THE FAMILY OF Mayo footballer Conor Mortimer have criticised James Horan’s management style and his decision to continually ignore the player’s club form.
On Wednesday, it was confirmed by the Mayo County Board that their all-time leading scorer had walked out on the senior football panel due to personal reasons.
The 28-year-old made a substitute appearance in the Connacht SFC semi-final win over Leitrim and was again only named on the bench for Sunday’s final against Sligo, a decision which many, including former manager John Maughan, found hard to comprehend.
And on Midwest Radio’s Sports Talkshop last night, a statement was read out on behalf of Mortimer’s family, who believe he has been mistreated by boss Horan.
“Conor lived for Mayo football all his life,” the statement, which appeared in this morning’s Irish Examiner, read.
“He began his inter-county career in the Ted Webb Competition and suffered numerous injuries over the years. Both of his brothers, Kenneth and Trevor, played for the county also and suffered injuries, like Conor over the years. They are 100% behind his decision.
“The family feel that Conor, Kenneth and Trevor owe nothing to Mayo football. Conor is a colourful character and made many friends and some enemies over the years while playing. Conor was out of football for 12 months last year with a knee injury.The manager James Horan never contacted him to see how he was coming along.
“When he returned to football, he was playing super football for his club Shrule/Glencorrib. James Horan was notified of a game he would be playing in, but did not attend.
The family feel that Conor wasn’t wanted in the team. He says that every time Conor was dropped James Horan told him he had a new plan, in that, he had found two goalscoring forwards. However, the Mortimer family feel that plan has not materialised.
“Conor was playing well in A vs B games in training of late and two former Mayo managers saw him and can’t understand why he wasn’t picked.
“He scored 8 points against Dublin in the league in Castlebar and was man of the match in that game, which was well deserved. He was dropped two weeks later for the Kerry game and only played for 10-15 minutes of it.
“He was dropped again from the starting 15 for the Leitrim game because of this plan referred to by the manager. He is currently fourth choice as a corner forward and it has destroyed his confidence. He wasn’t happy with the way football was being played in the Mayo camp.”
They added that other players from Shrule/Glencorrib have consistently been overlooked by Horan in recent years: ”When the previous manager was in charge, there were four Shrule/Glencorrib players on the panel. Now there are none. Mark Ronaldson was another example from last season. He was playing well and was dropped from the panel.
In the last seven or eight Connacht finals that Mayo were involved in, Conor was top scorer in six of them. He is the all-time leading scorer in Mayo. He feels he has another three years of top-level football in him, but has made his decision and his family are behind him.
“Football was his life and he was never found wanting. He always made himself available to the media, but now all he wants is his privacy and integrity protected.
“His family are extremely happy with his achievements and are very proud of him and have always been 100% behind him and remain so.”
Horan has insisted that the door remains open for the self-exiled corner forward, but a reconciliation seems extremely unlikely after the stinging statement.
This morning, Mortimer (@ConMort) himself tweeted: “Mayo football is bigger than any player always has and always will be so can people just concentrate on getting behind the team for the game on Sunday. I have, even as a player, always been a huge supporter and will be again this weekend.”
These two games against top English sides are great opportunities for Tom Ahern to propel himself into the Irish squad
@Kevin Ryan: izzy, baird, conan, pendergast and timoney all ahead at this stage.
@chris mcdonnell: stopped reading at conan….
@chris mcdonnell: I don’t want to knock anyone. They’re all good players of course; but I think we know by now that Prendergast and Timoney are pretty unlikely to ever establish themselves in the Ireland side. Ahern has the potential to do so.
@Niall English: The 42 is an interesting selection to have your mid life crises on
@Niall English: conan ahead of the lot of them. Not sure about the rest though.
@chris mcdonnell: I think Baird has moved down the Irish pecking order. Not sure the reason why but it seems he has. I think Ahern will be more used in 2nd row by IRL going forward but also cover 6 ahead of Baird. I think Izzy will eventually take a starting hold on that 6 jersey. Conan is an 8 who can do a job at 6. lineout skilks wouldn’t be his strength though and that works against starting him. My feeling is POM will start v England at 6 or at least be on the bench. No doubt he’s behind many others in general play but our LO is critical to starting the 6n’s well and he’s still our best LO jumper.
@Michael Corkery: He’s only started 9 times at 6. Munster have won a grand total of 1 of those games. Putting that to one side, it’s still manifestly obvious that he should be concentrating on second row, given both his height and the number of options at blindside.
If Munster were talking about the good things they did against Leinster, it was a short talk. We need the injury list to clear up, it would be great to pick a 23 match day squad that isn’t influenced by injured players.
Don’t know why Munster are always going on about O’Mahony these days. The guy is busted flush, worn out and too old. Not his fault now. Munster have to pick Ahern ahead of him and bench him. We lost to England last year because he wasn’t at the races with the young English back row so we lost another grand slam because he wasn’t up to it.
@Jimmy Bean: i do recall doris getting grossly outplayed by ben earl in that game also, not the first time hes gone AWOL when the chips are down.
@Niall English: Mr Bean only sees what he wants to see.
@Niall English: He left VanDFl and Doris on their own to play by themselves against the English. He was benched for the South Africa tour so it’s just not me who thinks he’s past it.
@Leonard Barry: Lotta beans on here
@Jimmy Bean: you know the French saying « No scrum, no win ». I got a similar one for the upcoming England game, « No lineout, no win ». Certainly PO’M is not as good as others around the field, but if our lineout calling and throwing is going to continue to be as bad as it has recently, the 2nd best defensive LO in the world is going to have an absolute field day. We’ll need PO’M on the bench at the very least. He can win it at the front if all else fails.