All the talk about the resumption of competitive inter-county activity after a lacuna of several months has helped to provide some cover for what’s been happening in relation to the management of the women’s county side. It shouldn’t because this affair has developed into a complete farce and a not very edifying one at that.

The women’s county board, to which a number of new officers were elected back in December, finally managed to hold a meeting this week, at which – only days before the start of the women’s league campaign – it was decided that outgoing manager Frank Browne would not be reappointed to the post. Well, he did only deliver a league title, a Connacht championship and an All-Ireland final appearance in his first year in charge and that All-Ireland defeat was no shame either, as our girls were powerless to stop a Cork side hell-bent on completing their three-in-a-row. Instead, in their wisdom, the county board have decided to take charge of the team themselves, until such time as they find some other poor sap to take the job.

The Mayo women’s team, who have done us all very proud in recent years, deserve better than this. Frank Browne, given his excellent record in his first year in charge, clearly deserved better than this. And the Mayo public, too, deserved better than the whining, self-pitying justification that Mayo County Chairperson Caroline Brogan gave the other day in attempting to explain why the County Board – which she has been chairing for almost two months now – has allowed this shambolic situation to come to pass. At the risk of sounding like a Fine Gael politician, perhaps the time has now come for Ms Brogan and her County Board fellow-travellers to consider their own positions.