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Yes, but back to the real topic, what about Roscommon? There must be additional Rossie related topics that can be gleaned from this semi final match up?
Have we had no references to the fact that they are in the minor semi final (t'other one) and some potential impacts that fact could have on Mayo and Tyrone? Very slack if we haven't, up the game a small bit please lads.

We were well beaten in the match but we still fared fairly well against the O'Sheas



In 2011 Connacht final we won midfield against the two O'Sheas but still lost 

We were excellent at winning breaks against Mayo, at least in the first 25 minutes or so when it was a contest. Keenan was like a human vacuum cleaner. The way to beat AOS is breaking it away from him or, where possible, just avoiding him. For all his good work going back into defence you'd love to have your forwards in space with AOS on them because like any man his size he's not going to be able to react as fast or match the smaller man's acceleration.

Why do the Rossies always try to manage to bring EVERY topic back to the irrelevance that is Roscommon football?

Move on lads, go back to watching the 1980 final on Betamax

If you lads think that Tyrone have been playing to their full potential in every game this year then you may be in for an awful shock come August 25th. There's hardly a man, bar big Sean, who has reached full tilt yet. There's nothing better than being complete underdogs against a cocky Mayo team!

Do you think Mayo behaved 'cocky' recently?
How were they cocky?
Mayo were 22 points up at one stage v Donegal and were there any olés from the Mayo fans, even though we were hammmering a team that inflicted one of the most miserable days of our lives. Bit of soundness there  - ask the Meath men. Fans from Mayo not cocky either obviously so easy on.
I hope there will be loads of hype in Mayo now. The days are getting short and this is a great distraction.
In the past Mayo beating themselves with hype was used by lazy/ clueless hacks who did not get the big picture. Including local shit.
Hype has never been the cause of our past failings. I ve been posting here a while and my old posts are there to be seen. I d still stand over what I ve posted.

Sure Tyrone can do a number on us. That is sport.

On the other hand, have Dublin and Mayo made the game more ...................... I dunno ...... watchable?

I've spoken to many Mayo folk over the past few days and the level of arrogance is unbelievable. Tyrone are being dismissed as merely a nuisance along the way to the big one in September against the Dubs. Also its very premature to be calling yourselves a great team too as you haven't won the AI......yet! Supporters claiming to have revolutionised the game - even made it more watchable as they have dispatched everyone that has been put in front of them. But I'm sure the Mayo players will be grand as, after all, they have never bottled it in a big game before!

Its the same up here in reverse. I have spoken to a number of tyrone fans and they are only thinking of dublin or kerry in the final. They are simply assuming that mayo will bottle it as usual. They also think the bashing from rte will galavanise harte and the players and propel them on the way to another all ireland.

The only time we've probably bottled it was the 2004 final when we should have been at least competitive against an under strength Kerry side, having said that, that game was partially lost by Maughan leaving D Brady on the sideline. 2006 was stupid as it was patently obvious what Kerry's tactics were doing to be (high ball to K Donaghy who was at his best) and we hadnt even bothered to come up with a game plan to attempt to stop it. If Brady had been put on him from the start we could have had a chance. last year was also lost on the line, out thought by J Mc Guinness thinking that Murphy was going to be out the field, when they decided to do a Kerry and plant high ball in on top of Kevin Keane. Horan should have seen what they were at from the first few balls and made a quick change, judgement call not to do so but thats his job. Looks like they have learned from that. We were reasonably competitive besides that in the final (besides Dallas Mrs Kennedy, how was your trip?_
And even if you disagree with that and say Mayo did choke, well that record of choking is only in finals, we have a fine record in Croker at the business end of teh season in quarters and semis so the Tyrone folk thinking Mayo will choke might need to be reminded that its a semi, not a final, so not much chance of Mayo losing by choking I reckon.

As I mentioned earlier Mayo/Tyrone championship games in the past have tended to be tight on the scoreboard at the end, so I'd say a rout by either side isn't likely - but not impossible. I'm pretty sure that a lot of yesterdays performance by Mayo against Donegal was down to last year's final loss and the thrash talk of the past week being channelled into a well controlled aggression that was ruthlessly implemented without mercy given. I can't see them getting worked up to the same level against Tyrone so it'll be much more down to abilities of each team. Mayo's team are rightly favourites for this match and I expect them to win (though Tyrone winning would be very nice) but the question for me is can they shake off the jinx of losing the bottle when it matters? If they win Sam this year I can see them being right up there for the rest of this decade if they put that hoodoo to bed.

To be fair we've been right up there for alot of the past two decades, without winning it. But if we did manage to win this one there would be ZERO chance of a back to back. Whatever hype there might have been in Donegal after this years win, you could multiple that by a million in Mayo and we'd be lucky to retain Connacht, but I dont think any of us would be too bothered.
Might be a bit like Galway in 98, 2 or 3 years later might come back for another one.
Theres another example there to keep Mayo people's feet on the ground, 2001, Meath hammer the shite outta the All Ireland champs, Kerry and were unbackable for Sam against Galway, Mayo arent unbackable, but theres a warning there in what happened to Meath in the final, take nothing for granted.

Massive performance from Mayo.
I think they can ease off a bit for Tyrone and then build themselves back up for the Dubs.
Hard to maintain that intensity.

Nah, you cant do that. If your game plan is built on intensity then you have to do it every time you go out, cant turn it on and off, and to even suggest doing so would be an insult to Tyrone who will win if they dont get the respect they deserve. Mayo have been playing with that intensity all year, with exceptions being part of the London game and the last 15 minutes of the game V Donegal. Its only 70 minutes, they have had plenty of rest between games and are capable of keeping that intensity up for two more games.

I've had a read of this whole thread, and have to say there was some awful rubbish being spoken, course I'm looking at it with the benefit of hindsight, and I didnt predict a Mayo hammering of Donegal either but logic would dictate that they would win, given their form

People need to get over the stereotype of Mayo that they have in their heads and analyse and comment on this particular team. We have always had good footballers but I dont believe we have had as many who have been coached to their full potential, or who have been put together in such a professional environment as we have now.
All you can hope for from a management team is that they firstly get the best talent available to them in the county onto a county panel and secondly set them up to give them the best possible chance of winning, and I'm not just talking about tactics, but also fitness, S&C, training intervals (periodisation), mind set, off field setup, man management and team cohesiveness. Donegal did it last year to a tee and fair play to them.

This version of Mayo started 3 years ago under James Horan, he came to the table with logic. For too many years, Mayo have had the talented footballers but none of what I have mentioned above. We had a hit and hope attitude that by some miracle we'd fall over the line. You dont win the all ireland with a handful of talented footballers and hope. You have to set out a plan that makes the most sense, build on it and overcome any issues you fall into.
James Horan had been there done that, in terms of losing all irelands. He said that the reason we lost some games we should have won, was that we fell into bad habits when the pressure came on, we didnt have the all round skill sets to get ourselves out of trouble. He maintains that IC footballers shouldnt have a "weak side", they should be able to hand pass, kick pass, score, tackle equally from either side, and 3 years ago set about working on skills. His theory being that you cant get anything right without the baseline of having the skills. Sounds obvious but not that many are doing it. Thankfull its now filtering down to all Mayo underage squads, skill work.
So, while they are still working on that, this team now are in their 3rd year of building that foundation, they have shown progress every year, a semi final, a final and now hopefully another final with an actual win. I think thats why Mayo people are showing such confidence, well those that know a bit about football anyway, can see that there is a logic to a statement about considering this team all ireland contenders, unlike in the past when we got to finals and didnt really know how the f*ck we got there (2006, 2004) being prime examples. A handful of good footballers and a hit and hope strategy. Not this team. A Galway man once said to me, and he was right, that Galway people know when they have a good team, and wont follow a bad one, for years Mayo people blindly followed whatever was out there, without really knowing if it was good or not. I think that is finally changing now and at the very least we know that this team will be very competitive. Again logic shows that statistically we have scorers coming from all sorts of places so its difficult to stop that. Over the past 3 years, with the exception of last years all ireland final, we at least break even in midfield. Tyrone dont have as many scorers, so all things being equal and no significant injuries to key Mayo personnel (either O'Shea, Andy Moran, Alan Dillon, Kev McLoughlin, Keith Higgins, Cillian O'Connor, Colm Boyle or Rob Hennelly (as hes the only goalie left logic would dictate that Mayo will get over the line. The fact that list is so long tells it own story.Final is a different story, it will probably be Dublin and they are still in their first year of development under Jim Gavin. Yes, there are a number of those lads with medals in their arse pocket, something Mayo cant say, but this is being built for for 3 years, so again, with the same caveats, Mayo could win that too.

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It was worrying seeing so many cooks today, even the back-up keeper had a pop! I think the first three 45m range frees were all took by different players. It worked out today in terms of conversions but it's much more likely to come a cropper in Croke Park and that's not something any title-chasing team can afford.

I suppose Mayo people are hoping CO'C will be back but expecting much from a lad with two serious shoulder injuries in a little over six months is a dangerous thing.
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Thanks for the worrying snagglepuss or snafflepuss or whatever you call yourself, tis very touching you'd be worried about Mayo's free taking. We'll ask Donie Buckley to give you a shout for a few tips on coaching the free taking

After looking at that Roscommon team and reading some of the Rossies on this site, especially the very relevant point (NOT) about their record over Mayo in underage recently, I really dont think there is any point in Mayo showing up. The Connacht board need to start preparing the typeface for the Connacht Final program Roscommon V  L (it'll definetly begin with L)
Who will we get in the back door I wonder?

Christ not the "XX years of hurt" shite again, save us

In the past 2 years both teams have achieved more or less the same so I can't see how someof ye ate dismissing mayo's chances out of hand.

Coz the Sunday Game panelists said so and thats all about it

Dia dhaoibh.
I've enjoyed reading this thread from the sublime to the ridiculous over the past 2 weeks or so.
Firstly, and very importantly I'd like to reiterate the huge amount of common ground shared between both Donegal and Mayo people. We've probably got more in common as people than Donegal do with some of their provincial compatriots and this is one reason I'm looking forward to Sunday. There simply isn't a single county in Ireland I'd rather lose a final to than Mayo.

Now to the football. O'Neill has had a good ould dig at the Mayo folk but his posts do register an admiration of Donegal 2012 which I welcome. In reality, I'd thought of posting on this and other forums in the lead up to the game over the past 2 weeks but there's been an abundance of bottom feeding around of late and it's difficult to try to have a debate around the finer points of next Sundays game. Of course, any debate about next Sunday serves only to whet the appetite and will have no bearing on proceedings but for what it's worth here's my 2c.

I think Donegal will win this game because they bring a level of intensity to the game of Gaelic football which no team in 2012 has been capable of dealing with. People will retort that I've bought into the hype but I'd consider myself a fairly well seasoned Gael and having watched Donegal in about 90% of their games to date the following ought to be noted.

1) League counts for nothing when measuring Donegal (they prepare for championship football)
2) The body shape of the entire panel (least so Michael Murphy) has changed dramatically over the past 12 months. Someone previously mentioned McFadden being well marked previously. I'd agree and retort that that was a very different Colm McFadden who could be man marked in that era by a very capable defender. Today I think it takes 2.
3) Donegal don't usually foul. It's become common knowledge that scoreable opportunities from free kicks are very few and far between against Donegal 2012. Look to the number of frees scored by Cork and Kerry in the previous two games for an example of this. To win this game Mayo will need to score regularly from play and not the placed ball.
4)  Donegal have not peaked. In general I feel they've improved from game to game this year and expect them to continue this trend on Sunday. The performance v Cork was far from polished and righting the mistakes therein will have been the focus of some of the past 3 weeks.
5) I don't believe any team plays 6-2-6 any longer or at least those who do don't last long enough to be analysed. In my own circle of discussion we hope that Mayo employ a traditional system but I don't believe Mayo or James Horan to be naive enough to do so. From what I've seen of Mayo this year and that's been 3 out of the 4 games they've played they seem similar to Donegal in the deployment of their half forward line, foraging deep for dirty ball and breaking at pace.

Comparing footballers from one team to the other doesn't really do an awful lot of justice either. Murphy is due a big game, is something I've heard bandied about from time to time but he's already had a number of them this year to date. His ball winning ability, distribution, link play and eye for a score as well as natural footballing talent make him the complete package. If we could clone him we'd find room for at least another 3 of him in our starting 15. He's our captain because he's our best footballer, and analysis which discounts his performance isn't accurate in my opinion.

There is also some sentiment in this thread that Mayo's all ireland final experience could see them through. I'd be inclined to think this the case had they won any of the previous encounters. This game will most probably be won by the best team. If that is the case I expect I'll be celebrating for the next 12 months with Sam in the Hills.

County name change, one or two names and one word and tis all the one. Thats the fantastic thing that most experts and Donegal people have overlooked, their's a system to Mayo's play as well and its not that different to Donegals. There is one major difference in that Mayo appear to have two styles of play which they alternate, Donegal only appear to have one, albeit a very effective one. Handy to have a plan B though. Alot of this build up reminds me of the build up to the quarter finals last year, nobody "in the know" could possibly concieve anything but a savage batin for Mayo then.

1) League counts for nothing when measuring Mayo (they prepare for championship football)
2) The body shape of the entire panel (least so Aidan O'Shea) has changed dramatically over the past 12 months. Someone previously mentioned Dillon being well marked previously. I'd agree and retort that that was a very different Alan Dillon who could be man marked in that era by a very capable defender. Today I think it takes 2.
3) Mayo don't usually foul. It's become common knowledge that scoreable opportunities from free kicks are very few and far between against Mayo 2012. Look to the number of frees scored by Down and Dublin in the previous two games for an example of this. To win this game Donegal will need to score regularly from play and not the placed ball.
4)  Mayo have not peaked. In general I feel they've improved from game to game this year and expect them to continue this trend on Sunday. The performance v Dublin was far from polished and righting the mistakes therein will have been the focus of some of the past 3 weeks.
5) I don't believe any team plays 6-2-6 any longer or at least those who do don't last long enough to be analysed. In my own circle of discussion we hope that Donegal employ their traditional system but I don't believe Donegal or the Messiah to be naive enough to do so. From what I've seen of Donegal this year and that's been 3 out of the 4 games they've played they seem similar to Donegal in the deployment of their half forward line, foraging deep for dirty ball and breaking at pace.

Seeing that there was barely electricity in most places never mind the interweb when Mayo last won the All-Ireland, GAA forums are closing down as a preventive measure against the meltdown that will occur if Mayo win with all the revenge posts Mayo folk will be writing in the forums for the millions of slights and jokes they've suffered over the last 60 years both online and offline.

Chalk it down, I have 5 pages of a manifesto going back to when Charlie refused the Monsignor for the runway the first time (I manage to relate that to a slight on Mayo footballers) ready to be unleashed on the world come just after 5 next Sunday.

Really looking forward to this, there is bound to be a Pitch invasion

We'd never make it down from the corporate box in time if there is one, will they be showing the soccer on floor 6 I wonder?

Lads we all know this is the Goal match in reverse and some other team has to be on the field for 70 odd minutes before they hand Donegal the cup they won back in August, but allow me a few moments of fantasy here, and let me do some whats ifs and the like and pretend it might be a contest, even though as the high priests of the Sunday Game have allready ruled on this one, I know I'm just being silly but paper never refused ink so hould on a minute.
I  think there is alot of relevance to what the wobbler says, and some of that relates to Donegals victory over Cork.  At a very simplistic level (my analysis, not saying Donegal are simple) Donegal basically clogged the central "channel" that day (same as Mayo did the year before when beating Cork) while Cork had relatively class forwards such as O'Neill, Kerrigan, Sheehan etc at various times standing inside in the corner 1:1 waiting for ball while Cork decided to play keep ball, passing it back and over around the 40. You could almost see the Donegal lads saying "thank you Mr Counihan". If Cork had played a game of fast ball in to those forwards they would at least have kept Donegal guessing, instead they became utterly predictable, Donegal worked their arses off and picked off very good scores in the second half so that Cork resorted to panicing. They were panicing from 50 minutes on when the game was still there to be won. So what the hell has that got to do with the final? I think Mayo are very capable of varying it, they showed against Dublin and against Down that somehow, even though no one rates them, their 6 forwards are capable of winning a ball in front and kicking it over the bar. They can vary it between hitting long ball into the corners or hitting it out to the 40 and scoring from both locations. I dont think Donegal have really encountered that before.
Mayo have 5 players starting who have U-21 all ireland medals in their arse pockets, if Donegal having a great U-21 team is constantly quoted as being a positive for them then that has to count as something for Mayo as well.  Mayo have Cian O'Neill a man who has managed to get teams up the physicality stakes required to win a senior hurling all ireland against Kilkenny. I dont know if any of you have been to a senior intercounty match recently, but football pales into comparison with some of the banging going on in hurling matches these days.
Back to football for a minute, rather then the plus and minus columns,  and anything we can learn from previous games, one thing that concerns me from a Mayo perspective is midfield, 2004 and 2006 were lost primarily because Mayo were absolutley massacred in midfield. This year Dublin won an awful lot of the kickouts against Mayo but Mayo managed to turn the ball over consistently, turning that ball into scores and annoying the shite outta Dublin. Donegal killed, what I would have regarded as before hand, a very good Cork midfield in the semi. If the same pattern continues and Donegal win the primary share of kickouts, I cant see them turning that ball over again, they havent in the past, and that I think is the key to the result. If Mayo break even at midfield I think they will win by one or two points, if they dont then Donegal will win, barring some seriously bad shooting in front of goals.

Alot of points there Mike, when I read the title of the thread I assumed you were asking would Mayo go all defensive, 12 men behind the ball kind of thing. That wasnt what you ended up asking but to answer that question, if you were asking it, no not really, I think Mayo will try and play very tight, because if they dont Kerry will wallop us, but I dont think it'll be some kind of 12 men behind the ball tactic a la Donegal and to a lesser extent Kildare. The reason for that is because we probably cant, it hasnt been a tactic this team has used and I cant see James Horan bringing in a complelty new playing style for an All Ireland semi final. That would almost be impossible to try and enact.
Mayo do need to do something defensively however as every team so far that we've played in the championship has created some very clear goal chances that they should really have taken, both Galway and Roscommon missed sitters at key times, Cork missed two and London had their chances also. It would be out of characther for Kerry to miss similar chances, and if they get them I cant see the Mayo forward line outscoring them. Having said that, there are still alot of unknowns with this Mayo team, I was confident enough of a good performance against Cork as I knew we would win a fair share around midfield, the question was of course could we limit their scoring and make the most out of our chances. We know what happened. So the Mayo forward line could surprise us and cut loose, we just dont know, but I would be surprised. I think this is a 16, 17 point team on a good day, simple question is can they play to their capabilities and reduce Kerry to less than that.
As regards "going physical", well I dont really get the point to be honest. Isnt gaelic football a physical game? If your suggesting that Mayo's tactic might be to come out and start flaking Kerry and think that will win the game, well that would be niave in the extreme. This is a very experienced, seasoned Kerry team, a few belts wont shake them and belting has never won a football game anyway, kicking scores has and thats what Mayo need to do, kick every single changce they get, then theres a good chance.
For me this game is probably a question of age, is the Kerry age profile an advantage? Will hey use their vast experience to outplay and outthink Mayo? Is their age against them and inversely can Mayo use their lower age profile as an advantage to outrun and out play Kerry, or indeed is that actually a disadvantage for Maoy in that Kerry could come out, shake the jersey and head back home in a final? I dont think that will happen but then again I thought we had a chance in the 2004 and 2006 finals so what do I know about it? I am pretty confident that if Mayo dont sucumb to the blitz they'll face in the first 20 minutes and are still in the game at half time then they have a great chance. I think JOC willattempt to do, as he has the last 3 times his team have played Mayo in championship try and finish the game in the first 20. It worked the last 3 times, I hope it doesnt this time.

Rumours about p Galvin not being right now either.
MatteraDamn as the man says, Kerry have plenty of great players to fill spots as needed, ah sure it'll be like the Cork game, great to get another day out, sure we'll hardly keep the ball kicked out to them.