All Ireland Quarter Final;Roscommon v Mayo Sunday July 30th

[Syferus]

Ah now Syferus that's not nice calling the webmaster of the blog that. He puts a lot of work into that site and it must be a full time job for him moderating comments. We should all be like the two barbers Paddy Joe and John Regan on Midwest (on Facebook live the other night). Did any of ye see that - have a look at that and you won't regret it. That's what real fan banter should be like, great stories and respect for the opposition. Paddy Joe still scoring the last and first goal of the old and new millennia never gets old.

The keyboard kept autocorrecting it because it doesn't accept Willie as a real word. I don't care enough to correct it. And if you think he does much moderation you'd be severely mistaken. If he did that much he might have some respect within and outside of his own county. His blog posts help incite the worst elements of GAA support.

This is one of the few places online where that brand of soccer-style GAA support hasn't spread. One of the main Mayo supporter pages is that retched Banter page that manages to be even worse than MayoGAABlog - when you compare it to the most popular independent Roscommon supporter page - Roscommon GAA Legends -  there's a stark contrast in tone and levels of respect.

I don't think most Mayo supporters are like the dregs on those places but it's fair to say Mayo have an image problem online. I'd like to see something more positive emerging than things that feed on negativity.

[moysider]

From the sounds of things, a dummy team. Rochford ain't fooling anyone. The differing approaches to announcing the teams is interesting in itself.

Ah, in the Modern era team sheets mean little or nothing. They are there to keep the program printers happy! And for the fading Newspapers to make stories up about! In time players will have a squad number and the team will be named before throw in.

Apart from Davy Murray's stomach bug in the lead up to the Leitrim game and Compton's injury in training before the Galway game our week-in-advance team sheets have been totally accurate. He's named his team and it's up to the opposition to try and stop them, to me that shows quite a bit f confidence and forethought. McStay doesn't fùck about with announcing dummy teams or nonsense like that. He doesn't play the Rochy/Emmo/Smiling Jim media game of dull platitudes either.

There's a lot to like about how McStay handles himself, things other managers might do well to take note of. There's a reason the panel respects him as much as they do.

There's going to be a lot of soul-searching in Mayo if a McStay is the one who closes this chapter of Mayo football. A boxer never sees the end coming until it's too late.

Soul-searching. Not among the ordinary folk there wont be. McStay was blackguarded (twice) by the Mayo executive but the ordinary fan had nothing to do with that intrigue. It might be different in other parts of the county but there is great respect for Batman and Robin where I come from and that would only increase if they pull the rug from under Mayo on Sunday.
Will that happen? I wouldn t be a bit surprised. Ros. have as good a cut at it as Derry, Clare or Cork did. And if Ros. do finish us - well it may as well be them as anybody else. When you're finished its the finishing that counts not who puts you on your hole. Finished off by Ros. would be no different now than finished by Kerry, Dublin or Tyrone.

It should be firstly noted that you come from the brothers' area of the woods. The abuse they're getting on sites like Mayo Banter, Silly Hoe's blog and boards.ie/Hogan Stand is there for all to see.

People are still trying to convince themselves overlooking them was the right choice when each passing year makes it seem like a miss every bit as big as Horan putting Kevin Keane on Murphy, subbing out Alan Freeman or Rochford starting Hennelly last year. Frankly, I'm just happy the people in my county finally see we have a decent management and that there's no chance of any autumn amateur dramatics this year.

Losing to Roscommon would be no different? The vitriol spewing from the usual excitable Mayo supporters this week indicate the opposite. It's one thing to die fighting the giants of the sport, but to do it on 'your' stage against the lowly neighbours? That will hurt and no amount of spin by the most biased supporters will change that. I can tell you it very much matters to the Mayo Rossies in Ballagh that we're put in our place on Sunday. They care because there's something more on the line than just passage to an AISF. All that pride and confidence accumulated from the last 16 years can be wiped out in an instant on Sunday.

Roscommon can deal with losing to Mayo. I'm not sure the opposite is true.

Mayo Banter, Silly Hoe's blog! WTF is that.
Look Sy. Losing or winning next Sunday for either team doesn't mean an awful lot unless a person has the mind of a newt. Whoever wins have to bring a realistic game into the semi. The loser slinks away and regroups. As a Mayo man I've accepted losing to Roscommon in the past + Sligo + Galway+ Leitrim + Fermanagh + Longford + Westmeath etc. That's sport. Anyway why would you bother looking at those banter's and blogs? Silly stuff. If Mayo lose to Ros, I can deal with it, no problem. It will be easier to deal with than the loses we have had to likes of Meath, Cork, Kerry and Dublin in finals and semis down the years. Roscommon should have a different mindset also going forward. Beating Mayo is not the be all. Loads of teams beat Mayo.

[Orchard park]

Syferus,

Is Roscommon legends gaa bigger than the stolen sheep place??

I don't believe it will be any bigger an  issue for a mayo player or supporter losing to us or anyone else. Their season is over whenever beaten

[Syferus]

Even the Saturday morning Westport train is packed with people heading for the match. There was a big queue at the ticket machine when I landed in Castlerea. There's going to be some amount of Roscommon and Mayo people in Dublin tomorrow.

Hard to compare a FB page wth a message board Orchard, SS has been around for a long time in one form or another.

Really good article by the always excellent Keith Duggan in the Times today. I'll paste it if I can.

[Syferus]

Keith Duggan:

The true gems of Irish pub culture, like Magan's of Killashee or The Three Jolly Pigeons in Tang, are inevitably the most obscure and do little shouting about themselves.

The football used in 1943 and '44 featured in Murray's window as part of an unbeatable display of lavishness during the Emergency, flanking the Sam Maguire with another football and two primrose and blue shirts as a backdrop

Murray's of Knockcroghery belongs to that first rank and it's a house in which the football is always the star attraction. It hangs suspended from a thick chain attached to the dark wooden roof, directly over the bar counter as if waiting to be claimed by some midfielder. The pub is on the main street and has been the still point of Knockcroghery's turning world for as long as the Republic's been around.

The football, used in the All-Ireland final of 1944, has served its time too. When Roscommon were back to back All-Ireland champions in 1943 and '44, it featured in Murray's window as part of an unbeatable display of lavishness during the Emergency, flanking the Sam Maguire with another football and two primrose and blue shirts as a backdrop. The big cup moved on. The ball stayed.
Fire broke out

Time has blackened it and it definitely wouldn't survive another football match. It should have been lost altogether decades ago: a fire broke late one night in 1990, destroying half the bar counter and a lot of the memorabilia in the main room. The ball was attached to a simple piece of string then and it soon fell into the flames.

People came from their houses and nearby and tried their best to calm the fire and a crowd had gathered by the time one man emerged through the smoke billowing through the front door shouting in triumph, "I've got the ball! I've got the bloody ball."

Jimmy Murray, dashing half forward of Roscommon '43/'44 and proprietor of the establishment offered a succinct piece of advice. "Forget the ball and quench the bloody shop."

Eight Murray boys grew up in the house. Four won All-Irelands. Here's all you need to know about Jimmy Murray: when he was introduced late in his life to John McGahern, the Leitrim writer politely requested his autograph. You have to imagine that this was a first and last. Murray died in 2007 and had been one of the last survivors of that garlanded second World War team – McQuillan, Carlos, Keenan, Gibbons.

The football has survived them all. One on level, it's just a curio: a terrific piece of pub memorabilia. But it's also physical proof and evidence of the 24 months that Roscommon ruled the football landscape. You stand in that pub, in this anxious age of Trump and of Facebook, and then you look at the football and then you think of the players of Roscommon and Kerry chasing it about Croke Park 80 years ago and 80,000 people glued to it.

Defiant - Who knows how the Rossies spirited it out of the stadium because leather footballs were a precious commodity in those times. There is something defiant about the football in Murray's pub. It's much like the wishbones hanging from the lights in McSorley's in Lower Manhattan, left by union soldiers before they headed south to fight the civil war and to be collected upon their return. Still there post 9/11. It's part of the pub lore until you pause to think of the actual truth behind it. And then you get the shivers. It's a way of saying: this is real. Don't forget this happened.

Murray's football has that kind of power. Don't forget we were All-Ireland champions. Back to back. Not Kerry. Not anyone else. Us. Roscommon.

One of Roscommon's chief attractions as a football county is that it is impossible to categorise. It must, necessarily, labour in the shadow of Mayo of Galway because of population alone. And yet it has claimed enough Connacht titles (23) to always merit respect and to provoke a bitter rivalry with Mayo. The Rossies insist on thinking of themselves as equals, which gets under the craw of the western aristocracy. Jimmy Murray probably summed the place up best in this newspaper back in 2006: "People here were stone-cracked mad on the football then and they are today too."

He said this in praise, not criticism. And the truth was in full evidence this summer. "A historic day," came the refrain of Willie Hegarty, the bard of Shannonside radio, after he watched Roscommon ransack Galway in Pearse Stadium. Most people know that Hegarty's live commentaries are among the very best things about the contemporary GAA. They are incomparable. Here he is describing Brian Stack's goal which sunk Galway in the second half.

An Aer Lingus plane - "The St Brendan's player took off like an Aer Lingus plane. He took off. He left the tarmac. He kept going. He kept going. He pulled the trigger. He cut loose."

It's true that if any Aer Lingus plane you were on started manoeuvres of that nature, you'd soon be reaching into the overhead luggage compartment for the bottle of duty free gin. But if you want to understand the electrifying thrill that Rossies experience when they have their day against their neighbours, you need only turn the radio dial on Sunday.

Because Roscommon playing Mayo in Croke Park promises to one of the occasions of the championship. The legions of Mayo football devotees must be incredibly tetchy about this one. Already, Mayo's campaign has a sort of battle-weary and epic tint about it. Kerry have reached the quarter-finals having hardly had to launder their playing kit.

Mayo football people are already like something out of the darker ravages of a Tom Waits ballad and they are still a long way from home. The idea of playing Roscommon with their tails up; Roscommon in a Connacht champions state of mind is not a comforting one.

And then, most troubling of all for Mayo, is the Kevin McStay factor. The officer on the line. If McStay's tenure in Roscommon represents anything, it's a triumph for doing the right thing. You don't have to spend very long in McStay's company to get that he's as decent as they come.

Stickler - Opinionated, yes, and a stickler for doing things his way and kind of fearless in that military way. Along with his compadre and brother-in-law Liam McHale, his coaching potential was treated by the Mayo executive in a way that always seemed curiously dismissive. He was passed over for the main job on several occasions, sometimes brusquely.

He shrugged, did his thing, guiding St Brigid's to an All-Ireland club title in 2013 before remaining calm and true to himself in the face of two turbulent years in Roscommon, when he was subjected to petty gripes about his worth. Everyone knows about McHale's athletic pedigree, but people forget about McStay as ball-player in the late 1980s: a flyer and a trickster, tough and absurdly light in an age when big-boned men ruled the prairies. He has lived and bled Mayo. Now he must coach against his home county and you can bet he will do this forensically.

And if Roscommon happen to win on Sunday, there'll be no grandstanding from McStay. Privately, it might hurt him a little to see his home county done down again. But you can bet he will win it or lose it with grace.

And if Roscommon do win, then, yes, the lights will go out across Mayo for the night in all kinds of ways. And it will be so funereal quiet that they'll be able to hear the whooping from across the border. On the television they'll remark that it's great to see Roscommon back without understanding that in Roscommon minds, they never went away.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/when-roscommon-were-kings-of-football-1.3170362?mode=amp

[PW Nally]

Keith Duggan:

The true gems of Irish pub culture, like Magan's of Killashee or The Three Jolly Pigeons in Tang, are inevitably the most obscure and do little shouting about themselves.

The football used in 1943 and '44 featured in Murray's window as part of an unbeatable display of lavishness during the Emergency, flanking the Sam Maguire with another football and two primrose and blue shirts as a backdrop

Murray's of Knockcroghery belongs to that first rank and it's a house in which the football is always the star attraction. It hangs suspended from a thick chain attached to the dark wooden roof, directly over the bar counter as if waiting to be claimed by some midfielder. The pub is on the main street and has been the still point of Knockcroghery's turning world for as long as the Republic's been around.

The football, used in the All-Ireland final of 1944, has served its time too. When Roscommon were back to back All-Ireland champions in 1943 and '44, it featured in Murray's window as part of an unbeatable display of lavishness during the Emergency, flanking the Sam Maguire with another football and two primrose and blue shirts as a backdrop. The big cup moved on. The ball stayed.
Fire broke out

Time has blackened it and it definitely wouldn't survive another football match. It should have been lost altogether decades ago: a fire broke late one night in 1990, destroying half the bar counter and a lot of the memorabilia in the main room. The ball was attached to a simple piece of string then and it soon fell into the flames.

People came from their houses and nearby and tried their best to calm the fire and a crowd had gathered by the time one man emerged through the smoke billowing through the front door shouting in triumph, "I've got the ball! I've got the bloody ball."

Jimmy Murray, dashing half forward of Roscommon '43/'44 and proprietor of the establishment offered a succinct piece of advice. "Forget the ball and quench the bloody shop."

Eight Murray boys grew up in the house. Four won All-Irelands. Here's all you need to know about Jimmy Murray: when he was introduced late in his life to John McGahern, the Leitrim writer politely requested his autograph. You have to imagine that this was a first and last. Murray died in 2007 and had been one of the last survivors of that garlanded second World War team – McQuillan, Carlos, Keenan, Gibbons.

The football has survived them all. One on level, it's just a curio: a terrific piece of pub memorabilia. But it's also physical proof and evidence of the 24 months that Roscommon ruled the football landscape. You stand in that pub, in this anxious age of Trump and of Facebook, and then you look at the football and then you think of the players of Roscommon and Kerry chasing it about Croke Park 80 years ago and 80,000 people glued to it.

Defiant - Who knows how the Rossies spirited it out of the stadium because leather footballs were a precious commodity in those times. There is something defiant about the football in Murray's pub. It's much like the wishbones hanging from the lights in McSorley's in Lower Manhattan, left by union soldiers before they headed south to fight the civil war and to be collected upon their return. Still there post 9/11. It's part of the pub lore until you pause to think of the actual truth behind it. And then you get the shivers. It's a way of saying: this is real. Don't forget this happened.

Murray's football has that kind of power. Don't forget we were All-Ireland champions. Back to back. Not Kerry. Not anyone else. Us. Roscommon.

One of Roscommon's chief attractions as a football county is that it is impossible to categorise. It must, necessarily, labour in the shadow of Mayo of Galway because of population alone. And yet it has claimed enough Connacht titles (23) to always merit respect and to provoke a bitter rivalry with Mayo. The Rossies insist on thinking of themselves as equals, which gets under the craw of the western aristocracy. Jimmy Murray probably summed the place up best in this newspaper back in 2006: "People here were stone-cracked mad on the football then and they are today too."

He said this in praise, not criticism. And the truth was in full evidence this summer. "A historic day," came the refrain of Willie Hegarty, the bard of Shannonside radio, after he watched Roscommon ransack Galway in Pearse Stadium. Most people know that Hegarty's live commentaries are among the very best things about the contemporary GAA. They are incomparable. Here he is describing Brian Stack's goal which sunk Galway in the second half.

An Aer Lingus plane - "The St Brendan's player took off like an Aer Lingus plane. He took off. He left the tarmac. He kept going. He kept going. He pulled the trigger. He cut loose."

It's true that if any Aer Lingus plane you were on started manoeuvres of that nature, you'd soon be reaching into the overhead luggage compartment for the bottle of duty free gin. But if you want to understand the electrifying thrill that Rossies experience when they have their day against their neighbours, you need only turn the radio dial on Sunday.

Because Roscommon playing Mayo in Croke Park promises to one of the occasions of the championship. The legions of Mayo football devotees must be incredibly tetchy about this one. Already, Mayo's campaign has a sort of battle-weary and epic tint about it. Kerry have reached the quarter-finals having hardly had to launder their playing kit.

Mayo football people are already like something out of the darker ravages of a Tom Waits ballad and they are still a long way from home. The idea of playing Roscommon with their tails up; Roscommon in a Connacht champions state of mind is not a comforting one.

And then, most troubling of all for Mayo, is the Kevin McStay factor. The officer on the line. If McStay's tenure in Roscommon represents anything, it's a triumph for doing the right thing. You don't have to spend very long in McStay's company to get that he's as decent as they come.

Stickler - Opinionated, yes, and a stickler for doing things his way and kind of fearless in that military way. Along with his compadre and brother-in-law Liam McHale, his coaching potential was treated by the Mayo executive in a way that always seemed curiously dismissive. He was passed over for the main job on several occasions, sometimes brusquely.

He shrugged, did his thing, guiding St Brigid's to an All-Ireland club title in 2013 before remaining calm and true to himself in the face of two turbulent years in Roscommon, when he was subjected to petty gripes about his worth. Everyone knows about McHale's athletic pedigree, but people forget about McStay as ball-player in the late 1980s: a flyer and a trickster, tough and absurdly light in an age when big-boned men ruled the prairies. He has lived and bled Mayo. Now he must coach against his home county and you can bet he will do this forensically.

And if Roscommon happen to win on Sunday, there'll be no grandstanding from McStay. Privately, it might hurt him a little to see his home county done down again. But you can bet he will win it or lose it with grace.

And if Roscommon do win, then, yes, the lights will go out across Mayo for the night in all kinds of ways. And it will be so funereal quiet that they'll be able to hear the whooping from across the border. On the television they'll remark that it's great to see Roscommon back without understanding that in Roscommon minds, they never went away.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/when-roscommon-were-kings-of-football-1.3170362?mode=amp

Good man Duggan, always good to read and gets the intricacies of Mayo etc better than anyone else.

[manfromdelmonte]

the Mayo lads on here are worried

worse still, is that anyone heading home to Mayo on Sunday have to drive through Roscommon

[Rossfan]

And go 4 miles past Ballaghaderreen before the meeting the Welcome to Mayo" sign.
All the shite has been talked all the banter has been engaged in and now it's up to the 2 teams to see what happens.
A very big ask for our small young teameen to overturn the Big Bastes of Mayowestros but sure the cycle of teams and all that givessels us hope.
Rhubarbs on the downward slope while we are on the up.
Result will depend on whether our up curve has reached their down curve.
Hopefully it has and that tomorrow will prove it.

[Bod Mor]

And go 4 miles past Ballaghaderreen before the meeting the Welcome to Mayo" sign.
All the shite has been talked allthe banter has been engaged in and now it's up to the 2 teams to see what happens.
A very big ask for our small young teameen to overturn the Big Bastes of Mayowestros but sure the cycle of teams and all that givessels us hope.
Rhubarbs on the downward slope while we are on the up.
Result will depend on whether our up curve has reached their down curve.
Hopefully it has and that tomorrow will prove it.

You contradicted yourself by not ending your post right there.

Anybody know what crowd is expected on Sunday?

[Syferus]

And go 4 miles past Ballaghaderreen before the meeting the Welcome to Mayo" sign.
All the shite has been talked allthe banter has been engaged in and now it's up to the 2 teams to see what happens.
A very big ask for our small young teameen to overturn the Big Bastes of Mayowestros but sure the cycle of teams and all that givessels us hope.
Rhubarbs on the downward slope while we are on the up.
Result will depend on whether our up curve has reached their down curve.
Hopefully it has and that tomorrow will prove it.

You contradicted yourself by not ending your post right there.

Anybody know what crowd is expected on Sunday?

From above in this thread, north of 60k. Kerry with almost no one and Galway with 5-8k if they're lucky. When you consider the populations of both counties there's hardly many more well supported counties in the country per capita.

[Qwerty28]

Keith Duggan's house of pain book could do with an update, maybe with an a chapter on tomorrows game!

[From the Bunker]

the Mayo lads on here are worried

worse still, is that anyone heading home to Mayo on Sunday have to drive through Roscommon

In fairness that can work both ways!

[Lar Naparka]

the Mayo lads on here are worried

worse still, is that anyone heading home to Mayo on Sunday have to drive through Roscommon

In fairness that can work both ways!

In fairness, me arse! I'll do what I always do. I'll give the keys to herself, stick a peg on me nose and wear a blindfold untill she tells me we have crossed the Lung river.😁😁

[highorlow]

My advice to the Roskies seen as ye have the time to do it tomorrow is to get well jarred before ye go in.

It eases the pain, believe me.

[mayo.mick]

I'm hearing lower cusack and hogan front row seats now on sale. Heading for a sellout???