A county board statement<\/a> last June confirmed its management committee had taken a decision \u201cto relieve\u201d McStay and his management team \u201cwith immediate effect\u201d.<\/p>\nThe call to remove him after three seasons in charge came four weeks after he had suffered health issues at a training session and stepped back for what turned out to be Mayo\u2019s last two games against Tyrone and Donegal.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was tough, it was really, really tough,\u201c he told Newstalk\u2019s Off The Ball.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cA train you don\u2019t seeing coming is a tough train, because I had a lot of people gathered around me, who were really good people and I thought had a lot to contribute.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s a game where people make decisions and when you look at it now Kerry and Mayo are in an All-Ireland final and people will feel that they\u2019re entitled to make those decisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019d argue that\u2019s not the way to treat people, especially people who have given a lot to their county and to the sport and to be that savage about the issue is not very stylish, not very classy, I would have said. But you drive on.\u201d<\/p>\n
McStay, who is glad to report he has made a strong recovery from his health scare, said the nature of his departure was perhaps \u201ctougher to take on my ego than my health.\u201d<\/p>\n
He did not want to detract from what is an exciting build-up for the county.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, it\u2019s a big week for Mayo. I don\u2019t want to be nodding to those things. They\u2019re well in the past for me and it\u2019s better for my health that they\u2019re in the past as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
From experience, McStay feels the Mayo camp will be oblivious to the widely-held view that Kerry will win on Sunday. \u201cThey will be absolutely insulated from the talk that the majority outside would be having.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think also Mayo will go into the final with zero pressure. Despite not having won it for so long, I don\u2019t see an outrageous expectation even among ourselves, supporters. We\u2019re realistic too, we\u2019re not amad\u00e1ns in terms of Gaelic football. We\u2019re know what we\u2019re up against it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, McStay, who is the chairman of the Gaelic football expert advisory group, has indicated the two-point arc could be extended inside the 20-metre line.<\/p>\n
McStay said it\u2019s \u201can anomaly\u201d that a kick 40m or more in distance is not considered a two-point score inside the 20m line. The arc stops at McStay used the example of Jack McCarron\u2019s two-point sideline kick, which forced extra-time against Derry in this year\u2019s Ulster semi-final in Armagh.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the ball went over the line 10 yards closer to the corner flag, you\u2019d only get one point for it, so that\u2019s an anomaly. They don\u2019t trial that \u2013 that would be a proposal to the standing committee on playing rules to adjust that.\u201d<\/p>\n
McStay also suggested a backcourt rule, in conjunction with a limit on hand-passes, could be trialled.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow you\u2019re really attacking that lateral type of play. They\u2019re unknowns, they have to be tried and checked out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Mayo manager Kevin McStay said his removal from the role last year was \u201csavage\u201d and \u201cnot very…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,4185,112],"class_list":["post-563378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mayo-gaa","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}