Donegal v Mayo NFL Final

[Redgreenery]

First- Congrats to Donegal.
Twas a fairly entertaining game, I thought Mayo played well enough. On the Mayo side I'd say the stand out players were A Moran and Heaney. I thought Jimmy Nallen played quite well and his old legs brought him through the game as well as they could. To me the game could have gone either way, while Bonner was down if Dillion scored that free I think it would have been a different result. I thought Ger Brady had a very bad game, he gave away alot of possesion but he did pass a good ball to Maran which presented a goal scoring oppertunity. C Mort didnt have his best game, even though he did score 6 points, but most of them were from frees and on fairness to him he was well marked.

Overall it is unfortunate that it has resulted in the same old story about Mayo and finals in Croker, but at least we wertent hammered and we stuck tight in the game and shouldnt have lost by 3 points, Mayo played well enough, it's not the end of the world lads, in 3 weeks the championship starts and we'll have D Brady, T Mort and probably a few more back and hopefully McD and McGarrity will come back during the championship, we'll be back and we'll have to keep the faith.

[loughshore lad]

Congratulations to Donegal and Brian McIver who is a top man. I said on this board a while back that Donegal could be real conteners this year and yesterday reinforced that opinion. It was a highly entertaining game played at an almost championship like pace. I like the look of Donegal they are a big, strong athletic team and seem to have better options in attack this year compared to last. Their style of play has McIvers fingerprints all over it.

[amallon]

Congrats to Donegal on their well deserved win.  Donegal must really be contenders this year, they are on the tough side of the draw in Ulster but I think they have the firepower to win Ulster and maybe go all the way.  Mayo can take a lot of positives from their league performance as well, both teams will be there or there abouts in the later stages of the championship.  I wouldn't like Down to meet either of them!

[AbbeySider]

Hats off and Congrats to Donegal. It wasnt a bad performance by Mayo. It was an exciting game with a nail biting last 20 minutes. I was impressed by the physicality of Donegal. They are a very strong pack and are in great shape for this time of year. The subs that came on for them did the business in the end.

I felt that we were chasing a win when and then Sweeney came on for Bonner. We seemed to be getting on top before there was a substantial break in the play that took the sting out of it. Im still proud of the Mayo performance considering we were under strength on the day. They never gave up and it could have gone either way. Thrilling finish. Well done Donegal!

[redhandluke]

"but at least we wertent hammered...."

Redgreenery, just what I needed on a Monday morning.

[Hardy]

every decision of the referee was hotly disputed by players from both sides. This is a worrying trend in the G.A.A. which seems to be getting worse. If it continues i forsee a time we will have no whistlers, who would take that kind of abuse week in and week out

I agree Pangurban. Nicky Brennan would do well to make this the goal of his presidency, instead of smoothing the path towards pay for play. There's no great mystery about what's needed - just copy rugby's rules and sanctions about respect for the ref.

And the second big problem is encapsulated here

Mortimer ... goes down too easily in my opinion.

.
Not just Mortimer, of course (though his extravagant back-flip from a kneeling position yesterday was a new low). But can we please stamp this stuff out? Again, perhaps we can learn from the rugby ethos - manliness is a value. It's very strange that in our amateur game, where we're playing essentially for honour, we would descend to this lowest form of cheating, while the ethos of honour still largely survives even in professional rugby. Could that be because it's enforced?

If players have had their heads so turned by professional soccer and junk sport in general that they can't understand enough about why they're playing to behave with honour, then it'll have to be enforced. Severe sanctions for divers, using video evidence.

[Jinxy]

Mortimer has now become the primary exponent of physics-defying aerobatics (Sean Cavanagh close second) in the pursuit of a soft free. How someone can vault backwards after being pulled forwards has me bamboozled.

[DUBSFORSAM1]

Good game of Football,congragulations to Donegal, but was it only me or did any-one else note,that every decision of the referee was hotly disputed by players from both sides. This is a worrying trend in the G.A.A. which seems to be getting worse. If it continues i forsee a time we will have no whistlers, who would take that kind of abuse week in and week out

simple solution to this:
1 - only captain allowed approach the ref
2 - anyone else approaching or querying you bring in the Aussie Rules penalty of a 50 m advance which should put most frees in a scoring range...

[realredhandfan]

Dubs for sam good idea about the captains.  Congratulations to Donegal, a long overdue victory.  I have a feeling now for a all green and gold AI final

[realredhandfan]

Hardy  retrospective sanctions for divers would in my opinion be an excellent idea.  In that case can Spillane get suspended for an incident in the early 80's.

[OirthearMhaigheo]

First of all congrats to Donegal, I thought you were just about worth the win yesterday. The break came at the right time for you and you never looked back after that. My initial reaction after the game was things aren't looking too good for us for the summer. Despite what people say, the result wasn't as important to us as it was to Donegal. We won the league in 2001 so we don't crave that cup too much, what was important was a performance and that's what disappointed me. We had far too many players who either underperformed or else aren't good enough. Ger Brady was shocking yesterday, played well below his best even though I don't think his best is good enough anyway at this level, certainly not at CHF. What was encouraging from a Mayo point of view is the way we gave supposed All-Ireland contenders a damn good game with a 2nd/3rd string midfield, no Ciaran Mc (please please get fit), a full back who had to go off after 20 mins, captain who wasn't fit to start and then there is T Mort who would have been useful on a day like yesterday. Donegal weren't far off full pelt bar Devenney so I'm struggling to see how they are genuine All-Ireland contenders at this stage given how they performed against a depleted Mayo team. As for Mayo players ratings, I thought Andy Moran was outstanding, I counted 4 different Donegal backs who had a go at marking him and none could do it. K Higgins was generally good and tried hard all day, Devenney once again is getting harshly critcised, thought he looked the part yesterday, he was the only half back that performed on the day. Jimmy Nallen rolled back the years and had a fine hour until he tired, Heaney was pretty good too, and both gave us a better platform at midfield than I was originally expecting, that was thanks also to Pat Harte who won a lot of ball and broke everything down to Devenney. That was pretty much it though, Conroy was anonymous..... again, Dillon couldn't keep his feet, what studs was the lad wearing?? G Brady, nightmare! All in all we've been getting away with it the last few weeks, especially against Galway last week and finally it caught up with us when we bumped into the best team in the league. Maybe I'm wrong about Donegal, they might have an All-Ireland in them but they have an awful lot of improving to do.
Hard to see an All-Ireland in that Mayo team but if we get all our players back, and we will need all of them, who knows we'll probably be in the shake up again. Roll on Galway in a few weeks time, that's when it starts!

[Hardy]

Hardy  retrospective sanctions for divers would in my opinion be an excellent idea.  In that case can Spillane get suspended for an incident in the early 80's.

Great idea. Why not?

[imtommygunn]

Interesting game yesterday.

Oops, edit...

Best team probably won.

From Donegal viewpoint I would be a wee bit concerned about full back line though. Paddy Campbell looked poor enough yesterday and the no.2 wasn't too hot. At the end though Donegal were dropping to injuries so they did well to hold on. Devenney coming back will make a big difference and I would expect Kavanagh to make the 15.

Mayo have some good footballers. Moran was superb.Keith HIggins is a good wee player. However where was Conor Mortimer? Gardiner as well?

As a unit the forward line didn't really perform. They seem to have four or five players playing for places who are all at the same level.

[Msgr. Horan]

Congratulations to Donegal, dont celebrate too much lads. Lets hope we wont be hearing stories of Monday afternoon sessions in the Abbey tomorrow.
From a Mayo persepctive, disapointing, we had the chance to grab the game and kick on and win it with a few minutes of normal time remaining but didnt do it. We badly need one or two top class forwards who can perform and finish. C Mort isnt it, he has had several chances to shine on the big stage and had not done so, he reminds me a bit of Robbie Keane, can score in the friendlies and in the lesser games but not in the big games. When I say score I mean from play, credit where its due his free taking from the left was immaculate and he seems to have perfected a bit of a technique now even if it seems a bit strange.
cant fault the efforts of the Mayo team, Heaney was immense and was everywhere. Was Kilcullen injured? He didnt look so to me, I though it was a tactical switch by JOM, Higgins did great on Mcfadden when he came on. It was good to see some action from the line when things werent going well, something we've been lacking in the past.

[WJP11]

Well done to Donegal yesterday, congrats on a well-earned NFL title.  For a Mayo-centric perspective on yesterday's events at Croker see: http://mayogaablog.blogspot.com/.