Mayo manager Stephen Rochford.
By Cian O’Connell
Manager Stephen Rochford reckons Mayo’s recent dominance in Connacht won’t carry too much significance at Elverys McHale Park on Saturday evening.
Mayo have claimed the last five provincial titles out west, but Rochford rates Galway as a serious team. “Well I think they have an awful lot of good footballers, they we’re within a kick of the ball of promotion, they had two or three drawn games and it could have easily been promoted.
“The rivalry is huge, this is a brand new competition, this is a brand new journey for both teams and I think the experience of the past will count for very little once a minute to seven o’clock comes on Saturday.”
Following their win over London in the Connacht Championship Mayo remained in the English capital training at London Irish’s facilities at Hazelwood. “We were going to London we’d a fixture based in London and you know pulling guys together for going to airports and all that and how much time that knocks off your typical training sessions, we said we’d plough ahead with London,” Rochford said about why they opted for London as a training camp.
“Going to city like London the only thing that needs to be taken consciously is cost and Sterling versus Euro and stuff like that.
“But thankfully, we’ve a very good London Cairde Maigh Eo (Supporters Group) and they were very courteous, assisting in relation to helping us put our bits and pieces together in London, without their help and the support of the County Board we wouldn’t have been able to make it happen and that’s the truth.”
Rochford found the stint useful, though, ahead of the Galway fixture. “It’s a mentally and physically trying couple of days, but that’s the nature of it you’re trying to, you know we haven’t got the opportunity to meet every day of the week like some other counties have the availability to have guys close by.
“We try to maximise every minute that we do and in the camp there was a bit of down time, but as having to be able to spend that with all 33 lads and the backroom team, it isn’t feasible, but there were bits of enjoyment in it.
“We’ve six guys involved that weren’t previously and all that adds to bring the squad together, all part of the aspects you want to get out of that there.”
