Mayo V Down- All Ireland Quarter Final

[5 Sams]

The Dublin supporters won't arrive into the ground until 655pm a half empty stadium for Down v Mayo?

They'll be early for a change then!!

[Captain Obvious]

The Dublin supporters won't arrive into the ground until 655pm a half empty stadium for Down v Mayo?

A silly post............................ you will find us Dubs are always on time, its the piss headed irish in the stands lowering pints into them who disrupt the games .......................... a mix of mayo, down, laois and dubs perhaps, harsh to tar all dubs with the one brush

Agreed that's why i said they will arrive 5 minutes before throw in.

[squire_in_navy_slacks]

The Dublin supporters won't arrive into the ground until 655pm a half empty stadium for Down v Mayo?

They'll be early for a change then!!

An atmosphere brought like no other..................................... who doesn't want a day out with the dubs ??

[Syferus]

The Dublin supporters won't arrive into the ground until 655pm a half empty stadium for Down v Mayo?

They'll be early for a change then!!

An atmosphere brought like no other..................................... who doesn't want a day out with the dubs ??

The Rossies getting to watch Ros-Kerry, Cork-Kildare and Donegal-Kerry the very next day, for one 

[kevmy]

The little bit I've seen of Down this year seems to indicate that their forwards are capable of putting up a good score provided they have a stable base at midfield. Their defence will leave some gaps - despite being a Northern team - they stay somewhat true to Down tradition and can be exploited if midfield dominance is gained.

A couple of years ago Marty Clarke made them very dangerous even if they got limited ball as he was very good at using it and took some pressure off Coulter. He also added some bulk to a relatively small forward unit. He's gone now and is a serious blow to Down.

People talking about playing O'Sé at 11 should think again in my view. Geragthy won't win that much ball for us and Barry Moran has not yet proven himself against a top team (although I grant that I'm much less worried about him now than I was 2 months ago). Play Moran and O'Sé at midfield, get dominance there early and leave it in to Andy at FF. Hopefully O'Connor and Conroy are playing off him in the corners and we shouldn't get the ball held up in the half-forward line. That should be Plan A. I'd play Freeman at CHF (possibly a fully fit S O'Sé)

Plan B can involve taking off an under-performing forward and moving A O'Sé to CHF and getting him (and McLoughin) running at Down with aid from the attacking HB's. 

[PAULD123]

I am sure a lot of Mayo fans can't believe that Down posters on this forum are showing their delight at the pairing. Mayo probably feel that they have more reason to be pleased. In fairness I have to say that I go more in hope than optimism and it is not a slur on Mayo that I am pleased we were paired up. I think Mayo are a better team than us at the minute and will be deserved favourites.

The only reason I was pleased was because, though it is sad to admit it, I would prefer to have our season ended by 2-3 points to Mayo than a complete humiliation again to Cork.

Having said that I do have belief that we could win, but our performances haven't been nearly good enough over 70 minutes this season. But in terms of pure talent I am sure that James Horan would take Coulter, Hughes, Poland, Gordon, Rogers and Laverty onto his team right now. So I think there is not much between the teams. But I still think that if we win, sadly, it will come as a pleasant surprise.

[sans pessimism]

This indeed is a good draw for both teams.Mayo probably peaked too soon last year when they beat Cork and already this year they have beaten Kerry at HQ.They are provincial champions and would have wanted to avoid Kerry and Kildare so we won't take it as an insult that they were happy to draw us.We would not have wanted Cork ,the Dubs have an unfair advantage up until the final and we couldn't get Donegal. We know Mayo are a class outfit and they will want to avenge the league defeat as big O'Shea got lined early on.However, I don't think the second half of the Ulster final is a true reflection of where we are and I would be confident this game will go to the wire-it really will go to the hungrier team and at this stage I think we are.

WRONG

[eviemonkey]

I'd fancy Mayo here. Down's success in 2010 was founded on an excellent forward unit but they look to have gone back somewhat in that department. Clarke is obviously a big loss but Hughes and McComisky were key performers as well but both have been unavailable for different reasons. There is a chance Hughes could recover from injury in time for this one but you'd have to worry about his match fitness even if he does start.

Poland, Coulter and Laverty carry the main danger now but Mayo will feel they have the defensive personnel here (Cafferkey, Higgins and Vaughan) that can keep restrict their influence and keep Down to a manageable score. Which Mayo will probably need as they don't tend to put up big scores of their own.

I'd go along with the forwards Kevmy named. Freeman at centre-forward, O'Connor and Conroy in the corners. Down's tend to leave their full-back line exposed so Moran and O'Connor should be delegated to the inside forward line. Conroy is a feast or famine type of corner forward. You generally know what you will get from him early on so if he is struggling early, expect Doherty or Varley to see action.

The one big addition to Down since 2010 is the return of Rogers. The midfield tussle will be revealing. If Mayo get on top here there is only going to be one winner for me. Down will need big games here from King and Duffin sweeping back.

Down will need goals, maybe a couple of them, but overall it is still Mayo for me. Looking forward to what should be an interesting game.

[Lar Naparka]

I expect Horan will make few if any changes to his starting fifteen.
Aiden should come in to partner Barry at midfield and that's about as far as I think he will go.
What I'd like to see ain't necessarily what I'm going to get.
That's why I expect to see the HF line left unchanged and Andy lining out at 14. We can talk 'til the cows come home about the merits of switching O'Connor and Moran around but it is not going to happen. Leastways, I'll be very surprised if it does.
He subbed the two CFs the last day but that could be put down to his overall game plan not working rather than to a lack of effort from Varley and Doherty. I don't think that either of the replacements, Conroy or Freeman, did any better. It's hard to second guess Horan here; any two could start but I feel he'll start his original pair.
So, O'Shea on for Geraghty and more of the same elsewhere is my prediction.

[Barney]

Lar if your prediction comes through we will lose.

[Farrandeelin]

I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but the more I think about this game I'm afraid we'll end up losing. Reasons why I'm afraid of this happening, well we only beat Leitrim and Sligo. Now that's taking nothing away from Sligo, but as a lot of us Mayo people keep saying over on WJ's blog which I'm more a reader than a contributer, we are better than Kildare, yet they blew Sligo out of the water. Why did they blow Sligo out of the water, well they opened up an early lead and Sligo couldn't comeback. You may ask why the hell am I using Sligo as an example? Well they're the only serious game we've had since April where Cork made it look like men against boys in the second half that day. We're facing our first Division 1 team since April and if Down 'do a Sligo' and go ahead early on, I can't see us coming back to win. Yes Barry Moran made hay against the two previous opposition and he may be peaking for the summer games, but I've yet to see him play well against a top team such as the likes of any of the teams that are left. Sure there are positives, Down may be tired playing three games in as many weeks, but then again they got through the 6 day turnaround and will know they have more to do and may have enough in the tank to get them over the line. They may have no defence as Brolly said, but that will only be tested by good forwards which I'm afraid Mayo don't have. Hopefully Conroy will score with his first kick of the game or else we could be in bother. I agree with Lar in that there probably won't be many changes to the attack, but I'd say COC will be moved to corner-forward. Who will fill the centre forward berth is anyone's guess, and it could even be COC himself yet.

[From the Bunker]

Farrandeelin, you are going through the usual emotions after a (so called) favourable draw. First you think, ah thats a great draw, we'll take them. Then after a bit of thought, you think, this could be a trick one. And finally you look at your own team and think maybe our team is not up to this.

[seanog]

I'm going to go against the grain here a bit and predict a comfortable win for Mayo.

Down are no great shakes, light enough, there backs are fairly loose at times. I don't believe they have a lot of mental toughness either, they gave up the ghost v Donegal too handy, their body language gave out signals they had given up. The counter argument for that could be they came back against Monaghan after been 9 pts down (i think) to win, well imo Monaghan were not up to a lot over 70mins this year either.

Mayo have had a peculiar championship to date because of the set up, we beat Leitrim convincingly , gap in class was evident after 20 mins,. The Sligo game again was a funny aul game, the cross wind destroyed Mayos first half, i firmly believe if the goal had of stood, we would of kicked on and won convincingly. All said and done we have not seen the true Mayo yet this year imo.

We have the obvious problem of our inside line not scoring enough but as much as that could prove to be a problem, our game as we all know now is going to produce a fair spread of scores from Higgans to A.Moran, it's the way we are set up to play.

I reckon we'll get a big game out of COC sat evening and will beat Down fairly handy as long as we can get our fair share around the middle, which i expect us to. Mayo supporters should stop being so negative towards this team, it's all positive on our way to hq again and expecting a win.

[Captain Obvious]

When is the last Mayo were in All Ireland quarter final expecting and favourites to win?

[seanog]

When is the last Mayo were in All Ireland quarter final expecting and favourites to win?

Probably 2006 v Laois or maybe Meath 09 .