Kieran Shannon: The Invisible Game and The Pressure Game is on for McStay – and Walsh

In many ways the fortunes of the teams they’re each involved with this weekend will come down to how adept they are in the sphere that intrigued the other.

BIG GAME: Mayo manager Kevin McStay. Photo by Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile

There is one man down on the sideline who is in the middle of something quite unique. It’s a game unlike any other. A game which is different to the game their players are involved in, and a game quite alien to the game that is being watched and commented upon by supporters. And very often pundits too. A game that never ends, a game that bounces from one weekend to the next. A game that he always wants to win. But also a game which he realises every season will ultimately leave almost every single manager a loser in the estimation of a vast number of people. It’s a great game, and a fun game. It’s also a torturous game. And the one thing it always remains, and always has been, is the pressure game. —Kevin McStay, The Pressure Game: A Memoir (2019). 

Although we’ve learned from one of them that they’ve had their differences on at least one occasion, Kevin McStay and Kevin Walsh share and have shared quite a bit in common.