Is Mayo’s midfield last of a dying art?

I’m 37 years old. As such I consider myself not far removed from the present generation of players and I am of a similar vintage to the growing pool of ‘young’ managers, such as Kieran McGeeney, Jason Ryan, James Horan, Jim McGuinness and Eamonn Fitzmaurice.

My management pedigree, I willingly concede, is somewhat below those listed though I have painfully learned the first fundamental law of management, which is ‘be careful not to comment on something in which you have no experience’. This I suspect is a fault of most analysts when we criticise a passage of play, a team selection, a positional switch or substitution.

For example, people will this morning query the decision not to start Donncha O’Connor when he scored a goal and three points in 22 minutes. Or why would you take off your free taker and marquee forward, Cillian O’Connor after 65 minutes when Cork were gathering momentum and a crucial free might swing the result in your favour.