New era for Mayo football will begin next Tuesday

The Mayo footballers will have a new manager next Tuesday.

The fact it will be Corofin boss Stephen Rochford is the GAA world's worst kept secret, but after the Galway champions' defeat in the Connacht club football final last weekend things are progressing much quicker. Rochford spoke after defeat to Castlebar Mitchels on Sunday about his desire to manage his native county and in today's Mayo News the county chairman, Mike Connelly, suggested the meeting to ratify Rochford will be held next Tuesday. The 37 year old bank manager will replace Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly, who stood down one year into their three-year term after the players took a vote of no confidence in the pair. Beaten by the eventual All-Ireland champions in the past four Championships, Rochford is well aware of the quality of the Mayo squad and also their sky-high ambitions. They are ambitions the Crossmolina native shares. "It has been an ambition [to manage Mayo]. At some stage over the next day or two we will sit down and start to plan for that, if it’s something that gets passed onto me," he said in Tuam on Sunday. “Is it eight or nine weeks now since the previous management left their position? So I think from a player point of view, from the County Board’s point of view, and [for] myself and the assembled back-room team I’ll look to propose … if we are gonna be the guys who are getting in there, we would like to get the work on now.” Exciting times in Mayo, whose 2016 gets underway on January 3rd with an FBD League game against NUIG in Castlebar.