By Cian O'Connell

Every year Mayo carry equal measures of hope and expectation into the summer.

On Sunday at the Irish TV Grounds in Ruislip the Green and Red face London in the Connacht Championship.

GAA.ie spoke with Mayo manager Stephen Rochford.

Q: Are you happy enough with how things are going having retained Allianz Football League Division One status, finishing strongly in the competition?

A: Yeah, I suppose when we were setting out what our objectives in the league were going to be it was firstly about retaining our Division One status, which we did.  We wanted to bring in a few new players, which we did.  We wanted to try a couple of different things out, which we did.  

Then we had to take into account that we were going to be without the Castlebar guys for part of the campaign, and that practically ended up being for the full campaign.  In all of that we are happy enough with how things went.  We had a number of challenges along the way, it isn't necessarily the case that we were happy with every performance, but I do think we were building on our performances from game to game.  Thankfully we finished up with three or four wins at the end of it.

Q: During the league it can be a real juggling act with so much going on so you must be encouraged now to have a clear run now?

A: Yeah, last Friday week offered us our first real opportunity to get everyone together.  When the Castlebar guys came back, the under 21s were gone.  We have refined the initial squad so it is a balancing act, but it is the same for every other county too.  

That the under 21s went on for a number of weeks, further than other teams, so be it.  We were delighted to see them winning.  That hopefully will have a knock on effect for the seniors so we will see how that plays out.

Q: Going to London brings a different challenge.  The Connacht Championship game at Ruislip has a carnival type atmosphere, is it difficult to cope with the other factors surrounding the game?

A: Yeah, I think the first thing you have to acknowledge is that there will be potential there for distractions.  I think it is a big day for the Irish diaspora over there, it will be a big day for the Mayo folk in the London area.  We have got to be and we will be respectful to the fixture.  

We will go over there to put in a performance, but we will be mindful of 2011.  Mayo were brought to extra-time in that fixture, a number of years after Sligo were beaten over there.  If we don't have the right mindset going into the game it could prove to be a very difficult afternoon.

Q: Obviously it is a hugely demanding role being a manager of an inter-county team.  Do you have time to enjoy it?

A: I don't think you necessarily take time to reflect back to say 'I enjoyed that'. I would have taken a certain amount of satisfaction out of retaining our Division One status because maybe a number of people had started to write the lads and the team off.  

That was just one phase of the season, we have moved on, and we are really looking forward to the Championship.  Without making it sound very sanitised it is a job.  You're not going to get fixated on enjoying it, but to put a term on it, if I wasn't enjoying it, I wouldn't be doing it. Hopefully, and I have no reason to think it won't, it will be rewarding over the course of my tenure.

Q: The expectation levels are always sky high in Mayo.  Is that something that bothers you or are the lads just used to embracing it? A: Yeah, I think you have got to embrace it.  You have got to understand you cannot control it.  I would much rather be in a county that has a level of expectation matched to the potential.  That is probably where that expectation comes from at this moment in time.  

The team and their record over the last few years has shown that they can dine at the very top table.  We just haven't delivered the big result, whether 2016 will be that year or not, we have an awful lot of hurdles to jump.  Our aim is that we will have the team in the best shape possible to embrace that challenge.

Q: Maybe sometimes people lose sight of the fact that Mayo have been contenders during the past number of years.  An All Ireland mightn't have been won, but they have been a seriously consistent team.  Will it be difficult to maintain that level?

A: When you go in you set yourself some personal goals.  I think if one my personal goals wasn't to maintain the level of competitiveness that the team has shown over the last number of years I'd be selling the group short.  

So that is taken as a given at this moment and time, but to be able to deliver the biggest result I think you need to pull a lot of factors together.  That is what we are working away at behind the scenes, to try to deliver those bits that could help us deliver matched with a bit of luck.  Hopefully that will afford us the opportunity to have a long summer.

Q: Everybody rates a particularly strong Dublin outfit, but three or four teams must feel that on a given day they could beat Dublin.  Do you see it that way?

A: Dublin are the standard bearers, they have been without doubt the most consistent team in the country over the last five or six years.  Any team can be beaten, we acknowledge that, but to beat this Dublin team you will have to get a lot of things going for you.  That certainly, in my opinion, is for another day.  

The Connacht Championship is going to be hugely competitive in 2016. It will probably be the most competitive in the last four or five years.  We understand in order to be in a position to retain that Championship we have to perform better each day than we did the previous day.  That first challenge will come against London, if we can perform to a level that gets us over the fixture, we will then have a very difficult assignment against Galway.

Q: Your three campaigns managing Corofin yielded three Galway SFC titles, one Connacht Championship and one All Ireland Club.  Was it a really good grounding before going into inter-county management?

A: Is it the ideal grounding? I don't know.  Is it that you need to work your way up through inter-county?  I don't know that necessarily either.  Some managers like Pat Gilroy, who had no high level inter-county experience, have gone in and what did he do?  He goes on to deliver an All Ireland.  

I don't think there is a definite pathway, but I learned a lot through the three years with Corofin.  We had a lot of good times, we had some difficult days, but they were maybe the days you learn more about yourself and how to manage a football team than necessarily on the day you win an All Ireland.