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i know what your trying to  say moy but i dont agree with it. you are blaming kilcoyne for loosing the donegal plain and simple. that isnt fair. The ball had to go the lenght of the pitch for the next score.

And the ball will go the length of the pitch sometimes if it s given away. And in future the lad will make sure it goes dead in similar circumstances. Management probably told him that too. Not sure fairness has anything got to do with it. Whether I m being fair or unfair I cannot see how what I posted can be labelled abuse.

Yeah. Massive changes in mayo teams from one year to the next does nt seem to happen to such an extent in other counties?


QUOTE FROM GNEVIN     'I see Tyrone dropping next year unless major improvement happen Mayo/Monaghan will struggle .Cork should be up'

Who exactly needs the major improvement, Tyrone or Mayo/Monaghan?  I m interested why you feel Mayo might struggle? Have no real concerns about next year myself. Is there a train I dont see coming?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  QUOTE  FROM MAYO 51                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        'still think kilcoyne is taking alot of unfair abuse over his miscue against donegal '

I hope my remarks on this issue in various posts have not been interpeted as abuse. I just pointed out a mistake he made that I feel cost us 2 league points or was largely responsible for it anyway. Whether it s fair or unfair it does not constitute abuse.
As regards his suitability for the half-forward line I dealt with that in a previous post.

Posted by: Barney
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Have to take issue with a number of things.

1. In 2001 the ball was lost 30 yards from the Roscommon goal there were plenty of players to stop the onslaught. Nobody did - the blame does rest on one man.

2. Same against Donegal Kilcoyne dropped the ball short to the goalie - they had to make their way up the field to score.


When a game is in the melting pot and you re holding a slender lead you hold onto possession and kill it dead, preferably by scoring again and if not by trying to score again but sending it wide .You then regroup and attack the kick out if there is another one. You do not kick the ball into goalies hands and you do not give it away 30 yards from the opposition goal. End of. Until we get a clinical approach to the end game of matches we ll be losing more close games. Possession is sacred and to turn it over soft in those circumstances is ridiculous. Your right, nobody stopped the onslaught and they did make it up the field to score. But they would nt have without the ball, and they should nt have had the ball in those instances. When a team is given possossion and counter attack anything is possible. Good teams and good players try to eliminate those chances by doing the right thing and finishing out the game clinically. Felt some sympathy yesterday for Clarke because he was trying to keep the ball by giving a short one. He was trying to do the right thing but he either miscued or PJ read it.

 Posted by: ludermor
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'its a bit much to put the loosing of 3 points down to 2 bad kicks, does what happen previous to this not matter at all?'

Course it matters and if we were 5 points clear these errors would not have been punished. But we we re nt comfortably ahead and errors will be punished by good teams and players like PJ dont look a gift horse in the mouth. If individuals make errors in the last few minutes when the game is in the melting pot then its fatal. The lads can only hold their hands up and say 'Sorry, my mistake'. Nobody s effing them out of it. Players make mistakes but when it happens in the last minute of tight matches it can be costly. And those games were always likely to be tight. We lost a Connacht Final in 2001 to late goal after a Mayo forward[ no point mentioning his name now] flicked a  ball on he should have held onto and secured possession. And its not a case of being wise after the event its just good practice and good decision making. On such errors games and titles are won and lost. I think that is fairly clear. I dont think we ll see David Clarke repeat that kick out again.

QUOTE FROM ROSNARUN
'Liam o malley is a definete Starter maybe take a chance on either Cunniffe or Boy but to do both is Just daft'

Why is O Malley a definite starter? In this league he has struggled on Darren O Sullivan. He was taken off Mc Fadden after 15 minutes. Paddy Bradley killed him last summer in Celtic park. He is no recent form to suggest he would have done any better on say Clancy yesterday than Boyle did. Would nt take any chances with a fullback line. The Cunniffe experiment has clearly failed. Boyle might work out but i would nt bet on it either. They re half backs anyway and should be played there and if they cant get a place there then its the bench. I  would like to see Heaney, Conroy and Aiden Higgins played in the full back line against Tyrone.
  In the past Harte has been better than Gill but agree both should nt be played on same team and would nt be if Trevor was fit.
The three points dropped in McHale Park this spring were largely individual errors[ Kilcoyne and Clarke] rather than lack of winners edge. We re battling well at the present time and if anything punching above our weight. We are a division 1 team but we re doing well to stay there this year. Anybody would have been happy to stay up this spring and a few players are coming through while other fellas will be better in a few months time. It s not all doom but Galway look much further along the road right now. They were able to bully us in the first half again yesterday and not let us settle into our high tempo game with the wind. Still we have about 14 weeks to  get things right.

Reasonably happy. Showed guts in the second half to stay in the game and could have got something out of it. The game was a scrap in the first 20 minutes and we got no rythm going with the wind. It looked like an eight point wind and going in only a point up looked ominous but we dominated possession in the second half. At this remove it looks like Galways championship to lose though. Fitzgerald easily snuffed out Austin as feared and Conor just about broke even with Burke. Only Andy consistently won ball and he took his goal brilliantly. Our half forward line was cleaned out and defensively all had their hands full. Parsons looked very comfortable in as close to championship pace as you will get at this time of year. The Barry Moran stuff was bizarre to say the least. The wind was practically gone and with Austin anonimous surely he should have been used as a targetman. the fullforward line as constructed looks easy meat for this Galway full back line later in Summer. A lot of our lads will be better in June/July. McGar Heaney Dillon and Harte come into this category. Hope I m wrong but Gill and Austin just don t have the pace in their game. Trevor s dash was badly missed yesterday in half forward line. We can inject serious pace into a game and that will be our best chance of turning tables in summer imo.

There will be two aspects of Mayo s performance that I m going to be particularly interested in on Sunday.

1. Can our inside three forwards continue their good form against defenders familiar with their stile and tricks? If any backs look cut out for the job of quietening them Fitzgerald, Hanley and Burke do. e.g Burke has marked Conor before and Sammon coached him. They know him inside out at this stage.

2. Will our defence be able to cope individually and as a unit, and do so without wholesale switches being made to rescue fellas being skinned alive early on? If switches are necessary, obviously they must be made to try to win the game but it wont inspire confidence going forward.

If the answer to these two questions are positive then this may be more than another false dawn imo.

Try reading the last line again Galwaybayboy. He s clearly saying that while Mayo may win on Sunday Sammon wont be too pushed because he knows Galway will win in July when it counts. 
Anyway Ray is a good bloke and worth reading if only to get annoyed sometimes.

Smug enough by there by Ray as usual and who can blame him. Galway are flying and have to be the smart money later in Summer whatever about on Sunday. Noticed I m getting hammered here about Kilcoyne comments earlier. Nothing personal but I admit that I m not an admirer of his but it s not based on that 'garryowen' against Donegal alone. My judgement is that he should be a much more effective county player than he has ever shown with the attributes that he has as a player. Successive managers have invested a lot of time in this lad. He s coming 23 now and he s been a senior panelist for about 4 years. Time to deliver. Kevin O Neill had an All-Star way before that age and in 98 a similar aged MacDanger was cutting swathes through Galway in Castlebar. 22 is not a 'young player with potential anymore'. If he s ever to make it, it will probably as a corner forward where his dash can make him lethal. [ his pairing with Munnelly inside and playing off a target-man with O Neill outside was deadly for Knockmore a few years ago] Its probably not his fault that managers have seen him as a wing man and ball carrier [ a hangover from his underage/colleges days] as its a role he s not suited to at this level. Games have passed him by there. He s not combative enough to survive in Championship in the middle third of the field. I would not consider him in the top 5 or 6 applicants for the half forward line. I would have Trevor, Harte, Dillon, Gill, Campbell and Andy all before him. If I had to pick Andy and Kilcoyne on the same team i would play Andy at 12 and Kilcoyne at 15. Anyway the reason he did nt get a run against Kildare was injury. In the current pecking order he would have been the obvious one to bring on. Micky Mullins also carrying injury. If Benson was listed and fit and was nt brought on it shows what management thinks he has to offer and unlikely to figure in their plans later either.

Introducing Kilcoyne and/or Benson at the expense of who exactly Iolar? Last time Kilcoyne got a run he launched a garryowen of a point attempt and Donegal snatched a win from the following attack. He s had several chances at this stage and has not made any impact in serious matches - being anonimous and unable to win independent ball. He might be a better finisher than Andy but he would nt a fraction of the ball Andy does. He would never have got that goal v Kildare last Sundaybecause he would never have caught that ball above his head. And as a wing man he s even less to offer. I d be amazed if Benson improved matters either. Thought he was an awful disappointment at u21 level last year. You mention Paul Galvin. We don t have one and we need one more than we do a genteel sharpshooter. Galvin pitches with a healthy number of scores as well as levelling his marker. If this mayo team plays well we will get plenty of scores. Our running game will draw frees and there are always scores in the likes of Parsons, Harte, Dillon, Gill and attacking wing backs as well as the inside line. The trick for us is getting possession and being able to defend when we lose it. Nailing 45s and  all our scorable frees essential as well. Rosnarun suggets playing Trevor again in the fullforward line. It has its merits as Trevor causes chaos in the opposition wherever he plays. But in 2004 Trevor did his best work coming deep, getting possession and driving forward. That s what saved us against Fermanagh to a great extent.

Would nt say that I m that content with the forwards being selected Iolar but it s hard to argue with the selection of, say Austin, when he s scored @7 from play in last two games. I too would have misgivings about his and others' effectiveness come Summertime. However if it is'nt broken now  there' s no point trying to fix it now because there are no obvious improvements on this  6. That of course may change after Sunday if they fail to fire. We have to accept that we re unlikely to see young Hanley again -ever- in a Mayo shirt. He s just too good not to make it over there. MacDanger s return also no more than a possibility. Those apart there are none that would improve our attacking 6 much, though a return to form might see Campbell force his way into the half -forward line. If the wheels come off this attack it will be running repairs or a return to Barry Moran in the Donaghy role -  with Austin axed like he usually is.

From our point of view team selection will be interesting. Cuniffe has been roasted at corner back 2 out of last 3 matches, being subbed
v Donegal and moved out V Kildare. Not encouraging for his prospects of making it in the corner. I m not sure he should be selected there again. Maybe Heaney is best option for 2 [ and sometimes 3] going forward  with Barrett and Cunniffe fighting for 5 shirt? On Sunday I think Howley should be let go toe to toe with PJ and ditto Conroy and Meehan. If they re going to be good enough to ever do the job then they have to show something on Sunday. Sure you could get Heaney to pick up Joyce and maybe Hiiggins Meehan but we know what they can do anyway and we play more teams than Galway. Come Summer I would not be surprised to see Heaney and Aiden Higgins in full-back line. Maybe Ger Cafferkey might have something to offer also , if he can get a few games under his belt  I think Boyle, Cunniffe ,Barrett and Keith Higgins are wing men. 4 good ones for 2 places. Oh and Pat Kelly - another half back. Nice to be well catered for in those positions but I would be against putting any of them in the corner - although Boyle has had only one outing there and may well be the real deal. His lack of inches would be exploited at the highest level eventually I would fear,no matter how good a player he is, and he s one of the best. The rest of the team almost picks itself with Harte replacing an injured Trevor. It will be interesting to see how our full forward line fares . We were ticking up nice scores this time last year too and then just a puff of smoke in Salthill. We re in better shape than I thought we would be at this stage a few months ago. Last year's rebuilding at 3 and 6 in particular turned out to be a road to nowhere while  Barry Moran at 14 was embraced by many as the future but has nt been mentioned in 7 months. I don t know what last year was about at all but I am encouraged by what I ve seen so far this league, even in defeat. One thing that does worry me is the bench which due to injuries or whatever lacks a bit of depth, especially in the forwards and might explain managment's reluctance to change things the last day.

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Re: ROSCOMMON v WESTMEATH.
« Reply #43 on: Today at 12:11:38 AM »
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John Tobin was a coaching manager and that ended in grief

Ros won a Connacht title with Tobin. along with playing good football and doing very well in the league.

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Carr was different and that ended in tears too

In fairness, Tommy got us to a few league semi finals and Connacht finals. His undoing was the turmoil in the county board at the time.

Maughan won 3 Connachts 1996-1999 and nearly landed an All Ireland from division 3! His Clare team beat Kerry in a Munster final. A Kerry team with Jack o Shea , Seamas Moynihan and others who won All Ireland in 1997. Thats not a bad cv and the fella that takes over will do well to end up as good. I have the height of regard for Tobin- excellent coach in the tradition that the admirable Liam Sammon also promotes.  All I remember Carr for is showin what a hard man he was by effin one of the fool Duffy referees in Ballinlough - a bit like beatin up your granny. Maughan was brought in to clear up and out but once he got rid of likes of Curran White Francie Grehan Rodgers Noone Casey and Frankie Dolan and .......... He was a fool to take that on and he knows it now. Maughan never got any good will in Ros from the start- he lost 3 all ireland senior finals with Mayo after all and an u 21 for good measure tut tut. Who ll be next?

Well he s gone now anyway. Find it hard to accept that the man who won a Munster with Clare [ a more difficult task than winning an All Ireland  with say Kerry] and got Mayo to 3 all Ireland finals in 7 years could be mainly responsible for Roscommon s ills. All his training regimes were brutal but they worked in Mayo and Clare. Maybe some players would need to take a long look at themselves. John Tobin was a coaching manager and that ended in grief. Carr was different and that ended in tears too. Now a noted disciplinarian and fitness enforcer has bit the dust. What next? And who would want it now? Maybe big Fergie and no doubt he would get a positive response for a while at least but anybody who thinks that himself and those minors will come through will be disappointed. Counties are lucky if they get 4 or 5 senior players off an All Ireland u21 team - never mind a minor team. Ros fans will wish they never saw sight of Maughan. He ll be feeling the same no doubt about Ros. After this adventure his managerial career is dead in the water.