What is a good season for the Mayo senior football team?

Started by Nihilist, February 16, 2015, 04:20:49 PM

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Nihilist

#45
Fair enough except on the SOS black card. No management can foresee that. And neither should they have to as players bring those decisions on themselves. Yes I agree in hindsight it would have been great to have Barry Moran on the bench as an impact sub. But who then would be playing on the first 15? Because of the lack of quality and depth you are talking about starting Patrick Durcan instead of  B.
Moran.

If that had happened there would be uproar with people shouting - "You start with your strongest possible team!",
Can't win imo and it's a lot of luck on the day especially how players react in situations. If players are not performing they need to be replaced but who is going to replace them?

Overall Dublin are the yardstick. No disrespect to Ronaldson or Sweeney but smaller players are seriously up against it physically versus the likes of McMahon, O'Carroll, Fitzimonns, McCarthy, O'Sullivan, Cooper and McCaffrey.   You need big physical guys who can take on the man or else serious speedsters or geniuses ala P. Canavan (which unfortunately we don't have).

When I look at the squad I see probably 25 guys who might hack it against the likes of Dublin over 70 mins and put it up to them in the man-on-man battles. And I think you need at least 25 to help out with injuries, loss of form etc. mid season.

This is my squad with brackets for those unsure about.
Clarke, Hennelly
Barrett, Cafferkey, Keane (although doubts about pace against likes of Brogan etc), Higgins, Cunniffe
Keegan, Vaughan, Boyle,  Drake (and probably Durcan but have to wait to see if he can follow it up next year as still young)
Parsons, SOS, BM
DOConnor, KMac, Cillian, JDoc (although he was pretty poor both Dublin games)
AOS, Andy, Freeman, Conroy  and possibly Evan Regan (although he is no more that a wild card gamble
as he hasn't even played proper Div 1 football never mind championship)

Only other person I can think of is as you say J Gibbons. But I dunno where he's at. Is he playing county championship now? Hopefully he will have point to prove if he is.

Overall that's about 22/23 players if they all play to their potential. I don't know of anyone else who would be close enough to the panel to take on the likes of Dublin guys at that level. Maybe Dillon but I think his best days are past him.

Unfortunately this year we were unlucky with injuries again in missing Clarke, Cunniffe, Vaughan (imo for replay not fit), Conroy and Regan. And at that stage it was too late to bring in Gibbons so we were stuck with what we had on the bench which was a lot of untested and untried guys. That left us with about 16/17 from above list to take on Dublin in replay.

We need a few more to come on board and make a breakthrough. Players like Brendan Harrisson, Stephen Coen, E. Regan are on the panel and should be pushing for a breakthrough to the first team.

But we also need the likes of C. Loftus,  Darren Coen, Seamus Cunniffe and a few more to start trying to push their way  on to that panel as you still need the squad.

Farrandeelin

I was surprised Caolan Crowe was given a short shrift by the management. Redcol knows more about him than I do, but last year in the championship v Knockmore, I would have awarded him motm.
Inaugural Football Championship Prediction Winner.

mrhardyannual

Quote from: REDCOL on September 23, 2015, 05:47:00 PM
Was speaking with a few of this years squad and they were surprised Caolan was let go. We are probably playing him out of his best natural position at Centre Forward, as we need him up there to strengthen our forwards. Would be a natural Centre Back.

He has good hands and is a big man, but feeling around here is that he is probably playing with the wrong club, if he was with the other club in the parish might have a got a bit longer on the panel.

Trevor Nally has been our outstanding player this year but has been injury prone in the past. These lads need to show what they can do on Saturday against Breaffy, and hope a new manager comes with no bias against any Club.
This is the most pathetic post I've read in some time. To imagine that any manager would leave out a player simply because they come from a certain club is laughable in the extreme. Caolan Crowe may well be deserving of a trial but so too are many other players across the county  according to their clubmates. Managers will pull in the players that they feel will best contribute to the team because it's in the managers own interest to do so. By all means disagree with who is on the panel but ascribing club bias to managers speaks more to your own narrowminededness than it does about the managers.

Nihilist

#48
So FBD is finished with another defeat at home to the Rossies.
So what is the outlook for 2016 for the Mayo team itself and the new management team?

Mise le Chéad

Well I also don't see anything new happening within the squad outside the recall of possibly Jason Gibbons and maybe the addition of Evan Regan to get a proper run out and game time in the League. Come Championship though the team will have the same familiar faces. I would like to see youth given more of a chance in the form of S. Coen, S. Cunniffe, A Gallagher. Maybe it will happen in the League but I'm not sure.

Personally I also have my doubts about Stephen Rochford. I think he had a handy number there with the footballers of Corofin. Serious outfit at all ages and without any proper competition in Galway at Senior level.  Its also a big step up from club to inter county and an even greater one in this position becasue of all the history and on top of that the strike and last years in-house issues. hope I'm wrong here but even if he is the real deal it will take time for him to make his mark on this squad.

Overall - its a hard one to call. I will go for us to retain our League position (just about)  but unfortunately reach only the quarters in the championship this year.