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According to Gaa.ie Kildare have already won U20 Leinster

Eamonn Sweeney got in on the act yesterday. A tad OTT I feel.

Eamonn Sweeney

July 2 2018 5:00 PM


The two-goal start handed to Donegal in the 2012 All-Ireland final, the defensive mix-up which gave Bernard Brogan his first goal in the 2013 decider, the five-point lead with five minutes left lost in the 2014 semi against Kerry, the two own goals in the drawn 2016 meeting with Dublin, the decision to replace All-Star goalkeeper David Clarke for the replay, the red card for Donal Vaughan just when it looked like they'd have an extra man for the closing 20 minutes of last year's final.

No team ever amassed quite as many might-have-been moments as Mayo. Their story is one of turning points which turned the wrong way. Hope and history never quite rhymed. Lady Luck always left with someone else.

A momentous era ended in Newbridge on Saturday night. It began on July 31, 2011 when an unfancied Mayo side, who'd only defeated London by a single point in their opening Connacht Championship match, beat reigning All-Ireland champions Cork 1-13 to 2-6 in a Croke Park quarter-final. Kerry disposed of them easily enough next time out but Mayo, under manager James Horan, seemed a team on the way up. The following year they once more upset the reigning champs, beating Dublin by three points in a tremendous semi-final. Yet this was Donegal and Jim McGuinness's year. Cynics suggested Mayo had merely made life easier for the new champions by clearing a better side out of the way.

Mayo demanded respect in 2013. For the third year in a row they deposed the title-holders, beating Donegal by 16 points in the quarter-final. The final could have gone either way but it went Dublin's by a point. Yet it looked like Mayo's time would surely come soon.


They were perhaps never better than in the 2014 semi-final against Kerry. Mayo played the second half with 14 men after Lee Keegan was sent off just before the break but looked to have won the game before Kieran Donaghy came on.

The moment when the big man superbly fielded a high ball before slipping it to James O'Donoghue who stuck it into the net felt like a significant turning point. Mayo lost the replay after extra-time, their disappointment exacerbated by a sense of injustice. There were some dubious refereeing decisions and the game had been played in Kingdom-friendly Limerick because Croke Park was hosting an American Football match.

The resignation of Horan afterwards seemed to confirm the feeling that this Mayo side, like their predecessors who'd lost the 1996 and 1997 and 2004 and 2006 finals, would fade away in the face of sustained disappointment.

Yet they were back in the semis the following year, under the joint management of Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes, and led Dublin going into the final quarter before being undone by a devastating three-goal burst.

A players' putsch saw Stephen Rochford take over as manager for 2016 but a first Connacht Championship defeat to Galway in eight years and a halting progress through the qualifiers suggested a team in decline. Few predicted anything other than comprehensive defeat for them in the final against Dublin.

Instead Mayo would have won the drawn game but for own goals from Kevin McLoughlin and Colm Boyle which kept the floundering Dubs in the contest. The unfortunate nature of both scores made you wonder if somebody up there didn't like Mayo.

In the replay, the misfortune was self-inflicted. Rochford's decision to replace Clarke with Rob Hennelly may well be the worst miscalculation in All-Ireland football final history. A botched kick-out by the replacement led to Lee Keegan, the best player in football that year, getting a black card. A Hennelly fumble gave Dublin a penalty converted by Diarmuid Connolly which proved vital as Mayo lost a second final in four years by a single point.

By now Mayo's attempts to finally land the All-Ireland had become Irish sport's great epic quest. Their 2017 championship campaign was extraordinary. Another defeat by Galway led to an odyssey which saw them play seven games, two of which went to extra-time, before encountering Dublin once more in the final.

When an inspired Mayo led by two points with six minutes left, the grail seemed within their grasp. Instead Dublin prevailed by one point for a third time. Cillian O'Connor's free to put Mayo ahead in injury-time came back off the post, Dean Rock's similar effort for Dublin sailed over.

The Mayo story had come to seem like the saddest GAA story ever told. Yet the memories are not all of what might have been.

There's also Kevin McLoughlin's rocket against Cork that announced the team's arrival, David Clarke pulling off a point-blank save from Bernard Brogan, Aidan O'Shea soaring high and finishing with aplomb against Donegal, Cillian O'Connor landing a last-ditch equaliser against the Dubs, Lee Keegan galloping through the Dublin defence and lashing a shot past Stephen Cluxton, Keith Higgins hunting down and foiling Paul Geaney with the game in the balance, Chris Barrett's herculean blocks, intercepts and dispossessions in last year's final and the whole of Andy Moran's incredible 2017.

Saturday's game ended with Moran firing a shot narrowly over. Last year he produced probably the greatest veteran season in GAA history. This year he fought to the bitter end. He deserved better and so did his team-mates. A popular cliché tells us that no-one remembers the runners-up. But everyone will remember this Mayo side.

They'll be remembered when some teams which did win the Sam Maguire are forgotten outside their own county.

Mayo's big fault may have been that sometimes they cared a little too much and tried a little too hard. A touch more sang-froid at key moments might have worked wonders. But their flaws only made this big-hearted team all the more engaging. There was something emotionally involving about almost every one of their games.

Mayo 2011-2018 were a team unlike any other. They were everyone's favourite other side. They were Ireland's team.

God, we'll miss them.

Can't believe a Sligoman would be fawning over Mayo to that extent. Everyone's favourite other side my hole.

+1 this talk is BS anyway, there not as finished as people are making out, and when they do decline I wont miss them.

Sligonian, we just saw them being well beaten by a team who got hammered by Carlow this summer, the decline has very much happened.

And how long did it take them to recover from the 2010 defeat to Div 4 Longford or nearly get knocked out by London in 2011. Took them only a couple of months to knock out Cork, the reigning All-Ireland champions. The word “nucleus” has been overused since Saturday but they still have a very solid core between the ages of 23 and 28.

The core of the team is a bit older than that. Goalkeeper,Full back,center half back,first choice midfielders and main scoring forward from play are all in their 30s now. 2010 and 2011 Mayo sides were young developing teams in comparison 

Anyone tempted by those odds bookmakers are offering for Colombia to beat England on penalties tonight?

Is that the same Eamonn Sweeney that dubbed Mayo a team of lions led by donkeys?

[We already know why they stamped out pitch invasions in Croke Park - because every eejit who turned his ankle hopping a barrier was suing the organisation and getting paid.]

Can I just say, whilst I support Kildare's right to play at home, and I'm glad the match went off without a hitch, it is the job of these committees to anticipate risk. The big fear in Croke Park is not that Sky doesn't get the fixture it wants or that they don't sell enough tickets for the All Ireland series - it is that a person or people will be seriously injured whilst on GAA property.

We already know why they stamped out pitch invasions in Croke Park - because every eejit who turned his ankle hopping a barrier was suing the organisation and getting paid. That is not Peter McKenna's money, or Feargal McGill's - that is your money, my money, every member's money.

Worse than that, what happens if a catastrophe occurs in a small stadium with narrow access in front of the stand (which I believe was the case in St. Conleth's)? Or in the Hyde, where there is only one point of egress from the main stand?

The complacency (smugness??) of GAA fans in this respect is hard to credit. We jump on the nearest high horse at the merest suggestion of fan trouble, but events like the Bradford city fire happened because of a dropped cigarette. Crushes and stampedes can happen from someone tripping up in the wrong place, it doesn't take battalion charges of hooligans or hordes of ticketless zombies outside.

So what prevents these events happening? Most of us would like to pat each other on the back and say, well, GAA fans are different from every other sport. The real reason is committees like the CCCC and those who sit on it, making hard decisions and getting very little thanks for it.

They are allowed to get ones wrong (which I think they did in this case, more through poor communications than anything else). But if I'm on a committee and I'm tasked with making decisions where, if the wrong move is made, it could end up with a fan ending up injured, paralysed or dead, you're damn sure I'll stay on the side of caution. Because I don't see anyone else lining up to make those decisions.

And they certainly don't deserve to be portrayed as some sort of aristocratic elite by Madame Gulliotine herself, Ewan McKenna. The same sort of rabble rousing, know nothing, populist crap that is giving nothing to the world but dementia.

Rant over.

Can you provide evidence or links so i can see all these claims in Croke Park over the years?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7769042.stm

That is from 2010 when they started phasing out pitch invasions

Is that the best evidence you can find? A figure of 200,000 pulled from where? raving about something that happened in Perth and Melbourne to me that looks like pure propaganda. BTW in 2018 pitch "invasions" are still seen in every ground apart from Croke Park

Some comeback by Belgium but not sure what Japan were at before that 3rd goal was conceded.

[We already know why they stamped out pitch invasions in Croke Park - because every eejit who turned his ankle hopping a barrier was suing the organisation and getting paid.]

Can I just say, whilst I support Kildare's right to play at home, and I'm glad the match went off without a hitch, it is the job of these committees to anticipate risk. The big fear in Croke Park is not that Sky doesn't get the fixture it wants or that they don't sell enough tickets for the All Ireland series - it is that a person or people will be seriously injured whilst on GAA property.

We already know why they stamped out pitch invasions in Croke Park - because every eejit who turned his ankle hopping a barrier was suing the organisation and getting paid. That is not Peter McKenna's money, or Feargal McGill's - that is your money, my money, every member's money.

Worse than that, what happens if a catastrophe occurs in a small stadium with narrow access in front of the stand (which I believe was the case in St. Conleth's)? Or in the Hyde, where there is only one point of egress from the main stand?

The complacency (smugness??) of GAA fans in this respect is hard to credit. We jump on the nearest high horse at the merest suggestion of fan trouble, but events like the Bradford city fire happened because of a dropped cigarette. Crushes and stampedes can happen from someone tripping up in the wrong place, it doesn't take battalion charges of hooligans or hordes of ticketless zombies outside.

So what prevents these events happening? Most of us would like to pat each other on the back and say, well, GAA fans are different from every other sport. The real reason is committees like the CCCC and those who sit on it, making hard decisions and getting very little thanks for it.

They are allowed to get ones wrong (which I think they did in this case, more through poor communications than anything else). But if I'm on a committee and I'm tasked with making decisions where, if the wrong move is made, it could end up with a fan ending up injured, paralysed or dead, you're damn sure I'll stay on the side of caution. Because I don't see anyone else lining up to make those decisions.

And they certainly don't deserve to be portrayed as some sort of aristocratic elite by Madame Gulliotine herself, Ewan McKenna. The same sort of rabble rousing, know nothing, populist crap that is giving nothing to the world but dementia.

Rant over.

Can you provide evidence or links so i can see all these claims in Croke Park over the years?

Japan 2-0 ahead i suppose we'll see what this Belgium side are really made of now.

On what planet are Hughes, Burns, McKay, McCabe, Mackin, Hall, Grimley, McShane, Murnin or Sheridan used to playing in Clones

And Shields, Forker and Grugan for that matter.

Planet earth? and more than just senior football those lads have played .

How is Clones not neutral?

Because its a Ulster venue and both Ulster teams are more use to playing in that venue than Roscommon or Cork.

Ros v Armagh at 3pm in Port
Cork v Tyrone at 5pm in Port
Fermanagh v Kildare 7pm in Navan - all Saturday

Laois v Monaghan at 2pm in Navan on Sunday

Navan not too neutral for Fermanagh,Monaghan and why is Navan selected twice? the winner of Sundays game will have one less day to prepare for their round 1 last 8 game.

Feck this match more Hope Solo.

Interesting she says football instead of soccer.

[Brewster, Clones]

WTF! How does it make sense to take Armagh and Roscommon to a double header in Portlaoise? Both counties travelling south with Armagh supporters travelling a good bit further than Roscommon.  These people are idiots.  What is their obsession with double headers.  I don't need to spend an extre £5 to see Cork and Tyrone unless Cork win in which case its great value 

Brewster, Clones or Carrick would have been preferable!

You are keen to have Ulster sides play their games in Ulster.

Tyrone (Ulster) v Cork (Munster)
Roscommon (Connacht) v Armagh (Ulster)

Games played in Leinster which is as netural venue as you can get.

It's a good draw as Roscommon are a decent side and if we were to win it certainly will give us a bit of preparation of whats to come from the big hitters, if we lose and most people will say we will then we'll know that we'd be safer away from the Super 8's as we'd have got 3 hammerings. I'd just love it, really love it if we were to win and see Mr McStay's miserable boat race

Will be McStays last match as manager of Roscommon if they lose this game i can imagine.

Very good scoring by Armagh in the last 3 games 3-16,1-19,2-16 so they rossies will need to defend well to win this game.

Very poor. Schmeichel well off his line though. Will Modric have the balls to take one in the penalty shootout.
Disappointed with Croatia. Thought they would win this handy enough.

He did and scored fair play to him.