Well done to Liam and his team. They surely had a turbulent year and lost some great talent. But the young ones who stood up deserve great credit.
They gave their best and deserve our admiration and support. Well done Mayo women and best wishes to you and your management team for whatever the new football year holds.
Maigheo abú

Well done ladies. Liam McHale has stepped down as the ladies manager and says he'd love to coach the mens team
Watch this space.

@No doubt

Doubt they are considering Liam McHale . ( I hope not anyway ) Ladies haven't exactly done that well under him .

We need a fresh voice & fresh energy.

Well done to the ladies today though . The thought of Liam Mchale as senior manager is actually depressing.

No need for a comment like that, Clare, about someone who has served his county with distinction, even if his time with the ladies’ team wasn’t a success. You might want to read that bit of Keith Duggan’s ‘House of Pain’ where he mentions that Liam left the bedside of his dying father to go and play for Mayo in a Connacht final and then returned to be with him till his end afterwards.

Well said Willie Joe. Liam did a brilliant job with the ladies and brought on a number of young players when others opted out for some sort of a protest which I could never understand. Mayo ladies will as Liam said be up at the top in a few years. The only thing I am disappointed at is that he didn't finish his term and give it another year. Hopefully he has something good lined up as he has given trojan service to Mayo on and off the field.

Clare I really am not sure what understanding you actually have of Gaelic football.Liam McHale is one of the greats of mayo football and probably one of the midfielders of all time .besides the fact he didn’t say anything about managing the mayo team.he is a coach and he left the just departed management team because of the awful tactics the were imposing .

Liam McHale is a well respected coach and i have heard him praised for his training and coaches methods when he was involved with various teams.

You’re right WJ. My late mother was in hospital at the same time and I went in to visit her after the match and saw him there. I’d say maybe 96.
I think it was 99 and Ballina were about to play in the club final on St Patrick’s day. Mayo were playing Meath in the league in Crossmolina and I stopped in the Broken Jug for dinner with 3 of my kids. Liam was doing an interview there for the game and my youngest was mad about him but was too shy to say hello. I asked him if he would speak to her after his dinner. He actually got up immediately and came over to her. I should have waited until he finished but was afraid he’d leave without me knowing. I was mortified for asking, but she never forgot it. Class man.

Probably the finest display from a midfielder was from Liam was against Meath in the first match in the final,unfortunately he got no fairness from the linesman or the referee in the replay

Clare that's a disgraceful comment to a Mayo legend

Whatever about Liam's own Mayo career - and yes, he was one of our all-time greats who, like so many others, probably didn't get the respect he deserved at the time - I cannot fathom how on any planet, anyone could describe his tenure with the ladies as "brilliant".

I wouldn't be too hard on @clare. I'd imagine there was no malice in her post for a fellow ballina /North mayo person. Probably didn't mean it to come across as bad sounding.

Please take it easy on clare. She is one of the best contributors on this blog with a brillant knowledge of mayo football she just is saying she would not like liam mchale to manage the mayo senior team. I think a lot of MAYO peaole think the same as clare. Liam McHale has been involved twice with mayo senior football management team.

Ya, I'd agree sad to see Liam depart the scene after a year of near misses, he obviously felt he wasn't the right manager to take them forward, and didn't hang on for the sake of it.
I'd wish him the best in his next appointment, I'll always have him up there as among our best on the field of play.

Nephin it was 89 when Liam left his dying fathers beside to play for Mayo very noble indeed in fairness to him and I commend him for that and he was an outstanding midfielder and deserved an all Ireland But he just about saved the Mayo ladies from relegation thats hardly a great manager in anyones eyes? Anyway i wish him the very best in his new role with Ardnaree

and I echo the sentiments of going easy on Clare She's one of the few ladies that comments on here and her opinion is just as valid as everyone elses I think Mary Robinson shattered the glass ceiling in 1990 and not before time so suck it up lads

@Damccc and @1985

I honestly didn't mean any offence to Liam McHale . He was a great player and gentleman .

I just feel we need fresh energy and fresh voices going into next year .

I wish him all the best . But we just need something new and I don't think the answer is Liam McHale .

Thanks @No doubt and @Jimbo

@Willie Joe

apologies if I caused offence .

Glorydays it’s nothing to do with gender .Liam McHale was given dogs abuse over the years in much the same way Aidan o Shea has been treated.From what I know there was issues involved with the ladies team but nobody including Liam McHale was putting him forward for the mens manager,he is a coach who didn’t like the style of football adopted by mcstay and rochford and left the set up .

@2No doubt

Thanks is well . I definetly did not mean any malice in the comment or for it to come across badly . He is well respected in Ballina .

Apologies again looking back my comment did sound harsh but honestly I didn't mean any disrespect.

Take it easy on Clare...she's a true supporter and wears her heart on her sleeve judging by all her comments here.
A lot of talk now about McEntee and Aaron Kernan together for next year with Mayo. There's too much of a vacuum now and it'd completely wreck your head. The county board need to fill this vacancy soon and put us all at ease.

@Pullhard

Thanks I really appreciate that. I shouldn't have written that comment it sounded harsh but I didn't intend it to be at all. I definetly do probably wear my heart on my sleeve when it comes to mayo football . So apologies again .

Liam McHale just didn't work out with the ladies and I wish him the best as I said he's well respected in north Mayo .

Clare - I think you can stop apologising now! You've accepted you shouldn't have posted the comment in the first place and that's all that needs to be said about that particular issue.

Thanks too, No Doubt, for holding your hands up on the other comment.

The reality for Mayo ladies football is that the team has lost more county players to WAFL, than any other county (at least twice as much as any other county.
The AWFL doesn't start for another 6 weeks and none of the ladies in exile wish to play for Mayo.
The county team will not be successful while 8-9 of their best players refuse to play (a lot of counties are able to get their AWFL players to play county football).

The ladies game suffers from massive drop off rate, which are the accepted norm, creating a limited elite and a narrow base.
Mayo ladies need to prioritise participation at all levels and keep girls playing longer.
No ladies manager will win anything for the next 15 years the way the ladies game is operating at the moment.

McHales staying another year won't fix that.
It's at least a 5 year price of work to get Mayo ladies challenging for all Irelands as well as a new underage structure being put in place

Does anyone think to ask *why* the drop-off rate is so high in Mayo or why the girls in Aus don't want to play for their county in the off season like they do in other counties?

It's very interesting to observe on here that when there are drop-offs from the the men's panel, fingers are pointed at management, but when it's the women, they're the ones that are blamed. I wonder why that is.

And for the record I'm with Clare on this. I'd really like to see us try something new this year.

@Anne - Marie

Good post well said .

I think in the world we live in at the moment someone is always to blame and it’s always easiest of all to point the finger at management, so when Cillian, P o Hora etc didn’t play for Mayo this year blame was apportioned to management and when a number of the ladies made themselves unavailable, again the easy option was to blame L McHale. Personally I don’t know why any of the players opted out but I do think a bit of respect all around wouldn’t go astray. These players have the right to opt in or out. They have personal life choices and their decisions should be respected. It may well be that some opted out because of playing style issues or because they didn’t see eye to eye with management. But really respect should be shown to management also. It is not an easy gig and they all set out to do their best. McStay , McHale and Rochford have given sterling service to Mayo GAA both as players and managers. And finally what about a bit of respect for the players who do play. The ladies who did play for Mayo this year knew they were in for a difficult year. But they kept at it and retained their senior status at the weekend. Likewise the men had some extremely deflating experiences, such as the Connacht final and the loss to Cavan, but they regrouped and showed what they were made of v Tyrone and Donegal. All of these people are amateur athletes who dedicate a huge amount of their time to the sport. It is an honour to wear the county jersey and those who wear it or who have worn it are deserving of respect

There have been too many managerial issues in Mayo ladies over the years.
The reality is there has been no All Ireland in 20 years and a history of management issues. Time for the county board to really look at what's wrong and fix it.
Otherwise, the young players blooded this year will have a lot of hard luck stories and no medals to show for their hard effort.

It's a similar problem in mens football also, with a similar history of near misses, management heaves and player discontent.

In both cases, the way we have been doing it isn't working and simply sticking in a new management team wont solve the underlying problems.

Expecting either Mayo ladies or men's to find a football messah to solve all problems and win all Irelands is a fanciful and unrealistic notion.
Put in a structure that develops players and coaches, then success will be an inevitable result.

Mayo ladies club football needs to get stronger and money being paid to senior county managers wouls be better spent on an overall director of football to implement a plan to raise the overall standard. Let that person handle the S&C plans, the logistics for all the counties teama. Then just get a coach to coach each team.

Continuing to do what we've always done will get us want we have always got.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Gi5dh1Jmd/

Based on this the number of ladies being brought to Australia will likely be dropping off...

when is the co. board meeting again on rhe new manager , does any one know.

@Patrick Hayes

There is a county board meeting tonight and I think they are doing a podcast after it for club patreon members .

thanks clare