the start of the league.

For the second time in 12 months Roscommon came to Castlebar in the FBD League and went home with a place in the final after beating Mayo on their own patch. How this season will be judged will be seen in the months that come on much sunnier days, but in this encounter the hungrier and more in tune visitors were deserved victors.

On Sunday afternoon the FBD really gets serious when Mayo face their first inter-county opponents of the new season when they take on Roscommon in Hyde Park. The action on the sideline will be of as much interest for some observers as what's taking place on the field, with Kevin McStay, the man who wanted the Mayo job in late 2014 and didn't get it, and Stephen Rochford, the man who replaced the duo who got the post over McStay, going face to face. It will also be the meeting of two managers who in the last three years have both guided clubs from Connacht to glory in the All Ireland Senior Club Championship.

Things have gone as much to plan results wise for Mayo as Stephen Rochford could have hoped for in his first two games in charge of the side. But next week will see a steep step up in the standard of opposition on what his side have faced so far when Mayo make the trip to Hyde Park to take on Roscommon in round three of the FBD League.

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?