John Morrison could see it. For all his gracious words about the Mayo county board, players and supporters last Thursday night on MidWest Radio, Morrison has been around long enough to see last Monday's surreal county board meeting for what it was. County board executives are notorious for dictating the agenda of any board meeting but last Monday the backbenches were given free rein to unleash their criticisms.

"I cannot see why two people from Northern Ireland have to come down when we have ample people in the county good enough, " said Claremorris club delegate Willie Feeley. "We have to change our style.

In the final we looked like a minor team standing at the Hogan Stand before the game compared to Kerry." Claremorris is the club of the county treasurer. Ballintubber's delegation was also outspoken last Monday. That is the club of the county secretary. If the executive wanted Moran and Morrison back, do you think their fellow clubmen would still have spoken so freely? Do you think they'd have allowed the current vacuum to exist?

Other factors are bound to have influenced Morrison's decision. Last Thursday he spoke of his education commitments to the University of Ulster, his other coaching possibilities as a master tutor, and the torturous round-trip from Armagh to Castlebar. He may also have calculated that with at least three of the veteran quintet of James Nallen, Kevin O'Neill, David Heaney, David Brady and Ciaran McDonald probably either not willing or not fit to start for Mayo next summer, 2007 would be primarily a rebuilding job.

What would be the point in overseeing that when all Mayo want is Sam? With the team entering a transitional period, there is a strong case that the Mayo manager of 2007 should be the one who'll also be in charge in 2008. What chance would there be of Moran and Morrison still having the appetite for that commute in two years' time?

If the choreography of last Monday's board meeting was odd though, then so was that of Morrison's departure. Why did he and Moran not jump hand in hand? We can only deduce that Moran wants to stay on and that the pair no longer enjoy the kind of telepathy that made them one of the more successful coaching duos in recent times.

It is impossible not to have sympathy for Moran. Even one of his most ardent critics, Joe Brolly, has always maintained that Moran is "one of the few truly great football men", someone who'll take in a Derry under-16 quarter-final before heading off to train Mayo. In the last four years alone, he has guided three different counties to an All Ireland quarter-final, with one reaching the semi-final, another reaching the final. While he is stretching things to claim that in any other county reaching a league semi-final and an All Ireland final and winning a provincial title would entitle him to a knighthood, Mayo were the second-best team in the country this year; Pillar Caffrey and Billy Morgan's sides enjoy no such status and their jobs, no insecurity either.

Reports of players' unrest were greatly exaggerated but to say he has their full support would be exaggerating things too.

"The players aren't in a position to say who should or who should not be Mayo manager, " says one player. "It wasn't as if Mickey was there in 2004. If Mickey came back, there would be no objections from the players. But the players know he's not what we need to win the All Ireland. He's a lovely, honest man but his naivety at times was unreal."

The players could detect Moran's relationship with county secretary Sean Feeney had been tense. "Mickey would sulk away if he didn't get something, be it some pitch or some club fixtures they wouldn't call off, " says a player. "We'd be like, 'Mickey, don't be telling us. We don't have control over the county board'." Instead of being partners in what Mickey Harte would call "the circle", the board were left out of the loop.

One of Moran and Morrison's selling points in applying for the Mayo job 12 months ago was the Ulster card. There was little Ulster about Mayo's approach against Kerry.

"There was no talk of match-ups, " says one player. "Kerry didn't bring back Declan O'Sullivan to lift the cup. They brought him back because of a match-up from '04 and they saw it could again be exploited. The boys were not shrewd or ruthless enough to make the big decisions, of how do we stop Kerry."

It wasn't just James Nallen's capacity to curb Declan O'Sullivan that worried teammates; so did some of the other defensive match-ups.

Dermot Geraghty had struggled all year. In two out of the last four A versus B games before the All Ireland final, the B team had won. If Barry Moran could take David Heaney for two goals, then what was Kieran Donaghy going to do to him if Heaney wasn't provided with some cover? It wouldn't have been lost on the Mayo contingent in the Connacht squad that in the Railway Cup John O'Mahony played a sweeper in front of Donaghy . . . and that Donaghy was held and Connacht won. Apparently Moran and Morrison had toyed with the idea of playing Alan Dillon as a sweeper against Kerry, but if so, why didn't Dillon act it out, and if he refused to do it, why wasn't he replaced earlier? Ditto Ciaran McDonald with his role. Against Dublin most of his touches had been in the opposition's half of the field.

Against Kerry he reverted to the aimless roaming that limited his impact against Laois.

Why did Moran tolerate it?

The pre-match hotel has been an issue of some conjecture. Some players believe it was lunacy to stay in Bewley's Hotel at Newland's Cross, their hotel for the quarter-final and semi-final, where hundreds of Mayo fans could hassle them for autographs and tickets.

Other sources say the management had consulted the players and that it wasn't an issue;

Cork don't make anything of staying in the thronged Burlington. What there does seem to be a consensus on is that little things weren't tackled.

"Guys wore different gear to the rest of the lads, " says one player. "Some guys didn't tog out for a runaround on Saturday [before the final] because they didn't feel like it. Three or four guys skipped the banquet because they didn't feel like it. Some lads were swanning around Stephen's Green the Friday before the final. I don't think we all ever travelled to and from a game together. Mickey talked about us being family, and I suppose we all wanted to believe it, but when mammy's fighting with daddy and the grandparents feel out of the loop and the kids are cribbing behind each other's backs, the family has issues."

One of the most frightening themes from last Monday's board meeting was the bemoaning of Mayo's apparent lack of physicality. "We looked like ladeens next to Kerry, " said Feeley. Well, so did Tyrone against Armagh in 2003; earlier that summer Brolly said they looked "like an under-21 team", but that point wasn't made last Monday. Instead county board coaching officer Padraig Walsh said he and his colleagues were now deliberately favouring "bigger, bulkier, stronger players" for underage development squads. It was like something straight from the '80s and Charles Hughes' infamous FA coaching manual. If such thinking was prevalent in Tyrone, we'd never have heard of Brian McGuigan and Peter Canavan. And it was why we so nearly didn't hear of Roy Keane.

If Mayo need to challenge some of the utterances of its coaching officer, it must first look for a coach for its senior team. If Peter Ford was prepared to do a Declan Kidney and jump Galway's ship, the county board would now be prepared to forgive and forget his role in the 1992 Brian McDonald saga. Ford is unlikely to desert Galway though, which leaves his predecessor in that role, one John O'Mahony. O'Mahony cited differences with the board and time commitment as the reasons why he could not succeed John Maughan but this month alone he has or will coach St Brigid's of Roscommon, Ballaghadereen and Connacht in major finals. If Billy Morgan and Frank Murphy can do business together after the Night of the Long Knives of '91, then so can O'Mahony and Feeney. O'Mahony is running for the Dail on the Fine Gael ticket next year but he has struggled in recent polls. Taking over the Mayo hotseat would virtually guarantee a seat in next year's Dail.

The only thing stopping O'Mahony becoming the next Mayo manager would be his fear of failure. And you can see where he's coming from.

Reaching All Ireland finals is not enough.

Ask Mickey Moran.