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The Sindo article was dreadful.

Any analysis based on the two own goals is basically flawed. Dublin had carved open the Mayo defense twice and it is highly likely that they would score one or both given the same opportunities. Likewise Mayo showed tremendous character to come back from the two own goals. Had the goals been scored by Dublin players, would the reaction have been the same.? It's one thing to pick yourself up after two pieces of unprecedented bad luck and another to react to conceeding two easy scores early in a game.

The main point I take from the game was that Mayo were very much up for it, won the early exchanges and dominated their men. While much has been said about the quality of our defenders I thought that the early defending by our forwards was key. Johnny Cooper and Philly Mac were rarely seen in our half of the field and it is often their presence allows the Dub forwards to slip their men. We lacked support at times when attacking. Dillon has the knack of slipping into space within scoring range. I had thought that he might start but it would be difficult to drop any of last week's starters. DOC ran out of steam (has to be an ongoing illness/injury) after a day of running. Again I thought  the youngest O Shea might have been a better option than Barry Moran or Evan as he has the ball winning ability in front of goal as well as athleticism around the field.

Pundits are suggesting that we missed our chance. I think that might have been a fair call if we had ever headed Dublin in the second half. Given the conditions 15 points was a good score. Dublin were, and will be, rattled and no amount of talking will change that before Saturday week. Once again it will come down to 15 individual battles allied to the tactical nous on the sideline. So far I'd think it is advantage Mayo.  The suggestion is that Dublin will never be as poor again but if Mayo apply themselves in the same way Dublin may not be capable of lifting it. You would imagine changes in the Dublin forward line but how demoralising would that be on the players dropped and would they be capable of lifting themselves in the last quarter should Mayo have a lead? O Gara & Bastick are not game winners and should Mannion and Andrews start instead of Flynn and McMenamin their bench would look thin enough if Brogan and Rock misfire again. Dublin have now played two hugely intensive games in a short period and allied to the extra minutes regularly being played in both halves Mayo might well be the fresher side. The intensity with which Stephen Coen hit the field amazed me and he looked hungry for ball. Perhaps our bench is deeper than we thought.

All to play for. If we are in it with 60 mins gone I would expect us to push on and win. There is a growing confidence about the team. I wish the same could be said about some of our supporters who feel that having paid for a ticket they can hurl abuse at our own players for long periods only to scream for them as heroes when the result dictates. There were times when I wished I was in the sea of Blue behind the goal where you wouldn't mind what abuse was thrown. 10th time lucky , God willing.

Michael Murphy took the wind out of Mayo in 2012 and they never caught up after that during the match
This team seems to be different. I think Rochford gets the tactical side. Huge difference when players can have confidence in that.
Dublin were not let play. That is very important. 
Over the last 5 years Mayo have been so close but this might be the year.
Dublin have been on the go for 2 full seasons as well. 

It was quite casual 20 years ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l93Gm9v5zI

Now they dress up wedding style
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt_6JGA5QrY

What does the future hold ?

How anyone could say a bad word about this wonderful human being is beyond me, castigate mother Theresa and be a Hillary supporter speaks volumes about some on here!

Hillary is a saint. People often mention Jesus Christ when they think of her. She would make a wonderful Celtic manager

Jim should run for President he would be some leader.

He would alienate most around him. With respect to him, I don't get all the attention or adulation towards him. He's far from the first to drop out of school only to go back and resit the exams (e.g. Eoin Larkin). There was nothing new in the interview that wasn't reprinted or in the public domain before, the tragedies that have befallen his family have been highlighted in the past. I don't remember him as being a particularly great player, though I'm open to correction. I didn't rate him highly as a manager because I though he was too intense and fell out with some around him needlessly (McHugh, Cassidy, Rory Gallagher), and he didn't show too much grace in the post-match interviews in 2012. He won an All-Ireland he could have lost and lost won they should have won.

I just don't find him in any way inspirational, that's all. I don't especially like Brian Cody but he'd make a better President.

We are a nation of knockers. That said I agree with you.

Half of the nation has knockers

On average everyone in the country has 1.02 knockers.

Compared to China, the knockers are much more prominent in Ireland

Jim should run for President he would be some leader.

He would alienate most around him. With respect to him, I don't get all the attention or adulation towards him. He's far from the first to drop out of school only to go back and resit the exams (e.g. Eoin Larkin). There was nothing new in the interview that wasn't reprinted or in the public domain before, the tragedies that have befallen his family have been highlighted in the past. I don't remember him as being a particularly great player, though I'm open to correction. I didn't rate him highly as a manager because I though he was too intense and fell out with some around him needlessly (McHugh, Cassidy, Rory Gallagher), and he didn't show too much grace in the post-match interviews in 2012. He won an All-Ireland he could have lost and lost won they should have won.

I just don't find him in any way inspirational, that's all. I don't especially like Brian Cody but he'd make a better President.

We are a nation of knockers. That said I agree with you.

Half of the nation has knockers

GBB nobody other than a few Rossies is that interested in reading about the first round of the league.

I dunno what McG was at this morning; he had already said that Mayo got the matchups rights, so now he wants them to try something new.
I'll back Rochford's judgement any day over his.
I think neither Horan nor Connolly/ Holmes had an ounce of tactical nous between them and the inability to spot the need to make changes or positional switches cost Mayo dearly during their tenures in office.
Even though Mayo were misfiring right up to the final, Rochford impressed me by his preparation for each game. I think he outfoxed Jim Gavin on Sunday and that's no mean feat.
I'm quite happy with our prospects now.
There was very little between Mayo and Dublin last year and the absolute shambles H&C made of directing play on the field ultimately cost them their jobs.
Mayo felt they could have taken Dublin then if only Holmes and Pateen hadn't left their plans of campaign behind them in their hotel.
The personnel on either side hadn't altered significantly in the interim, so which should Mayo have been overawed by their opponents?
Also, I think Dublin has slipped back somewhat since last year. In the game v Kerry they were in trouble right to the closing stages when Kerry''s ancient warriors began to run out of steam.
Maybe there's truth in the notion that trying to win a two in a row can be put down to mental tiredness but the fact that Mayo were definitely rarin' to go from the start was the major cause of Dublin's subdued display last Sunday.
There's no reason to believe that Gavin will outfox Rochford next time either. The usual suspects who consider themselves to be pundits had Dublin marked in as unbackable favourites the last day and they are at it again since Sunday.
They got it wrong then and they will get it wrong second time around.

Clucko is not as good as he was.
They do miss people like O'Carroll
Mayo seem to be improved in the head department
Rochford seems to be a better tactician than his predecessors

It is all to play for

Chesus - Special

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vir6vbolG94

The team is crying out for Michael Carrick to come back in and sit holding the mid field and allow Pogba more freedom.

Carrick reads the game better than Fellani and passes better, this is not to say the Fellani is to blame i think he is doing his best in a difficult situation.

Rooney is conpletely lost at the moment doesnt seem to know where to be or what to do.  His basic skills are desserting him with his obvious lack of confidence.

Still think when JM gets the balance and formation correct and gets a settled 11 the talent is there to put a serious run together.

Also people have slated Blind since he joined but look what happened to Bailly when Blind was dropped, he looked all over the shop.

Schweini could do a job in midfield..

Jimmy's writing very good articles

http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/jim-mcguinness-mayo-need-something-new-and-unexpected-1.2797466

Jim McGuinness: Mayo need something new and unexpected

Sunday's All-Ireland final will be spoken about for many years because all of us in Croke Park left the stadium wondering if we could believe – or trust – what we had seen. The game was pitched into such a realm of strangeness, from the weather through to what happened on the field that it was like a deception.

As I flew back to Glasgow on Sunday night, I kept asking myself that question: just what happened out there?
All weekend, the build-up in Dublin was hugely expectant. I have never experienced such a demand for tickets. When I got a taxi in from the airport on Saturday, I got chatting to the driver who was a true Dubs supporter; genuine and knowledgeable, he had gone to see them in every game in the championship. And he could not get a ticket.

I took his card in the hope I could get him a ticket but I wasn't able to locate one. On Sunday, the one thing that struck me was that the crowd was up around Croke Park really early. It was as if both sets of supporters couldn't wait.
Last week here, I suggested that Mayo needed to go somewhere primal. There was an element of that in the jostling and pushing when the teams took to the field, but I don't feel it was contained in Mayo's overall performance.

My sense is that Dublin's underwhelming display is attributable to something within themselves more than what Mayo did to them. I don't think it is a coincidence that Dublin's last poor performance was in last year's All-Ireland final, even though they won then.
So much happened in the first half alone that it became difficult to break down and categorise. The critical man-to-man match up featured, as expected, Mayo's Lee Keegan picking up Diarmuid Connolly. Lee is a huge part of Mayo's attacking threat. The task of shadowing Diarmuid is considerable: he has been the best footballer in Ireland all summer. But Keegan is up there with him.


So the impact which both players can have goes a long way to shaping the dynamic of the game. There was a lot going on between them both off and on the ball: it was an intense and riveting confrontation.
It seemed that Lee edged their battle because Diarmuid has this unique array of power, running, strength, agility and that ability to kick off both feet, so it is a huge achievement to hold him to a single point. He is a frightening proposition and the way Lee coped with him was impressive.
However, that containment comes at a cost because they lost what Lee can offer to Mayo's attack. I felt Mayo started brightly and ran straight lines and forced Dublin to deal with that. They used Aidan O'Shea as an inside threat and he made himself a big, disruptive presence on the edge of the Dublin D. They were at the pitch of the game and their defenders – Colm Boyle, Brendan Harrison and Kevin McLoughlin – were so sharp and alive to everything.

Unforgettable
Then came those two bizarre, unforgettable goals. I was sitting beside James Horan for the first one. We were both in the Sky studio. The first goal happened and James's head went down. I just said something about it being really bad luck. James said: "That's an understatement."  When the second one went in, we were all stunned and I said: "James, I know you're not going to like this but you do have to question the concept of this curse." It was said in jest, but I had this sense that James never, ever stopped believing, which is indicative of the spirit within the squad.

Apart from those freak goals, Dublin had a serious amount of possession. But they were too methodical and not supporting the ball with attacking runs. They were cautious. Why? I was thinking about the Donegal game, when they knew they would face 14 men and that it would require huge patience and discipline and recycling. They were excellent in how they executed that and found the gaps to garner scores against Donegal.
But has that system or formula somehow seeped into their play? I felt I could see traces of that methodology in the Kerry game even though they kicked 0-22.

For me, the hallmark of previous Jim Gavin teams was their lightning transition into attack. That has slowed since the Donegal game. They are happy to recycle and wait. So there has been a shift that seemed very pronounced on Sunday.
Things you work on in the training ground can morph into other things. Dublin look at the Donegal game and say: 'Look, we went down to 13 men and we still controlled the game!' And then that drifts into your mindset and you become a more controlled, stilted version of what you were originally were.
The threat that Dublin have presented is that of a torrent: wave after wave of attack generated by Stephen Cluxton's laser-issue restarts. When you played Dublin, you were in for a busy day. Against Mayo, I felt they were too safe and methodical. At times I was urging them to go on.
In normal circumstances they are a fountain of support running and varied attack. They threatened at times here and just as in last year's final, it was often the final ball which betrayed them. We also shouldn't forget that Brian Fenton drew two important saves from David Clarke.
Still, Dublin only kicked 0-4 points in the first half and were ruffled: we saw Bernard Brogan kick a ball straight into the air. Dean Rock had a bad wide.

The key question is why. Mayo went man to man with Dublin all over the pitch, apart from Kevin McLoughlin. They didn't set up a bank of four and force Dublin to play through them. So the question is: did we witness a brilliant defensive job by Mayo or was it a consequence of conditions and of Dublin being too lateral and conservative and not providing the runners, which has been the blueprint of this team?

I'm not convinced that what happened to Dublin was down to Mayo. Yes, Mayo were competitive in the game. But they weren't bringing anything new. They were just doing what they had done before but with even more hunger. And once Dublin doubled up on Aidan O'Shea, I felt Mayo needed to go with at least two big men inside.
Ironically, the black card changed the game in Dublin's favour. I felt it was a mess of a call. Two guys run into each other and hit each other's shoulders. It wasn't a third-man tackle: it was just machismo on both players' part and McCarthy paid a heavy price. It beggars belief. That card needs to go.
But weirdly, as if this game needed more weirdness, the change brought Dublin back in to it through Paddy Andrews's two points from play. He got the engine started. So by half time, it was hard to weigh up what we had just seen.
Regardless, it was double scores at half time. In fairness, Mayo's response was excellent and spirited in the second half. Their moral courage is beyond reproach. But I would ask this again: what did they do differently?
From the Donegal 2012 final to Sunday is eight big knockout championship games and I would ask: what have we seen from Mayo that is different apart from the sweeper system? They haven't managed to win the All-Ireland so it stands to reason that they must do something different.

People will say they held Dublin to a de facto 0-9. I don't believe that the core truth of the game is about that. What we saw from Dublin was false, for whatever reason. Ninety-nine percent of the time a team will revert back to its average mean. The champions were below average on Sunday. It's the old saying that the favourite wins the replay. I think on October 1st, they will kick a lot more points.
Mayo were nothing if not brave. They thundered into the second half and scored 0-4 in five minutes. It was an inspirational burst. Then they kind of went missing offensively again, which is replicating a pattern throughout their championship. I scribbled a note: "Fifty minutes gone. Game in balance. Who wants it? "
What I was really saying was: this is Mayo's opportunity. Yet from that minute to the 74th, Dublin controlled the game. Mayo didn't bring the fire or the big hits. They were just treading water. I felt Paul Mannion did well for Dublin and you could see him or Eoghan O'Gara starting and Kevin McManamon reverting to impact substitute.
Yet Dublin were still labouring in attack. It was still cautious and defined by lateral passing. They are not afraid to go back the field. Interestingly, there were a number of attacks when they didn't have the bodies inside to kick the ball into. That was something we used to struggle with in Donegal sometimes: your forwards make runs and when the ball doesn't come in, they end up straying out to the 45.
That almost never happens with Dublin because the two corner forwards play on the byline and the full forward on the top of the D and they make 50-metre sprints across goal. There was a conspicuous absence of that on Sunday. Again: why?
I thought Dublin looked tired in the last 15 minutes. Had they won, they would have fallen over the line to their All-Ireland title. It is a long time since the Hill was so quiet. It is an All-Ireland final and they had nothing much to cheer about.

Catastrophic
However, when the match was in the balance, some of the Mayo decision-making was catastrophic. I was thinking: they need to get the ball to a marquee forward to drop the shoulder and slip inside and kick the ball over the bar. Just do simple things well.
Dublin have guys who could pop up and make those incisions and tag those scores on. They took control of possession and found a way to kick themselves into a three-point lead at the end of normal time. John Small was excellent in the second half and Jonny Cooper too. Donal Vaughan was a shining light for Mayo: had they won, he was the man of the match.

So: 70 minutes gone. And the board goes up and shows seven minutes just as Cillian O'Connor scores a free. And Dublin decide: let's just keep ball. And the longer you watched them do this, on a treacherous surface, you felt they would slip or make a mistake and cough it up. Yet they didn't. Their handling was very good and their composure was what we have all come to expect.
Then Vaughan steals in for a huge point and Dublin still try to manage the clock. Then came the sideline ball and with 30 seconds left, having kept the ball from the 70th minute to the 76th, Connolly decides to kick for a score. I can't get my head around this: a short sideline pass and they keep it and they have the All-Ireland.

After the shot goes wide, they fail to push up on the kick-out quickly enough and the ball goes out to a Mayo player on the Cusack Stand side and then it goes into the centre. There are 25 seconds left in the All-Ireland final and I notice that four Dublin players don't sprint back. I'm thinking: 15 behind the ball. Just survive for 25 seconds and it's over.
Instead, Mayo came through the middle. It was a magnificent point by O'Connor under pressure, but I couldn't believe Dublin didn't shut them down.
Why? That's a big question. Was it because they were out on their feet?
I asked a question here last week: can Mayo keep Dublin to 16 points? And if they can, what would that game look like? So they kept them to 0-9 and two own goals. But Sunday didn't look like the game I had imagined in my mind. I didn't see anything new or leftfield from Mayo.

I thought I might see two innovations: an off-the-hook, ultra-intense mentality. Don't get me wrong: some of the defending was lion-hearted and their recovery from the brink of another bleak All-Ireland defeat was hugely impressive. But I just didn't see the fire and gung-ho positivity that might have carried them to victory in the last 15 minutes of normal time. That only became visible when the cause was almost beyond their grasp.
Tenacious
And why not try something different? Why not go with not even two but three monsters at the edge of the square: O'Shea, Barry Moran and Tom Parsons? Bombard the square for a while and have the rest of the Mayo side defending as a unit of 12. Just see where that would bring them.
And if that doesn't work, have something else up your sleeve. I didn't see that. I just saw that familiar, very tenacious and honest Mayo team but nothing new. And I am fearful that Dublin will return to the norm in the replay and instead of kicking 0-9, they will kick 0-19. If it is a dry day, that will facilitate a higher scoring average.

Over the next fortnight, Mayo need to find a way to drag Dublin into the trenches because Dublin are vulnerable when they are brought there. I wouldn't be heaping too much praise on Mayo just yet. They've earned themselves another chance. But: they have another chance.
So can they come up with something? That's why I was talking about that primal dimension. Take Dublin back to that place when Brogan is skying the ball and Connolly is blasting the ball wide and they are addled. But I am not convinced that Mayo will do that in the replay. I feel it will be the same set-up: Aidan going in full forward and Andy and Cillian in the corner and Kevin McLoughlin playing sweeper.
I don't believe that will be enough. I think Mayo are saying to themselves: "We are as good as Dublin. We are good enough. We stick to our principles. We're going to win this because we are as good as Dublin." And, yes, you have to believe in yourself. But you also have to accept that that is not quite true. Pound for pound, Dublin carry more offensive threat than any football team in Ireland.
That doesn't mean Mayo can't become All-Ireland champions. I just a have a gut conviction that Mayo need to introduce something new and unexpected to finally shift the dynamic fully in their favour.
Only the two teams really know what happened out there. The rest of us have to wait for a fortnight for the true answers.

Leftfield :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3grqa6t71w

Yeah, where's Indiana?
I'd love to know what went wrong with the Dubs and he usually has the inside track.

On a bad day Indiana said Dublin would score 17 points at least. Only 9 points they scored yesterday and only Indiana can really describe what type of day that was for Dublin.

It was a bad day for positive thinking Dubs. They were so let down by the forwards. A lot of journalists were let down as well.
AIG were let down. A lot of players' dogs would have been very angry watching TSG

We saved the GAA.
A small bit of gratitude wouldn't go astray.

Think of Meath
Think of what 25 years ago means to them
Send what you can to me Patricia McLoughlin
Wireless for the hopeless

Malachy Clerkin: A collective stinker from Dublin forwards
It had never occurred to anyone that Mayo's forwards would outscore the Dublin ones
about 8 hours ago

Malachy Clerkin at Croke Park 

 
 
With the clock rolling at 76 minutes and Dublin a point ahead, the ball went out off a Mayo toe under the Hogan Stand. Ciarán Kilkenny went over to collect it, but by the time he turned around to look to play it short, Diarmuid Connolly had all but tackled him to the ground. Kilkenny wanted to play a short one and keep possession but Connolly was having none of it.
The shot went wide and Mayo saved the day from the kickout, but it was easy enough to forgive Connolly his indulgence. For one of the only times all day he had a chance to shoot at the posts without Lee Keegan velcroed to his side.
It summed up the sort of day the Dublin forwards had. Couldn't do right for doing wrong. We looked at this game from a thousand different angles in the build-up and not once did it occur to anyone that the Mayo forwards would outscore the Dublin ones.
Or that the return from Bernard Brogan, Kevin McManamon, Paul Flynn and Ciarán Kilkenny would be zero points. Mad stuff.
A Dublin team malfunctioning as an attacking unit hasn't been seen around these parts since the Celtic Tiger was in full cry. Even accounting for the rain and the underfoot conditions, even giving full credit to the Mayo defence, this was a collective stinker. Including substitutes, nine Dublin forwards took 22 shots at the posts and returned a meagre 0-7.

GAA confirm All-Ireland final replay tickets at reduced prices
John O'Keeffe: Mayo defence gave an exhibition
Jim Gavin: 'We didn't deserve to win'
Black carded
Exempt from all criticism must be Paddy Andrews, who came off the bench 10 minutes before half time when James McCarthy was black carded and kicked two splendid points into the Canal End, one from either wing. Mayo shackled him better in the second half, yet his chance of a start in the replay must have sky-rocketed.
Paul Mannion, pacy and dangerous in possession when he came on, must be in with a shout as well.
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Who will he replace? Take your pick.
Dean Rock had a terrible day, kicking four wides and dropping two short. Normally such a done deal from placed balls, he missed three frees and a 45. To his enduring credit, he nailed a fine score in the 52nd minute to help stop the bleeding after Mayo had come out and scored the first five points of the second half. But he must be under pressure now.
And what of Brogan? Dublin's leading scorer (either jointly or alone) in each of their three All-Ireland finals, he was anonymous here. His main contribution was to toe-poke the ball goalwards en route to Kevin McLoughlin's own goal but otherwise he was silenced by Brendan Harrison. He took two shots at the posts – one went wide, one dropped on the 20-metre line.
Flynn made little impression. McManamon was the first man called ashore. Kilkenny had to do a stint at wing-back after McCarthy walked. Dublin's best performers in attack were runners from deep – Brian Fenton in the first half, John Small in the second.
Connolly and Keegan essentially reduced this to a 28-man game, alkali to the other's acid all afternoon. Connolly was reduced to three shots in total – that sideline ball at the end, a first half-effort that was blocked by Seamie O'Shea and a 69th-minute point from a botched David Clarke kickout. Mayo would have happily taken that beforehand.
The own goals kept Dublin in the game. Mayo reacted well to both of them, scoring the next point each time. And squeezing ever tighter on the Dublin forwards. "There is going to be setbacks," said Keegan afterwards. "When you're playing a team of the quality of Dublin there are going to be setbacks regardless of how well you're going or not going.
Huge positive
"The goals were what they were, but we had a very good start to the first half and we held them scoreless points-wise for 20 minutes or so, so that's a huge positive for us.
"The Dublin forward line is built up to be one of the best there is out there, and I thought we did well as a unit and, look, in the second half we only conceded four [it was actually five] points. The stats are pretty good on our behalf but it's not the result we wanted."
Maybe not but as a defensive unit their day couldn't have worked out much better.
For the Dublin forwards it couldn't have been any worse.

Even if the Dubs win the next day I think Jim Gavin will resign. He can't bring them on much.