All-Ireland Final, September 18th, 2016 - Dublin v Mayo

[ONeill]

If every Mayo player punched their Dublin player full force in the face just as the ref throws the ball up, I think they'd get away with a telling off. That would be my tactic.

Or give them a running kick up the hole before throw-in like Paudí did Joe McNally in '84.

That was a dirty Dublin side. I remember Barney Rock lifting the goal post and hitting John Lynch over the head with it.

[ONeill]

If every Mayo player punched their Dublin player full force in the face just as the ref throws the ball up, I think they'd get away with a telling off. That would be my tactic.

Ya mean that we should take a leaf outa Mickey's book and adopt the tactics that made Tyrone what it is today?

We only see the medals.

[Lar Naparka]

If every Mayo player punched their Dublin player full force in the face just as the ref throws the ball up, I think they'd get away with a telling off. That would be my tactic.

Ya mean that we should take a leaf outa Mickey's book and adopt the tactics that made Tyrone what it is today?

We only see the medals.

Yeah? Well, we have the same amount of them as you do so what's your problem?

[ONeill]

If every Mayo player punched their Dublin player full force in the face just as the ref throws the ball up, I think they'd get away with a telling off. That would be my tactic.

Ya mean that we should take a leaf outa Mickey's book and adopt the tactics that made Tyrone what it is today?

We only see the medals.

Yeah? Well, we have the same amount of them as you do so what's your problem?

Listen I've a Mayo flag in my garden. Just play dirty.

[moysider]

Since 1951 only 3 teams have lost All Ireland finals without winning one in that period as well. Kildare reached and lost 1. Roscommon reached and lost 2.
Mayo have played in 7 finals in that time (all in last 27 years) without a win. It's a ridiculous stat. really. Mayo fans are in territory other counties' fans have no concept of. We naturally have to have coping strategies in place rather than the cockiness and varying degrees of arrogance you get in other places.

[seafoid]

Since 1951 only 3 teams have lost All Ireland finals without winning one in that period as well. Kildare reached and lost 1. Roscommon reached and lost 2.
Mayo have played in 7 finals in that time (all in last 27 years) without a win. It's a ridiculous stat. really. Mayo fans are in territory other counties' fans have no concept of. We naturally have to have coping strategies in place rather than the cockiness and varying degrees of arrogance you get in other places.

I was thinking the same thing. It is ridiculous and it has to end some time. There is no way the Cork 2010  team is better than all of those Mayo teams

[seafoid]

It must be hard being a Mayo fan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT6XCvDUUsU

But 70 minutes could change everything

[seafoid]

http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/dublin-on-the-brink-of-becoming-one-of-great-irish-sports-teams-1.2794231

All-Ireland SFC Final: Dublin v Mayo, Croke Park, Sunday, 3.30pm
The curse of attaining the status of a great team is the instinct it creates in the rest of us to assert that actually you're not that great after all. If we spent the rest of the summer picking holes in most teams with the determination we apply to the task when Dublin are on the slate, there'd be a lot of snotty letters sent in from Outraged of Oughterard and Belligerent of Bellaghy.
We don't though. We accentuate the positives when it comes to 99 per cent of the counties, which is actually the worst kind of damning with faint praise. This team's system makes them hard to beat, that crowd have a serious free-taker who will keep them in it long enough to have a puncher's chance, SuchAndSuch Park is a tough place to go. Most of the time, we're reaching.
But with Dublin, the parlour game all year is finding the weakness that will cause the edifice to crumble. We were handed a pair of them in early spring this time around, with the defection of Jack McCaffrey and Rory O'Carroll. That'll cost them eventually, we said. Has to.
Well, we're 70 minutes from eventually and they haven't missed a beat yet. Defeat Mayo tomorrow and their status as one of the great Irish sports teams is assured. You have to go back to 2010 to find an All-Ireland final that didn't feature any two from Dublin, Mayo, Kerry and Donegal so we can say that those four counties have been consistently an ocean clear of the rest. Win tomorrow and Dublin will separate themselves finally and definitively from that elite.
The beauty of Jim Gavin and his team this year has been to recognise that you never stand in the same river twice. People move on, the game moves on, Dublin move on. They are a subtly different team this year. Still physical, still methodical, still brutally economic in front of the posts. But the loss of McCaffrey in particular has changed how they go about building a score.
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Of the 18 goals Dublin scored in the 2015 championship, McCaffrey was involved to a greater or lesser extent in nine. He scored one, had the last pass for two others, carried at pace between the 45s to take out opposition players for five (5!) more and laid off a handpass to start a move that led to another. You don't just hand the jersey to the next guy and expect to carry on as normal. Not all animals are equal.
Dublin have scored just five goals in 2016. And yet their average score total per game has not fallen away. By any means. In 2015, they scored 18-118 over seven games, an average return of 24.6 points per game. In 2016, they're on 5-98 after five games – or 22.6 points per game. Once they'd lost the footballer of the year, they looked for alternative cat-skinning methods. Taking your points and waiting for the goals to come isn't such an old-fashioned notion after all.
Argument
So what argument can be made for Mayo here? Oddly enough, there are a few. It has been said, with plenty of justification, that they haven't been impressive through the qualifiers. But anyone watching them can see that in 2016, they haven't been sent out to impress.
For one thing, they have enough players who've done enough impressing and they know by now that it's for the birds. All those games where they blew Sligo and Galway and Donegal to smithereens, what were they for? Who were they going to blow to smithereens in late August or September?
Instead, under Stephen Rochford, they are built to (a) not concede goals and (b) tailor their approach for each specific day. They've given up three goals in seven games so they're getting somewhere with the first part. As for the second, we'll see what they come with.
Rochford has taken a measure of their adventure out and replaced it with the sort of flintiness that has been missing on the days when their hearts were most badly broken. The question now is whether that buys them anything more than a two- or three-point defeat in which they are in touch all the way without ever making a burst at winning. This, it hardly needs pointing out, is an entirely feasible scenario.
Containment
It looks inevitable that Mayo's initial approach will be containment of a sort. It seems unlikely that they played a sweeper all year to abandon it in the All-Ireland final – against Dublin of all teams.
That leaves them with five forwards, which either means Cian O'Sullivan gets an armchair ride at centre-back or Philly McMahon goes score-hunting when the mood takes him. Neither is good.
Ultimately, the nagging feeling when it comes to Mayo is not particularly different to what it was midway through the 2012 and 2013 finals. You look at their forwards and you try to find enough scores and you struggle. Maybe Cillian O'Connor has a day of days, maybe Aidan O'Shea gets on the end of a high one at the edge of the square, maybe Andy Moran beats the sweeper to get enough possession for three or four points. Maybe, maybe, maybe. But you're reaching.
With Dublin, there's no reach. They are what they are, they will do what they will do. Even if it's close with 10 minutes to go, how could you back against them? This will be their 60th game under Gavin. Only 17 of them have been close – a margin of three points or less. Only four have gone against them. It is difficult to argue that this will be a fifth.

[Mayoffs]

Heading East now, the more I think about this game the more I'm thinking we're just not there yet, especially in terms of the quality of our forwards. Listening to Jack O'connor on TG4 last night didn't help, he had the most miserable puss on him, like he was bitter Kerry weren't there. He alluded a couple of times to the hammerings they dished out to us in the 00's and wrote us off completely based on our form to date which is fair enough but ffs cheer up a bit

[The Hill is Blue]

Safe journey to all Mayo supporters who will travel for the game. It's a great time for both sets of supporters. It is all still to be decided and nothing has been settled yet. Each side can still be optimistic that their team will prevail. Bring it on.

COYBIB

[Lar Naparka]

Heading East now, the more I think about this game the more I'm thinking we're just not there yet, especially in terms of the quality of our forwards. Listening to Jack O'connor on TG4 last night didn't help, he had the most miserable puss on him, like he was bitter Kerry weren't there. He alluded a couple of times to the hammerings they dished out to us in the 00's and wrote us off completely based on our form to date which is fair enough but ffs cheer up a bit

Good luck my friend and travel ye in hope and not desperation.
Bear in mind that when the referee throws the ball in, all the bulshit of the analysts disappears into thin air. It will be a case then of fifteen against fifteen and all the overwhelming resources Dublin are said to have at their disposal must be parked on the sideline for the duration of the contest.
Ask yourself if you really accept that Dublin are invincible and that Mayo is just there to make up numbers.
Cast your mind back to the meeting of Dublin and Kerry in the recent semifinal.
Right up to the very last stages, the aging maestros of Kerry gave as good as they got and only when Anno Domini took over, did they wilt in any way. Dublin got through because they were younger and fitter and, dare I say it luckier?
Mayo are definitely faster, fitter and more athletic than Kerry is, or will, be until the old guard fades into the background. Right now, I believe that Mayo would have run the feet off Kerry if they had met in that semi and remember that Kerry left Dublin looking very human indeed.
There is no real point in hypothesising about anything at this, the ultimate stage of the competition but there's no reason to abandon hope either.

KEEP THE FAITH!



(BTW, f**k Jack O'Connor!)

[cicfada]

Good luck to all Mayo folk travelling up to Dublin for the match. All form, logic, etc points to a Dublin win but I have this feeling that Mayo will do it. They have beaten Dublin in big matches and provided they keep their cool even when it's going against them they can win. Bring Sam west of the Shannon!

[bucko]

How can we win tomorrow. Firstly we need a performance far and above anything we've produced so far this year, from 1-15 and from anyone who comes off the bench, we can in no way carry any passengers. We need big games from all our big players, but especially from AOS, COC and McLoughlin. We need a big performance from our management as well, in terms of team selection, match ups, tactics and use of the bench.
We need the bit of luck to go our way, the bounce of the ball, the breaks, the 50/50 refereeing decisions. Even wether or not a player slips or stays on his feet at the vital moment we need to go for us.
We need either the bit of complacency to creep into the Dublin mindset and/or 4-5 key Dublin players to have an off day, and the Dublin bench not to have as big an impact as it is capable of.
Is all this possible? Of course it is. Is it probable? I'm not so sure. Maybe it's just too many factors that need to happen for us, that's what makes it unlikely for us.

[Gmac]

How can we win tomorrow. Firstly we need a performance far and above anything we've produced so far this year, from 1-15 and from anyone who comes off the bench, we can in no way carry any passengers. We need big games from all our big players, but especially from AOS, COC and McLoughlin. We need a big performance from our management as well, in terms of team selection, match ups, tactics and use of the bench.
We need the bit of luck to go our way, the bounce of the ball, the breaks, the 50/50 refereeing decisions. Even wether or not a player slips or stays on his feet at the vital moment we need to go for us.
We need either the bit of complacency to creep into the Dublin mindset and/or 4-5 key Dublin players to have an off day, and the Dublin bench not to have as big an impact as it is capable of.
Is all this possible? Of course it is. Is it probable? I'm not so sure. Maybe it's just too many factors that need to happen for us, that's what makes it unlikely for us.

Would love to see mayo do it and I think to win they will have to score 2 at least and maybe 3 goals
I don't think they can go point for point with Dublin , get the ball into the hands of their best ball carriers and run at them up the middle may be a Dublin weakness,and knocking the ball into the corners to Andy Moran won't work ,push right up on Dublins kickouts. Try some high balls into o Shea on the edge of the square and also get some luck.
Having see both this year I think Dublin are a good bit better maybe 5+ but I hope I'm wrong.

[seafoid]

Donegal 2014 would be the way to do it. The Dubs were cruising until the goals went in. Mayo need to put in a massive shift but if they pull it off they will become immortal. Kids will be talking about them 50 years from now.