Mayo Football and Hurling - Discussion pages

[ballinaman]

Here, lets have our annual fall-out on this thread. We need to move on from the Mayo v Meath thread at some stage!

Start the ball rolling Farrandeelin. Do you think progress has been made? What was our undoing? Any changes you d like to see?

Before the start of the championship, I'd have gladly taken a connacht title. We really needed to beat Galway this year. It's hard to call if any progress has been made, slight progress perhaps considering how poor that Galway team turned out to be. We've managed to beat...wait for it now, Galway, Ross, Sligo, New York and Cavan in the last 3 years...wow...by the look of that we should be delighted with the Connacht title.

We could be here all night about our undoing in the Meath match but I'll put forward a few shouts...

Full Back Line : Corner backs who are lacking height, physicality and are more wing backs than corner backs. Ger Caff, 1st year at this level. Kevin Cahill got cleaned against Cork in that famous semi where we got destroyed and became a brilliant full back with experience, so don't go jumping the gun yet.

Half Backs : Gardiner may be nearing the end of the road as a county player, great club player and gave great service to Mayo. I think a half back line with Howley and Moran on the wings and Cunniffe at the centre would do a great job next year

Midfield : Parsons??? Surely he'll step up next year and fulfil the potential, full of running and well able to field. Heaney didn't last the pace against Meath. A few times i saw him with his hands on his hips breathing heavily. Just doesn't have the legs. Tom Green aka Ronan McGarrity was in and out of the game and never stamped his authority. Seamus O'Shea will push him hard for a place unless he steps it up further.

Half Forwards : Touted as our strongest line going into the Meath match and ended up possibly being our weakest. Never got hands on breaking ball.

Full Forwards: Pierce Hanley would have been useful will O'Shea and Kilcoyne. Regarding Conor Mort, great player but I'm afraid he just isn't the top class forward as we'd like to believe. Plays with the head down and seems to play for himself sometimes instead of Mayo. Glorious chance against Meath and blasted over the bar where the Brogans, O'Neil, Cooper, Meehan, Ronan Clarke type players would have slotted it in the back of the net.

Management: Odd calls in the Meath match and slow to make them. JOM is the best man for the job but he could do with some freshness regarding selectors and voices in the dressing room.

[Farrandeelin]

Janey lads, I don't know but we'd never beat Cork this year. At any stage. It might be the best thing we were knocked out early even though I hate saying it.

[moysider]

Janey lads, I don't know but we'd never beat Cork this year. At any stage. It might be the best thing we were knocked out early even though I hate saying it.

The thing is though there ll always be a Cork, or a Kerry or a Down or whoever. Its the same every year.

[Farrandeelin]

Janey lads, I don't know but we'd never beat Cork this year. At any stage. It might be the best thing we were knocked out early even though I hate saying it.

The thing is though there ll always be a Cork, or a Kerry or a Down or whoever. Its the same every year.

It's rather annoyng how teams never say that about us though all the same.

[ballinaman]

Janey lads, I don't know but we'd never beat Cork this year. At any stage. It might be the best thing we were knocked out early even though I hate saying it.

The thing is though there ll always be a Cork, or a Kerry or a Down or whoever. Its the same every year.

It's rather annoyng how teams never say that about us though all the same.

It's the reputation we've earned though. Teams always feel they have a great chance against us. Looks like the Armagh minor team are something special, like the Down 05 team that we had the pleasure of playing against in the final and got beaten out the gate......

[moysider]

Janey lads, I don't know but we'd never beat Cork this year. At any stage. It might be the best thing we were knocked out early even though I hate saying it.

The thing is though there ll always be a Cork, or a Kerry or a Down or whoever. Its the same every year.

It's rather annoyng how teams never say that about us though all the same.

It's the reputation we've earned though. Teams always feel they have a great chance against us. Looks like the Armagh minor team are something special, like the Down 05 team that we had the pleasure of playing against in the final and got beaten out the gate......

Correct. We always walk into the uppercut. As regards minor, 05 was bad but 99 was even worse. Classy performance in Semi but even a retarded fish would nt have taken the bait we did in the final. We had a slowish full-back line in the first place which was easily identified by any smart opposition. Down management pulled Pat Kelly[ who was pressed into action earlier that year as a fb] out the field and we were filleted inside. One of the management team [ who had something to offer walked after that day- or ousted] Of course nobody in the local media called a spade a spade and it was all put down to a bad day, or the usual Mayo stage fright in Croke Park which is shite to be honest.

I m hopin for somebody like Dempsey to pull through and give us a future. At senior we re only threading water, or maybe slowly sinking but leave JOM there yet cause we could jump into a fire.  Unlike any Mayo manager I ve ever seen before, Dempsey seems to be practical and he knows his game. Optimistically, he  goes about addressing situations[like  not being able to win a ball in midfield v Ros in Salthill] instead of talking shite or ignoring the problem and hoping things will work out, which sadly has been our way. My experience of Mayo is that we wade into trouble even though the DEEP WATER has been well sign posted and yet management repeatedly thickly refuse to deal with obvious flaws. If we were a business we would be in receivership. A restaurant we d be shut down. Chef would be on cctv scratching his hole before he tossed the salad.

[western exile]

Janey lads, I don't know but we'd never beat Cork this year. At any stage. It might be the best thing we were knocked out early even though I hate saying it.

The thing is though there ll always be a Cork, or a Kerry or a Down or whoever. Its the same every year.

It's rather annoyng how teams never say that about us though all the same.

It's the reputation we've earned though. Teams always feel they have a great chance against us. Looks like the Armagh minor team are something special, like the Down 05 team that we had the pleasure of playing against in the final and got beaten out the gate......

Correct. We always walk into the uppercut. As regards minor, 05 was bad but 99 was even worse. Classy performance in Semi but even a retarded fish would nt have taken the bait we did in the final. We had a slowish full-back line in the first place which was easily identified by any smart opposition. Down management pulled Pat Kelly[ who was pressed into action earlier that year as a fb] out the field and we were filleted inside. One of the management team [ who had something to offer walked after that day- or ousted] Of course nobody in the local media called a spade a spade and it was all put down to a bad day, or the usual Mayo stage fright in Croke Park which is shite to be honest.

I m hopin for somebody like Dempsey to pull through and give us a future. At senior we re only threading water, or maybe slowly sinking but leave JOH there cause we could jump into a fire.  Unlike any Mayo manager I ve ever seen before, Dempsey seems to be practical and he knows his game. Optimistically, he  goes about addressing situations[like  not being able to win a ball in midfield v Ros in Salthill] instead of talking shite or ignoring the problem and hoping things will work out, which sadly has been our way. My experience of Mayo is that we wade into trouble even though the DEEP WATER signs have been well sign posted and yet management repeatedly thickly refuse to deal with obvious flaws. If we were a business we would be in receivership. A restaurant we d be shut down. Chef would be on cctv scratching his hole before he tossed the salad.

Interesting take on it there Moysider.  You might be onto something there...

[ballinaman]

Moysider - Chef would be on cctv scratching his hole before he tossed the salad.

Beautiful metaphor. Too many times danger and obvious weakness has been identified and successive management at different grades have adopted the Homer Simpson approach " To hide under a bunch of coats and hope that everyting will work out".

[rosnarun]

one of the great things about the mayo team over the last few years has been the number of players coming through. id be willing to bet that there will be at least 3 new starters on tthe mayo team come next summer. a lot of the time we are replacing like with like but our conistent showing at underage gives us loads of options and picking the best and leaving the rest is the way forward.
obviously A oshea this year was a major additon but so too was the return of a kilcoyne to top form . we need to keep any eye on some of the younger players. who dont automaticly make the jump too senior level , a 22 or 23 year old guy is plenty young to start an inter county career.
a lad who may not ave been mature/strong enough at 20 to make the grade should be encouraged to keep going and shown there is hope. but there is a sang in this.
nothing annoys me more than to see a guy at 19 starting for the senior team making a balls of ot and being for ever more known as not being county standard. look at our list of one year  corner forwards for example , the prentys alan durcan mikey sweeney barry regan Micheal conroy damien munnelly and others i cant remember. not saying they would all be good enough but there sometimes  seems to be a splattergun approach.

[Farrandeelin]

Who will O'Mahony start over his current crop?

[moysider]

Not sure changes will make much difference unless other things are addressed. Tactically we re limited. After a few injuries our bench was very bare. We lack leaders on the field. The physical  preparation of the team needs to change.

[Mister_Mayor]

I m hopin for somebody like Dempsey to pull through and give us a future. At senior we re only threading water, or maybe slowly sinking but leave JOM there yet cause we could jump into a fire.  Unlike any Mayo manager I ve ever seen before, Dempsey seems to be practical and he knows his game. Optimistically, he  goes about addressing situations[like  not being able to win a ball in midfield v Ros in Salthill] instead of talking shite or ignoring the problem and hoping things will work out, which sadly has been our way. My experience of Mayo is that we wade into trouble even though the DEEP WATER has been well sign posted and yet management repeatedly thickly refuse to deal with obvious flaws. If we were a business we would be in receivership. A restaurant we d be shut down. Chef would be on cctv scratching his hole before he tossed the salad.

First post on this board lads. Interesting discussion. I think Dempsey is pragmatic in his approach (as you correctly pointed out Farrandeelin), which seems to be working, versus the approach with the senior's. That said, if they get past Down, they will be up against a very powerful Armagh team.

The seniors demolition of Ross was impressive, but only from a score line perspective. They simply weren't up to that level of competition and made mayo look good. In the Galway game, the first signs of kinks in the armour were exposed. Against an average Galway middle third we failed to dominate (Mcgarrity fielded only two balls the entire match!). The kinks in the back line were not so obvious in that game, but I'm a firm believer in winning the mid field battle, or at the very least having a split decision. Winning the mid field battle allows you to dictate the pace, style and complexion of the match. Demonstrating weakness is a loosing strategy and other teams (such as meath) exploit that weakness and capitalize on it. We got bullied by Meath in the middle. If we are to be in with a chance in the future, we must develop a long term strategy for this area of the field and build around it. We have the nucleus of the full forward line in AOS and he will grow into that position and make the players around him better. We need to do the same in mid field and at full back.

[Farrandeelin]

Well it was moysider who said it but I'll gladly take the credit.

But it's true though, Dempsey isn't looking too far ahead and is solving the problems on the training field not waiting for major problems to happen on the pitch against the next opposition. You are damn right about the midfield area. I pointed out somewhere I think that the half-backs and half-forwards would have to carry the can but they didn't for the reason Meath bullied us around the middle as you said. Welcome to the mad-house Mister Mayor.

[ballinaman]

Well it was moysider who said it but I'll gladly take the credit.

But it's true though, Dempsey isn't looking too far ahead and is solving the problems on the training field not waiting for major problems to happen on the pitch against the next opposition. You are damn right about the midfield area. I pointed out somewhere I think that the half-backs and half-forwards would have to carry the can but they didn't for the reason Meath bullied us around the middle as you said. Welcome to the mad-house Mister Mayor.

Dempsey took no shit as a player and he has applied that trait well to management and deals with problems quickly as best he can. I agree with that the cracks were there to be seen in the Galway match regarding our defence and midfield. I'm just wondering where are the players going to come from?

We won't have an Aidan O'Shea every year who makes a huge impact coming out of minor. Are we going to have many from last years minor or under 21s going to make the step up. Of the 2009 senior panel, Keith Higgins was the only player not to be from a senior team. I hope that the management take a look at the inter and junior scene around the county,the standard of football might not be of the same quality but there are often individuals who stand out and would be worth taking a look at.

[Mayo4Sam]

Care to tell us ur club mister mayor?