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15 thousand people travelled to MacHale Park last night and all of them may as well have gone home again after 15 minutes due to the rash decision by Barry Cassidy. Everyone makes mistakes but the fact that he didn't even consult with his linesman was particularly poor. It's pointless analysing the game after that because the contest was as good as over.

From a Mayo point of view, one thing that has to be mentioned is the goal keeping issue. Rob Hennelly had a decent game last night and it's clear he's great kicker of a ball (when the squeeze isn't on him). He wasn't really at fault for the goal yesterday but at the same time, it was the type of goal that Clarke rarely concedes as Clarke usually takes man and ball out of it. I was looking at some stats recently and they don't lie. Excluding games against New York and London, Rob hasn't kept a clean sheet in championship since the Connacht Final in 2014. Last year, out of 71 matches across the championship, only on 5 occasions did the team that conceded more goals win. Conceding goals has been killing Mayo for the last decade and while the blame can't be fully placed with Rob, it's clear that a big mistake is never too far away with him. Last night he dropped another high ball that on another day could easily have gone in. I don't want to slate the lad because I'm sure he puts in hours every week but if we play him again come championship, it is going to end in tears...and the blame is going to rest with James Horan.

No surprise to see refereeing issues coming up again after the weekend. Both referees last night Coldrick and Hurson are very much 'soft free' refs. Players are well aware of this and will go down when there is the slightest bit of contact. It ruins the game and forces managers to go with defensive systems because they can't allow their defenders go one on one when it's a guaranteed free in to the forward. While the likes of David Gough and Conor Lane have their flaws, at least they allow some form of a 'tackle'. Deegan is another 'soft free' merchant though I didn't see the Galway game today.

3 out of 4 of the Division one games this weekend ended with controversy over the amount of injury time allowed. This comes a week after the Corofin injury time shitshow. I'd argue that refs are often correct to keep adding on time due to rampant time wasting in the game however the whole thing could be fixed so easily, it's ridiculous at this stage. When will the clowns in the GAA just introduce the clock system that operates so well in Rugby? Players, management and spectators could then easily see exactly when the clock is stopped, how much time is left etc. and it would cut out a lot of the bullshit.

The latest in the saga:
https://www.offtheball.com/sport/mayo-gaa-receive-e1-million-funding-pending-agreement-terms-932039

While the county board should be making every effort to secure the funding in question, these latest demands from the foundation are a step too far IMO.

There should be scope for agreement on most of the conditions however I see there being a major issue with point number 4 which states:

'The bid process for all sponsorship deals to be managed by a Committee with its members to be agreed in advance with the Foundation and to include independent oversight by a representative from the Foundation'.

The idea of an independent body, not elected by the clubs, having oversight on funding that it provides itself is one thing. Having oversight on 'all sponsorship deals' is a very different matter and runs totally contrary to the democratic ethos of the GAA.

So the current sponsorship deals are democratically chosen? Voted on by clubs?

The current sponsorship deals are organised by the county committee which is voted in by the clubs, the same as in every other county.

The latest in the saga:
https://www.offtheball.com/sport/mayo-gaa-receive-e1-million-funding-pending-agreement-terms-932039

While the county board should be making every effort to secure the funding in question, these latest demands from the foundation are a step too far IMO.

There should be scope for agreement on most of the conditions however I see there being a major issue with point number 4 which states:

'The bid process for all sponsorship deals to be managed by a Committee with its members to be agreed in advance with the Foundation and to include independent oversight by a representative from the Foundation'.

The idea of an independent body, not elected by the clubs, having oversight on funding that it provides itself is one thing. Having oversight on 'all sponsorship deals' is a very different matter and runs totally contrary to the democratic ethos of the GAA.

[That Mayo team is past it now. The Dubs aren't]

The context is all wrong. He got a lot out of his panel. 5 in a row. 36 match unbeaten streak. But we are not in football as usual.

The Dubs won their first Sam of the decade in 2011 after a long period of mediocrity.  Mayo reached their first final in 2012.
That Mayo team is past it now. The Dubs aren't

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/jim-gavin-leaves-dublin-with-history-made-and-gaelic-football-transformed-1.4100789?mode=amp

« Paul Flynn, Bernard Brogan and Diarmuid Connolly were pillars of his teams over the first three or four years. Didn't matter. Over time, they were replaced by Niall Scully, Con O'Callaghan and Brian Howard. Philly McMahon was the only Dublin defender to play every minute of every final under Gavin between 2013 and 2018. Didn't matter. This year he didn't feature in the drawn game at all and only saw the last 15 minutes of the replay. Davy Byrne and Eoin Murchan have both passed him. »

They can do this because they have the biggest production line in the sport. They can prime players to replace superstars without changing the performance levels of the team. That is what the funding allowed. This can go on indefinitely

Mayo were mortal
The Dubs have a perpetual football motion machine

The GAA have no idea what to do now.

If that Mayo team are past it now, then surely 'that' Dublin team are also past it. The reality is both counties have 2 totally different teams playing at the moment.

There is no way that the co-ordinated pull down of several Mayo defenders at the exact same time at the end of that final was a spur the moment decision by the Dublin players. I don't blame the Dublin management for organising it (I would have gladly taken an All-Ireland win had the Mayo management done the same)

Gas how bitterness can make people lose their memory/sense.

The pull down played no part in Dublin winning the All Ireland. Touch tight was what the plan was, not wrestling Keegan to the ground, regardless of GPS throwing. Gavin was annoyed at that. Meant the ref added on an extra minute and Mayo had an extra man to get the equalizer. Thankfully Clarke sailed his kick out right over the sideline!!

Gas how victory can make people lose their memory/sense.

Maybe Clarke might have got his kickout to a mayo player if Keegan, Durcan, Harrison and Stephen Coen hadn't all been wrestled as soon as soon as Rock's free went over? Mayo were always going to get one last chance regardless of the stoppage, that's how referees work it and it will stay the same until a stopclock is brought in and this timing farce is ended.

Look, Dublin deserved the win, they took more of their scoring opportunities. I was merely using the above example to highlight Gavin's two-faced shite about Dublin playing 'honest' football. It is possible to highlight things like this while also acknowledging his obvious talents as a manager.   

 

His record speaks for itself and he will deservedly go down as one of the all time greats. For all the praise he gets, I think his greatest quality often got overlooked, which was his on-field decision making/team selection. While he obviously had a talented management team around him, he had the final say and he almost always seemed to get it right...2016-throwing in a relatively unknown Cormac Costello who proceeded to single-handedly win it for them, 2017-Not starting Connolly and then unleashing him when the game was in the melting pot, deciding to start Eoin Murchan in the replay this year, the list goes on.

For me though, I'll remember him as the man who sucked the life out of Gaelic football. The endless platitude infested interviews, the lack of even a smile after wining the three in a row in 2017, the way his ruthlessly efficient, yet robotic team tore away any element of surprise or competitiveness from the Leinster championship before essentially doing the same thing to the AI Championship (bar 1 game a year against Kerry or Mayo).
His two faced utterances about playing 'honest open' football while his team brought cynicism to new levels. There is no way that the co-ordinated pull down of several Mayo defenders at the exact same time at the end of that final was a spur the moment decision by the Dublin players. I don't blame the Dublin management for organising it (I would have gladly taken an All-Ireland win had the Mayo management done the same) however I do think Gavin's deceitful shite in the media needed to be called out a lot more.

So despite his great qualities as a manger, I can't help but think that his departure will be a positive thing for Gaelic football as a whole.

[Then take money from donors and hire some people.]

A bit of a Roman Abramovich scenario going on here, lots of double standard posters.

Its not pleasant having your laundry aired in public is it... especially for everyones favourite county, the arent we great brigade.

You see it across the country where individuals put money into their county. Declan Kelly Tipperary, JP McManus Limerick, Bertie Ahern and the €5m to Dublin.

As i said Double standards, At least other counties can put it to use, not a hope in Mayo. Dont even have the competence to accept free financial gifts.

I suppose it's difficult when you have actual volunteers trying to run the county board. There are several full time administrators in your own county for example.

Then take money from donors and hire some people.

Unfortunately money from donors is not a fixed income that can be budgeted to pay the annual salary or salaries for full time administrators let alone a CEO position. The only fixed income outside of gate receipts for a county like Mayo is sponsorship and most of this money is sucked up by day to day stuff like insurance, debt repayments, team expenses and coaching. Team expenses are the most frustrating since stuff like travel expenses and backroom teams to stay relevant or just compete are spiraling out of control but sponsorship and gate receipts depend on the level of success of a county team so it is a catch 22 situation!!

And they are out of control because you don't have the people in place to control it... Structures first, sun holidays second.

Talk about ignorance!  Ya, maybe it's the sun holidays.

Or..... maybe it might have something to do with the fact that the Mayo county board have to pay 33 grand every month to pay for the debt on our county ground, something the Dubs will never have to worry about as neutral Croke Park is handed over to them.

Also, unlike the dubs, a large section of our players and backroom team have to travel the breadth of the country a couple of times a week which could have something to do with the large expenses bill.

Or maybe it's just that Dublin have better people in place

[When has that ever happened with Dublin before?]

Lane toned it down in the second half bit the first half yesterday was a scandal.

Dublin didn't get one free from scoring range yesterday despite all the fouling that was going on, particularly off the ball. The only point Rock got from a placed ball was a 45. When has that ever happened with Dublin before?

It baffles me how it took Stephen O'Brien until near the end of the game to get a yellow card. He must have committed 15 fouls by that stage.

A lot is made about Donor Buckley being a great coach and how he teaches his teams how to tackle. What he teaches his teams is how to tactically foul teams on a consistent basis. It was the same with Mayo when he was there but it's ramped up another level with Kerry. Fair enough if you can get away with it but it's not even subtle at this stage. O'Shea, O'Sullivan and O'Brien have spent over 200 minutes hanging off opponents for the past threegames in full view of the referee and it's been by and large ignored.

The favouritism Kerry receive from referees is beyond a joke at this point, it's being going on for years.

Maybe that doesn't happen Dublin too often because they are used to having having shite referees who always give the free to the man in possession (most intercounty referees fall into this bracket), the Dubs tend to get frustrated when they get decent referees like Gough and Lane who actually allow defenders to tackle. You can't have Smiley Deegan or Dublin Joe every day I suppose!

Lane had a decent game overall although he possibly should have given a black card to O Callaghan for the pull down that prevented a clear Kerry goal scoring opportunity.

And spare us the 'holier than thou' shite about Kerry holding/fouling off the ball as if the Dubs weren't masters at that themselves!

[However, II have yet to hear a credible reason as to why Dublin gets c. €254 per registered player and, say, Kerry gets only €19. I don't blame Dublin for this but I do blame Kerry.]

That's fair enough and I accept that a lot of Dublin's success is down to hard graft and volunteer work.
I have said it any times her that I don't blame Dublin for taking all the money they can get and I don't begrudge them any amount of ALL Irelands either. They are playing the same system as every other county. That's human nature and Mayo/ Kerry/Donegal or whoever would do the very same if they got half a chance.
but it is up to the other county boards to make their feelings known as bitching on forums like this won't do anyone any good.
However, II have yet to hear a credible reason as to why Dublin gets c. €254 per registered player and, say, Kerry gets only €19. I don't blame Dublin for this but I do blame Kerry.
BTW, I will be rooting for Dublin in the final and so will most Mayo people I know.

Lar, I know you didn't come up with those figures, but they are just irrelevant. Again, I know it wasn't you, but whoever came up with that showed a complete ignorance of what games development funding is. Might as well divide by the number of buses in each county and see how that compares.

You need to divide by the number of primary school children, that's were the development funds are focused. Increasing participation.

If you want to go down that road.....County Dublin has the primary school population of a province. It's totally unsustainable for a population of that size to have only one team competing in the All Ireland Chamionship. The logical thing would be for Dublin to have 4 teams split on along the 4 County council areas Fingal, City, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown and South Dublin.

Fenton, Mannion and Con O Callaghan are absolutely awesome in full flight and are virtually unmarkable when given a good supply of ball. You are far more likely to unearth freaks like those boys when you're dealing with a population of 1.4 million as opposed to Mayo who have a population of 130 thousand. For me, that is still the biggest advantage they have, bigger than money, Croke Park etc.

For Mayo, yesterday's game had some similarities to the 2015 Semi Final replay, a good first half performance totally undone by a 5 minute shitshow where we were destroyed on our own kickouts. The reality is that the game was over after 42 minutes. Dublin always win their own kickout after conceding a goal, they rarely lose 2 kickouts in a row and they NEVER lose more than 2 in a row. The reason for this is that winning opposition kickouts gives a team a massive momentum boost and the Dubs are well aware of this. When the Dubs win a few opposition kickouts, one after another, it creates an unstoppable blue wave aided by the hill.

After Dublin got their first goal yesterday Dublin won a barely believable 5 Mayo kickouts in a row (Durcan initially won 1 of these but lost it a second later). This is totally unacceptable form a Mayo point of view, all the more frustrating considering the lesson was not learned 4 years ago. While Hennelly has to take some of the blame for this, the fact that the same thing happened to Clarke down in Killarney shows that this is a total systems failure on behalf of management, outfield players and goalkeepers. This is not happening to any of the other 3 teams that made the semi finals (Kerry secured their last 4 kickouts today despite immense pressure from the Tyrone forwards) so there is no reason why the problem can't be fixed. James Horan needs to spend the first few months of next year specifically working on this area because the problem continuously rears it's head. Groundhog day.

I see the usual obituaries are being written for 'this great team'. It might interest some of them that of the team that started Horan's first All Ireland final in 2012, 5 of them, Keegan, Boyle, Vaughan, Aidan and Cillian started yesterday. While that's still a large number to carry across 7 years, it's far from the same team. Lads like Ruane, Carr, Stephen Coen, McDonagh and Boland will have learned a lot from yesterday and will come back stronger next year.

Deegan ruining yet another game. How does this clown keep getting high profile matches??

There was only ever going to be one winner yesterday. After last year's no show in the super 8s, Kerry treated the match as do or die and  they fought for every ball like their lives depended on it. Mayo were the polar opposite, extremely casual throughout and it was like they had it in the back of their minds that the Meath and Donegal games were the important games. The big problem with that mindset is that if Donegal beat Kerry next weekend, we're as good as out. The amount of of sloppy kick-passes by Mayo yesterday was criminal and I think it had a lot to do with this overall casual attitude.

Even though it wouldn't have changed the result, I thought Sean Hurson absolutely rode Mayo in the first half. He gave Kerry 4 very soft frees, one each against Harrison, Keegan, Aidan and McDonagh. He missed a blatant black card for Spillane and awarded a point to Sean O Se that was clearly wide. At the other end, he didn't give a stonewall free to James Carr and another time gave no advantage to Darren Coen despite putting up his hand.

As others have said, kickout strategy was a shambles and the real damage was done between the 20th and 30th minute. With Kerry pushing up so high, there was an acre of space behind them. Surely the thing to do when a short one wasn't on was to kick a long boomer over the high press. I've seen Clarke get decent distance before so no reason we could have gone with that yesterday.

The performance of David Clifford was pure class. The man is virtually unmarkable when given a good supply of ball and left one on one. One of the few silver linings to take away from the long trip to Killarney.

Galway's game management going down the home stretch was superb. Time keeping in gaelic football is a total farce at this stage but Galway exploited it to the max. There was 6 minutes of injury time and 3 of those were stoppages, yet Deegan blew up as soon as the 6 were up...jokeshop. Compare Galway's time wasting in the second half, when they were against the wind, with Mayo. Not one Mayo player tried to slow the game down in the first half when we were against the wind. Mayo need to wise up.

How did he blow up when 6 were up, when Vaughan's last point was scored into the 7th min of added time, and there was two more kickouts after that? 6 mins added was more than fair in the first place. Galway didnt get that in the first half despite injuries. It's accepted practice to take the wind first and try build a lead but a past club manager of ours used to always take it for the second half, on the basis that you'd get far more added at the end of 60 (or 70) than at the end of H1. Hard argue against it

According to the eir sport, Vaughan scored at 76.01. Deegan blew up on the resultant kick out. I wouldn't have a major issue with the allocated 6 minutes of injury time (although I counted 7), it's more the system I have an issue with. A stopclock, similar to rugby, would make things so much more transparent for everyone...players, officials and supporters. It would also sort out the current shit-show going on with the black card as well as lessening the burden on referees. Yet the playing rules committee managed to come up with five other changes that they deemed to be more of priority!

From a Mayo point of view, that game was lost in the period where Galway were down to 13 men. Just after the black cards, we were 2 points down, with 2 extra men. All we had to do hold on to possession, play boring football, do nothing stupid and that would have nearly taken us up to half time where we could have gone in a couple points down with the gale in the second half. Instead, we pushed forward, went looking for scores against the wind and ultimately left ourselves exposed at the back. We placed too much emphasis on Galway being down to 13, the Galway system is not based on man to man marking and they are better placed than most teams to cope with the loss of two players. By the time their 2 players came back on, they were 6 up. Game management was never Horan's strong point and it doesn't look like much has changed in that department.

We also let a 13 man Galway secure their own kickout on 2 occasions during that period, their goal came from one of them. Absolutely criminal.

Despite this, we still had opportunities to win the game in the second half. After Doherty's free that hit the post (which would have brought the sides level), it was as if we had a collective meltdown in attack. There was 15 minutes left, patience was required. Instead, we proceeded to butcher 4 scoring opportunities in a row. Andy's speculative punt, Barrett carrying the ball into traffic and 2 aimless long balls from McDonagh and Doherty. This handed the impetus back to Galway and they took it with both hands.

Galway's game management going down the home stretch was superb. Time keeping in gaelic football is a total farce at this stage but Galway exploited it to the max. There was 6 minutes of injury time and 3 of those were stoppages, yet Deegan blew up as soon as the 6 were up...jokeshop. Compare Galway's time wasting in the second half, when they were against the wind, with Mayo. Not one Mayo player tried to slow the game down in the first half when we were against the wind. Mayo need to wise up.