Row in Mayo LGFA

Started by Seany, July 11, 2018, 08:57:59 AM

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Jinxy

If you were any use you'd be playing.

Jinxy

If you were any use you'd be playing.

ballinaman

@moefitzpatrick great tweet there, spot on in my opinion.

"Mayo ladies saying their unhappiness with manager affected their mental health is an example of the dangerous blurred line between the emotion of depression and the illness.
I'm sure everyone feels depressed at times. Confusing that with the illness is irresponsible and ignorant"

Jinxy

Off The Ball

@offtheball


"That's the first time we've heard this" - Mayo Ladies county secretary Kevin McDonnell confirmed to us this evening that he had not heard Sarah Tierney's statement from last night, despite the board releasing a statement on it this afternoon.

https://twitter.com/offtheball/status/1042138052817313793

This is pathetic from OTB.
I listened to the interview live and McDonnell was clearly referring to the fact that Tierney hadn't attended a previous meeting between the Co. Board & the disaffected players, and the first he heard of her specific allegations was in the players' statement, i.e. 'mental health' etc.
If you were any use you'd be playing.

JoG2

Quote from: hardstation on September 18, 2018, 07:57:42 PM
Quote from: Itchy on September 18, 2018, 07:55:57 PM
Quote from: priceyreilly on September 18, 2018, 07:48:29 PM
This is not giving off to each other, this is a form of bullying. It can't be denied, he was on a power trip and took delight in it.



"He basically said he didn't give a "f**k" about how many All Stars I had or what name I had made for myself in football. He was the manager and what he said goes this year."

"I knew what was coming. I was brought away from all players and all of management. It was like a personal attack that evening, I can only describe it as I've never felt so intimidated in my entire life.

"He told me I was getting absolutely roasted at training, that I was performing absolutely shite, that the reason I was distracted the previous night at training was because I was so caught up with going to him with this suggestion of bringing this guest player in.

"He was doing this action - 'you're listening to the others, you're listening to the others' - and I was standing back. He was getting visibly aggressive with me at this stage. It was probably the first time I stood up to him and said 'who are these others you're referring to? I don't understand what you're on about.'

"Peter had mistreated this player, excluded her from the team that evening and treated her really badly. Me and Denise were consoling her and Denise was apologising to this player.

"She was told she wasn't selected on the team that night on purpose and that she wasn't going to make the Connacht final squad. Two weeks beforehand to tell this to a player is not acceptable.

"While me and Denise were consoling this other player, the manager was upstairs having a laugh and joke with another girl who was good friends with the girl who was upset and saying 'oh you'll have a fun journey home tonight.'

Nope, not bullying unless you are an over sensitive little princess. Its elite sports, no room for pandering. Stuff needs to be said and people need feedback. If you cant take feedback you would be better doing something else with your time.
THEY FECKIN DID!

And got banned for it.

What about the players welfare officer and this top of the range mediator? How come none of this came out then? This should have been sorted behind closed doors. CS taking to the airwaves blew this up. PL had to defend some of the allegations, as any of us would do. Both parties should keep the mediation going, but no, the media is awash with more from the players who left the squad today. Wasn't 1 but surprised to find out the selector speaking at the press conference was a Carnacon member. Its not pretty and a template for how not to own and sort a major issue.

And priceyreilly, the journal.ie section is missing you

sid waddell

The kindest thing you could say about Peter Leahy is that he comes across as a dinosaur.

Whatever has actually gone on here and the rights and wrongs of it, he has no business continuing in the job.

The reality is he has presided over a poor championship campaign for Mayo and more importantly alienated half the panel.

Only a pig ignorant gobshite would choose to continue in such circumstances and the Mayo board come out of this very badly too for how they set up Carnacon.

macdanger2

Quote from: sid waddell on September 18, 2018, 09:16:31 PM
The kindest thing you could say about Peter Leahy is that he comes across as a dinosaur.

Whatever has actually gone on here and the rights and wrongs of it, he has no business continuing in the job.

The reality is he has presided over a poor championship campaign for Mayo and more importantly alienated half the panel.

Only a pig ignorant gobshite would choose to continue in such circumstances and the Mayo board come out of this very badly too for how they set up Carnacon.

"alienated half the panel" = attempting to drop some senior players who aren't quite as good as they used to be

I agree with HS though that attempting to ban the club was a foolish option, it creates a distraction and generates undue sympathy for those who walked away

priceyreilly

When this story first broke it was meant to be all about Cora Staunton not being able to handle being dropped. It turns out that was false and it's clear now that the issue for most posters here and elsewhere has nothing much to do with these players or anything to do with Mayo GAA. They see it as a chance to have a go at women or feminism as they call it. It's really quite pathetic.
The manager is clearly not up to the job. Bullying players and taking joy in making them cry is not a description of a good manager. The players don't deserve to be treated like dirt. The manager also has a fairly questionable past so you can see why the players would feel intimidated when he's roaring at them in one to one meetings.
The majority have said that Roy Keane was out of line having a go at some Irish players and Arter was right to drop out of the squad. It's clear the issue here is that it's women involved and as I said, some men feel intimidated by the feminist movement. It's pretty weird but there you go.

Jinxy

Pace yourself, Pricey.
The secret to a good wum account is subtlety.
You need to put in the hours before you get the pay-off.
If you were any use you'd be playing.

sid waddell

Quote from: macdanger2 on September 18, 2018, 09:26:10 PM
Quote from: sid waddell on September 18, 2018, 09:16:31 PM
The kindest thing you could say about Peter Leahy is that he comes across as a dinosaur.

Whatever has actually gone on here and the rights and wrongs of it, he has no business continuing in the job.

The reality is he has presided over a poor championship campaign for Mayo and more importantly alienated half the panel.

Only a pig ignorant gobshite would choose to continue in such circumstances and the Mayo board come out of this very badly too for how they set up Carnacon.

"alienated half the panel" = attempting to drop some senior players who aren't quite as good as they used to be

I agree with HS though that attempting to ban the club was a foolish option, it creates a distraction and generates undue sympathy for those who walked away

But he has alienated half the panel. That's a massive management failure by any standards, as is Mayo's championship performance this year compared to last year when Leahy was not the manager. Clearly the best players were not on the pitch after the walkout by the 12 players. It's his job to put the best team on the pitch and he completely failed to do that.

By attempting to stay in the job, he's only making things worse for both himself and Mayo football.


Halfquarter


Malachy Clerkin IT


On all the available evidence, the nub of the issue in the Mayo women's football row appears to be that Peter Leahy probably isn't much of a manager. All the best practice in running sports teams these days talks about a player-centred approach, facilitation, enabling players to express the best of themselves, all that good stuff.
By his own admission, Leahy favours a more direct way of going about the gig, an old-fashioned, frank-talking, top-down authority kind of thing. There are black and white and grey areas in all situations, but from everything we have heard, the least we can infer is that Leahy can be confrontational in his dealings with players and direct in his language around them. To put it mildly, that hasn't yielded the desired results here.
Sarah Tierney's account of her experience as team captain this year is precise and to the point and doesn't paint Leahy in a flattering light. If we take it at face value – and there's no reason not to – Leahy is a manager who doesn't entertain questioning of his methods or even just suggestions by his captain as to the best way forward.
Dealing with these situations in an aggressive manner went a long way to alienating Tierney, who was an All Star defender, a strong voice in the dressing room and one of the linchpins of his team. We can he-said-she-said the situation from here to eternity, but that's not good management.
Not a crime
This matters and it doesn't matter. There is, after all, no crime in being a sub-par manager. Leahy is entirely within his rights to go about the Mayo job any way he sees fit. If players don't like it, they're free to walk away – as they have in this case. It's then up to him to decide whether or not he's part of the problem. He clearly doesn't think so – again, that's his right and his prerogative
Ordinarily, that would be that. In all truth, there's really nothing wildly interesting in a group of players falling out with their manager. Eventually, either the manager leaves or the county board brokers some middle ground and everyone gets on with their lives. What makes this situation different is the fatal misstep first taken by Cora Staunton in her Newstalk interview and then doubled down on by the players on Monday night.
Saying there are issues around player welfare is one thing. Calling life under Peter Leahy "not a safe environment" and "unhealthy" moves everything on to a different level altogether. The Mayo LGFA was right to call that sort of language outrageous in Tuesday's statement. It's just so loaded when used in the context of a male authority figure in a female dressing room.
The players themselves appeared to recognise this on Monday night and yet they still refused to retract it. "Ultimately our issues related to a lack of communication, being undermined, intimidated, feeling isolated and eventually helpless in the entire situation," their statement read. "The whole experience had a significant impact on our mental health. We used the terms 'unhealthy' and 'unsafe' and accept, and take responsibility for, the implications of this language but for us, these are relevant terms and stepping away was the right decision.
No easy task
This is where the rubber meets the road. If the players are happy to take ownership of words such as "unhealthy" and "unsafe", then the onus is on them to show their work. That's not an easy task, clearly. Any environment is made up of a thousand small events, each of which feels smaller still when taken in isolation, thereby making them easier to dismiss.
In the heightened atmosphere of a losing team, personal interpretation dictates everything. At what point does a stern talking-to cross the line into verbal intimidation? How can the location of that line be obvious to both parties? How do you find black and white in a sea of grey?
Into that mix, the situation is obviously complicated by the fact that we are talking about not just player-manager relationships here but male-female interactions as well. At the heart of the matter, that's a big part of why we're still talking about this situation two months after the players walked out.
When people don't know the specifics of a situation but they hear young women talking about feeling unsafe under the direction of an older man, they need clarification very quickly. If it is left vague, the connotations become intolerable as people fill in their own blanks. Little wonder Leahy used the term "close to slanderous" in response and that the Mayo board's statement talked of them "taking advice" on the matter.

Case not proven
This is why it's difficult to justify the players standing over words such as "unsafe" and "unhealthy". Sarah Tierney's account goes furthest toward providing concrete examples of the kind of thing the players had a problem with. On any reasonable reading of it, Leahy comes across as a not particularly likeable figure and the environment around the Mayo team in the early part of 2018 undeniably sounds unpleasant.
But "unsafe"? Or even the slightly watered-down "unhealthy"? Unless we're missing something, that case is nowhere near proven on the basis of what has been said so far.
By the sounds of it, Sarah Tierney was absolutely right to walk away from a situation where her manager was at loggerheads with her as team captain and where she didn't rate his stewardship of the side. But on what they've put into the public domain, it feels like quite a reach to suggest that her safety or that of her team-mates was ever in question.
Two months after the walkout, this whole situation is mired in claim and counter-claim. Unless there's another shoe waiting to drop, it feels impossible to find a route out that doesn't include some sort of walk-back by the players on that specific language. As of now, they haven't done enough to stand over it.

macdanger2

Quote from: sid waddell on September 18, 2018, 09:36:54 PM
Quote from: macdanger2 on September 18, 2018, 09:26:10 PM
Quote from: sid waddell on September 18, 2018, 09:16:31 PM
The kindest thing you could say about Peter Leahy is that he comes across as a dinosaur.

Whatever has actually gone on here and the rights and wrongs of it, he has no business continuing in the job.

The reality is he has presided over a poor championship campaign for Mayo and more importantly alienated half the panel.

Only a pig ignorant gobshite would choose to continue in such circumstances and the Mayo board come out of this very badly too for how they set up Carnacon.

"alienated half the panel" = attempting to drop some senior players who aren't quite as good as they used to be

I agree with HS though that attempting to ban the club was a foolish option, it creates a distraction and generates undue sympathy for those who walked away

But he has alienated half the panel. That's a massive management failure by any standards, as is Mayo's championship performance this year compared to last year when Leahy was not the manager. Clearly the best players were not on the pitch after the walkout by the 12 players. It's his job to put the best team on the pitch and he completely failed to do that.

By attempting to stay in the job, he's only making things worse for both himself and Mayo football.


In what way is he making things worse?

priceyreilly

Quote from: Jinxy on September 18, 2018, 09:36:43 PM
Pace yourself, Pricey.
The secret to a good wum account is subtlety.
You need to put in the hours before you get the pay-off.

I've hit the nail on the head and you know it! The only thing that's not subtle is the anti women/feminist views that are clouding people's judgement on this.

thebackbar1

Quote from: sid waddell on September 18, 2018, 09:36:54 PM
Quote from: macdanger2 on September 18, 2018, 09:26:10 PM
Quote from: sid waddell on September 18, 2018, 09:16:31 PM
The kindest thing you could say about Peter Leahy is that he comes across as a dinosaur.

Whatever has actually gone on here and the rights and wrongs of it, he has no business continuing in the job.

The reality is he has presided over a poor championship campaign for Mayo and more importantly alienated half the panel.

Only a pig ignorant gobshite would choose to continue in such circumstances and the Mayo board come out of this very badly too for how they set up Carnacon.

"alienated half the panel" = attempting to drop some senior players who aren't quite as good as they used to be

I agree with HS though that attempting to ban the club was a foolish option, it creates a distraction and generates undue sympathy for those who walked away

But he has alienated half the panel. That's a massive management failure by any standards, as is Mayo's championship performance this year compared to last year when Leahy was not the manager. Clearly the best players were not on the pitch after the walkout by the 12 players. It's his job to put the best team on the pitch and he completely failed to do that.

By attempting to stay in the job, he's only making things worse for both himself and Mayo football.
Did half the panel not alienate themselves, Cora said on the documentary they wanted to set the tone in the Mayo panel because the other players hadn't won anything, a pretty toxic attitude to bring to a county panel imho.

dublin7

#329
It's amazing how half the panel is all from the one club.

If Sarah Tierney really had such issues with the manager surely she would speak to the player liaison officer. She then doesn't/can't  take up the option to meet with the co. Board along with other panel members and doesn't look to arrange a meeting at another date. If things were that bad as captain you would think she'd have made it her business to speak to someone in authority.

As for the press conference this morning. That was nothing more than a PR stunt. How can you hold a press conference without inviting the press (except for a couple of journalists they picked themselves)