Mayo v Leitrim - 24-6-12

[Captain Obvious]

Can the ulster and connaught champs meet before the all ireland final? Donegal are the only team i can see to stop mayo this year when both teams get on a roll. Cork and dublin have had their big days. What a great final for the north west

Only two years ago all the provincial champions lost their quarter final game.

[moysider]

Ddidn't make the game yesterday but a good result for us. Tough on Leitrim and it's going to be hard for them to regroup for a round 2 qualifier.

On the full forward line, can someone who was there explain why the FF line didn't score more?

Not showing for the ball?
Beaten to it?
Got it but put it wide?
Ball not being played in - I'd suspect this may have been the reason in which case is it hard to blame Freeman / Doc / Andy?

From the radio, it sounded like Conroy showed well and got a good bit of ball when he came on.

I tried to explain this earlier. I think I even signposted it before the game.

It s a curse havin to try to make out what is really happening by listening to midwest radio. I wouldn t be a bit surprised that they were moaning about us not giving earlier ball into the ff line

To understand the role of our inside forwards think wingers in rugby. They finish off the odd move but mostly just tackle and chase back. Our game is mostly about runners and carrying ball with only the odd ball being kicked in early to the full forwards. So our cfs are just workers and finishers.

It s a deliberate thing and the correct tactic imo. I think management has decided that trying to feed our ff line was too wasteful and we were getting stung on the counter-attack, so we run the ball.

When Conroy came on the game was well stretched. But he did achieve more with his first 2 touches than Doherty did in 50 mins. In my opinion Conroy is our best inside forward and should be left there to get his confidence flowing. I expect Freeman to hold Conoreen off because Conor is better suited to making runs with his back to goal and is a bit goalshy while Freeman is a better goal scorer and suits this running game better.

[rosnarun]

i'd dbe a bit worried about boyloe . what makes him great is a manic intensity which is good in itself but easier for some one trying to prove a point. yesterday he didnt need to prove anything and was very poor. maybe he was the man to put on mulligan as he was a bit aimless when there was no pressure on him.
Barry moran should have done enough to retain midfield  and geraghty did himself no harm either but the jersy surely belongs to aidan o se .

[Orchardman]

Can the ulster and connaught champs meet before the all ireland final? Donegal are the only team i can see to stop mayo this year when both teams get on a roll. Cork and dublin have had their big days. What a great final for the north west

Only two years ago all the provincial champions lost their quarter final game.

and what does that say? that's a real glass half empty attitude. Last year i was delighted to see all 4 provincial winners win through to the semi finals, after all the blabber about teams coming through the back door having momentum.

Donegal and mayo may not even win their provincial, but they along with the much hyped kildare are easily the 3 teams knocking on the breakthrough door, and i hope one of them win it as i dont expect armagh to be in the final. My preferred choice would be mayo too

[moysider]

i'd dbe a bit worried about boyloe . what makes him great is a manic intensity which is good in itself but easier for some one trying to prove a point. yesterday he didnt need to prove anything and was very poor. maybe he was the man to put on mulligan as he was a bit aimless when there was no pressure on him.
Barry moran should have done enough to retain midfield  and geraghty did himself no harm either but the jersy surely belongs to aidan o se .

Agree. I expect Boyle will be back to his rabid best the next day though. He s done some job to get back in and yesterday will have stung him. Why his intensity was so badly pitched I dunno but expect a backlash.

Thought Keegan did well on Mulligan and looks a natural chb.

Thought Barry Moran could hardly do much more and Geraghty is doing himself no harm in his first year. Where he ll end up on a team I don t know. Aidan O Sé will have the jersey when he s ready - but when will that be I wonder. He hasn t kicked a ball in 3 months. If he doesn t play for Breaffy next week then it is unlikely he will play 2 weeks later.  If we see Aidan in a Mayo shirt this summer it will be a bonus. If he makes it back and is match fit it will be hands rubbing time.

And another thing. If there was any chance of getting Trevor back -even at this stage - it would be massive. All the years he was messed about. This team is set up for him, the way we play now. Shame. He would be a massive boost.

[rosnarun]

i presume you mean mort rather than howley?
he was there yesterday looking well tanned even making John maughan look pasty.
i think the only way theyd go looking for hime was if we lost to sligo  and that cant happen can it.....

[moysider]

i presume you mean mort rather than howley?
he was there yesterday looking well tanned even making John maughan look pasty.
i think the only way theyd go looking for hime was if we lost to sligo  and that cant happen can it.....

It can happen. Trevor not being involved this year is not good from anybody s point of view. Howley is Howley. Not enough wars to be recognised by his first name.

[spuds]

I should have said result. 14>22 our margin of defeat wasn't the same although our performance v Galway was probably the worst i ever seen from us in the championship.

You not in McHale park in 2009 for Mayo Ross championship match ?

You really need to ask was i at a Roscommon championship game? that game was our worst margin of defeat at least Mayo went on to win Nestor. Our performance v Galway was the worst i've seen from us in the championship but have seen worse in the league.

What ? I don't know you horse, your legend doesn't extend over to the plains of Mayo. 2009 game in Castlebar would be hard to beat for bad days out, painful to watch as a Mayoman even. Had a few trimmings outselves so not gloating.

[macdanger2]

Ddidn't make the game yesterday but a good result for us. Tough on Leitrim and it's going to be hard for them to regroup for a round 2 qualifier.

On the full forward line, can someone who was there explain why the FF line didn't score more?

Not showing for the ball?
Beaten to it?
Got it but put it wide?
Ball not being played in - I'd suspect this may have been the reason in which case is it hard to blame Freeman / Doc / Andy?

From the radio, it sounded like Conroy showed well and got a good bit of ball when he came on.

I tried to explain this earlier. I think I even signposted it before the game.

It s a curse havin to try to make out what is really happening by listening to midwest radio. I wouldn t be a bit surprised that they were moaning about us not giving earlier ball into the ff line

To understand the role of our inside forwards think wingers in rugby. They finish off the odd move but mostly just tackle and chase back. Our game is mostly about runners and carrying ball with only the odd ball being kicked in early to the full forwards. So our cfs are just workers and finishers.

It s a deliberate thing and the correct tactic imo. I think management has decided that trying to feed our ff line was too wasteful and we were getting stung on the counter-attack, so we run the ball.

When Conroy came on the game was well stretched. But he did achieve more with his first 2 touches than Doherty did in 50 mins. In my opinion Conroy is our best inside forward and should be left there to get his confidence flowing. I expect Freeman to hold Conoreen off because Conor is better suited to making runs with his back to goal and is a bit goalshy while Freeman is a better goal scorer and suits this running game better.

The running game is grand so long as you lay it off before the tackle - not many of the Mayo lads are able to break a tackle and I don't want to see them trying to burst through and fumbling the ball in the process.....we've seen enough of that in the past

[moysider]

Ddidn't make the game yesterday but a good result for us. Tough on Leitrim and it's going to be hard for them to regroup for a round 2 qualifier.

On the full forward line, can someone who was there explain why the FF line didn't score more?

Not showing for the ball?
Beaten to it?
Got it but put it wide?
Ball not being played in - I'd suspect this may have been the reason in which case is it hard to blame Freeman / Doc / Andy?

From the radio, it sounded like Conroy showed well and got a good bit of ball when he came on.

I tried to explain this earlier. I think I even signposted it before the game.

It s a curse havin to try to make out what is really happening by listening to midwest radio. I wouldn t be a bit surprised that they were moaning about us not giving earlier ball into the ff line

To understand the role of our inside forwards think wingers in rugby. They finish off the odd move but mostly just tackle and chase back. Our game is mostly about runners and carrying ball with only the odd ball being kicked in early to the full forwards. So our cfs are just workers and finishers.

It s a deliberate thing and the correct tactic imo. I think management has decided that trying to feed our ff line was too wasteful and we were getting stung on the counter-attack, so we run the ball.

When Conroy came on the game was well stretched. But he did achieve more with his first 2 touches than Doherty did in 50 mins. In my opinion Conroy is our best inside forward and should be left there to get his confidence flowing. I expect Freeman to hold Conoreen off because Conor is better suited to making runs with his back to goal and is a bit goalshy while Freeman is a better goal scorer and suits this running game better.

The running game is grand so long as you lay it off before the tackle - not many of the Mayo lads are able to break a tackle and I don't want to see them trying to burst through and fumbling the ball in the process.....we've seen enough of that in the past

I know what you mean but I don t think it has ever been done as a deliberate thing in the past. I suspect it is now deliberate and the preferred approach - most of the time anyway.

Take the last day. Andy couldn t hold ball early on- poor hands. Higgins got fed up and ran the length of the pitch and pointed. The others woke up and strong runs from likes of Vaughan and Keegan killed them. But for the first 20 mins we indulged them with the football equivalent of patticake.

I haven t done stats on Mayo but I m sure they have a statistician. I don t need to see the data to know that the turnovers from ball kicked into our full-forward line was brutal. In fact I m sure the data would show that the opposition scored more than we did from those balls than we did when they counterattacked. That is unsustainable.

If you think back to last years games v Cork and Kerry in championship I think you ll find a lot of our good stuff came from running the ball, McLoughlins goal and Vaughans stuff v Kerry. A lot was made of Andy s display v Kerry last year ( we didn t get enough scores out his display, even though it was top class) but the rest of the ff line could not win ball - ball that Kerry worked back to smash us.

Likes of Keegan, Higgins, Feeney, Vaughan, Boyle, McLoughlin, Cafferkey can break tackles. So too can Aidan O Sé of course. He was most to blame last year for taking too much out of it and we got hurt from it. But it should well have been corrected  at this stage.

I think we have a realistic approach now to playing to our strengths. I m happy we re not going down the route of by-passing organised defenses by skying the ball in to an immobile target and giving the opposition soft ball to run back at us.