Messages

[At least you can access Dublin via decent roads/rail from most parts of the country. Athlone would involve crappy regional roads for most people]

Athlone?!  Get a grip. 
At least you can access Dublin via decent roads/rail from most parts of the country.  Athlone would involve crappy regional roads for most people. 

Also, 14km difference between Letterkenny-Dublin and Letterkenny-Athlone (Athlone slightly closer), so it's not as if it's going to be far more accessible for those living in the futhest away areas.  Add that to the fact that from a population density perspective, i'd imagine Dublin is more central than Athlone.
Add this to the fact that you need all the other services (hotels etc) required for an 80,000 seater stadium, and i'm sure most places outside of the capital would fall well short.
Finally, in my opinion, if your county makes it far enough to play Croke Park, you don't realy mind a bit of inconvenience!

Not sure where your from Maguire 01 but a lot of football fans have to drive crappy regional roads before we get to Athlone or Longford and then drive to Dublin and when we reach say  Lucan  it ll be another hour befare parking. It can easily be a 12 hour trip or more. Get a grip

Difference distance from Donegal vis a vis Dublin/Athlone. Its not just the distance. the whole point of this debate is the parking/ public transport deficiencies in the city. They add at least 2 hours to the trip. Rail links not an option from most rural areas.

What services? Most people f**k back home after match if they re driving - and most do - and drown sorrows or celebrate in their own place. The most reason some people make an overnight of it in hotels is because the trip is such a nusiance.

Inconvenience? So Kerry and Cork fans dont mind travelling to Croke park for semi finals? The reason they dont travel is because they have more experience than most of getting there - from distance. They dont go - cause it s too much hassle. I wonder how many of Dublins championship fans would appear at a match if it involved a 12 hour day rather than a 10 minute saunter from the pub?

What the f**k has population density got to do with it. Not like many of the million people in the place are into the games.  Croke park is on the east coast of an Island. Geographically that can never be more central than Athlone. Get a grip.

Whatever about the historical significance of the place it s time to move on. Sell the place and build again somewhere in the middle of the country, say around Athlone with 00s of acres for carparking and coaches. Parking aside driving into the city is a nightmare anyway - and for a mid-week evening match not something I would want to repeat. A central location would be fairer to people travelling from everywhere. A shame so much was spent on the current site in recent years. fans owe the local economy nothing and I m sure the stadium would make good money. Time to move on.

Dont know if this qualifies cause i said it myself.

Mayo v Kildare in a National league match in Crossmolina some years ago. Colm Mac and Brian Lacey exchanged a few digs near the sideline. A bunch of middle aged kildare fellas started roaring at the ref and linesman to get action taken against McMenamon. '' Mayo s No11 linesman ! no!11''. Could nt let them away with it so I shouts down to them. '' Shut up for f**ks sake. The Tipperaryman started it!''
They pretended they did nt hear me but never opened their mouths for the rest of the match.

Exactly Indiana, Mayo lads on this forum were basically saying JOM was the only man that could deliver Sam and if the CB could get him back he would deliver. MM got a fair deal of criticism during his short spell despite getting an ageing and fairly average squad to the AI. Now JOM is begining to get the same and some Mayo lads here are persisting with the argument that you have players the equal of any other county. Well since Kerry are the bench mark and to win the AI you'll probably have to beat them let's compare Kerry and Mayo in some of the crucial positions.

Full Back: Mark O'Se V any likely Mayo FB - Winner Mark O'Se

Centre Back: Adian O'Mahoney V any likely Mayo CB - Winner A. O'Mahoney

Mid Field: Darragh O'Se V R. McGarrity - Winner D. O'Se

Centre Forward: D. O'Sullivan V A. Dillion - Winner debateable IMO but O'Sullivan would shade it for me

Full Forward: K. Donaghy V AOM - Winner Donaghy, though I think AOM is a decent league player

Scorer in chief: Gooch V C. Mort - Winner Gooch

Bench: Kerry V Mayo - Winner Kerry (by a country mile)

If JOM can get this Mayo team to beat this Kerry team in a do or die championship match he is a footballing genius. In addition some of you are using his inability to solve the FB/CB problem as a stick to beat him with, yet I haven't seen any of you come up with a concensus player for either posistion. If they are not there then they are not there and no coach can produce what's not there. Hound him out if you want lads but you'll only be doing the same with the guy who replaces him a year or two later. You have a Mayo man with a proven track record give him time to get the best out of what's available to him and get yer heads out of yer asses because you're at least 2-3 years away from winning Sam, unfortunately.

If you did this test on any team in the country Zulu you d get the same result. Reality is Kerry are streets away ahead everybody else.

Attended an interesting challenge between Mayo and Fermanagh the other evening. Being a challenge I did nt bother trying to keep the score but I think Mayo won it with a scrappy goal at the very end. Fermanagh were a lighter team but much more economical with the ball they got and their full -forward looks a class act. Mayo had some individual performances but collectively look like a work in progress. They just kicked so much ball away. A few lads were not togged as well. Quinn, Nally, Cafferkey and O Shea looked very good.

This is the voice of reason from Moysider. It's a long road yet, and there's no need for hullaballoo.

Something struck me this morning on my way into work - when Johnno signed on, he was talking a lot about dampening expectations in Mayo. If that was one of his goals, he's succeeded admirably. I don't know anyone that expects bugger all from this year. 

Of course you re right Iolar. Its astonishing really. How he got away with that condescending spin is a credit to the fawning hacks locally, and also suits the national view of Mayo football sometimes being a distracting sideshow to the real stuff involving Dublin in waiting or Kerry and whoever they ll lorry next. I ve no problem with Johnno being Mayo manager but if he replaces Mickey and John he must bring something more to the table than just lower expectations. We ve always got likes of  Pat McAnaneny and Kerry to make sure we re kept in our place. What the fkuc is wrong with raising interest and expectations in football in any county. Maughan and Mickey gave us great days. The fact that we ended up depressed in the end is an occupational hazard. I would gladly go through the disappointment of  the defeats to experience the highs of  likes of  Kerry 96, Galway 99 and  Dublin 06 again. Johnno has a bit to do to reach those marks. Yet I would argue he has as a good as resources to do so as other recent managers. Maughan and Moran got to All Ireland finals in first year, Maughan from Div. 3. Johnno was nt brought in with his 2 Galway All Irelands to bring us in the opposite direction.  All fans want is their team to have the best team on the pitch , set up properly and give it a good go and have a clue what they re about.. Johnno is a man who has achieved legendary status as a manager in Leitrim and Galway. One of his great strengths as manager in those counties was appreciating and getting the best of veteran players like Mickey Quinn and Kevin Walsh. Yet when he gets the Mayo job he takes the knife to the team who were no. 2 in 06. Last years team bore no resemblance to that outfit. Surely he must have understood  the need to keep a competitive team intact. It s not his fault that we never got to see much of O Neill and Mac together in the same team but surely over the last 15 years it could have happened a few times. Would that have been expecting too much. Having those 2 with James Horan would have been asking too much altogether So our expectations were too high! And when John Casey was flying - surely we could nt ask for that. Him and the other three.? Too much expectation altogether! How about Peter Butler, Padraig Brogan and Kevin Staunton?  Yeah he s right. It would have spoiled us for good if we were allowed to watch those lads play any more than a few games for Mayo. I for one expect a lot this year Iolar. For a team that was leaderless and  tactically inept [ our Hail Mairy option Barry Moran almost saved us - at the time lauded , since scorned, but you can bet your life that it will be tried again when the current whatever set-up does nt work]  last year in Celtic park we ve bounced back well and we ve as good a pick of players as any Mayo manager has had. Rather than dampen expectations i reckon management must deliver a big honest push this year. Thats all.  Nobody will beat Kerry but teams must be around if Kerry trip up. Anyway for likes of us and most other teams there will always be a Kerry

[is there a feeling in the 'mainland' that Johnno tried to fast track in some Ballagh lads, denying the 'indigenous' Mayo players their rightful place on the panel, or something like that? I don't think he can be slagged off for trying out promising Ballagh players, even if it didn't quite work out.]

Hanley was outside his control but the Kilcullen Brother expedition was a waste of time at this stage.

This comment intrigues me - is there a feeling in the 'mainland' that Johnno tried to fast track in some Ballagh lads, denying the 'indigenous' Mayo players their rightful place on the panel, or something like that? I don't think he can be slagged off for trying out promising Ballagh players, even if it didn't quite work out.

Hopefully he knows what he s at.

My advice to everyone would be to go and watch Cross in the c\ship (thank god we dont have Cross in the groups again) this year and watch McD do what he does best because we wont see the likes of him again on the fields of Mayo again. Class act and never gave a sh1te about the media.

Really Great player & I always enjoyed watching him - his battle with Francie Grehan in 2001 was one of the great duels, with both vying for man-of-the-match afterwards. Very strong on the ball, he had vision & skills to burn too. Good Luck to him, he gave a lot to Mayo, even if it wasn't always appreciated by some.

Eh? What s that about? Who s slagging anybody off. All I said was he spent most of last year with lads at 3 and 6 [ kinda important positions you might accept] that are no longer in the panel. That constitutes a waste of time in anybodys language. Was he right to try them? Yes. Were they successful? Not really but they had something[ at least 1 did] to offer going forward. Where are they now? Dont know and not sure the reasons why they re gone. But he s the manager and if he thought they had something to offer then why are they missing. Course he was right to try them. Not like they re from another county or anything Here in Mayo we know that Ballagh lads are indigenous/ mainland in a football context. Always were. Always will be. Now that they re not around anymore it was time wasted. And you might explain your eye rolling gesture. Did nt quite get what that was about?

I dont know what Johnno is doing either but I remember some things he did in the past.

1. He got every last yard, never mind miles, out of players like Kevin Malsh, Tomás Mannion and Ja Fallon when in Galway so it would seem odd if its the case he feels Mac has little to offer at 33. Obviously he felt the above 3 were vital to galway. Does he feel the same about Mac and say Nallen?  His limited use of them in last year s championship suggests not. The Galway trio always started for Galway well into their thirties.

2. This is Johnno s first real go at building a team. Previously he inherited mature teams and took them further. In the case of Mayo#1 the team stagnated after his first 2 years. In Galway too the team was basically ran aground post 01 and became tactically bankrupt as well. He  was not successful in integrating new players into the team and basically when the lads he inherited were spent that was that.

3. Oddly last year he wasted little time in dismantling Mickey Moran's team, arguably the second best team in Ireland[ the dublin team we beat 06 is still basically the same as going still]. Older hands were kept on but got little game time when it mattered most. The spin, that most lazy journalists bought, that he gave the older lads one last chance last year is just that - spin. Worryingly some of his rebuilding attempts have already crumbled. Hanley was outside his control but the Kilcullen Brother expedition was a waste of time at this stage. Hopefully he knows what he s at.

Conor Moran, Enda Varley, Brian Benson + Colm Cafferkey not named in panel. Neither is Chris Barrett. it s my understanding a few places are being held for injured players. Maybe mac might slip in there.

[Bradely absolutely outclassed our fb line last year]

I would stay with outclassed in some respects....lets face it we have never produced a forward in the class of Bradely or Joyce in my opinion and that has always and always be our downfall, scoring ability, esp when games need to be won. Bradely absolutely outclassed our fb line last year, no other word for it. We are so reliant on Mortimer at the moment it is not funny.

We have always had a problem with producing top class forwards, and the few we had close to that level, they were not always available for one reason or other. Was never a big fam of M Moran, but I'll give him one thing, he was the only one to to get a forward division including Mortimer, McDonald, O'Neill and Dillion in the same game!!

Bradley roasted his marker that day. He often does. Does nt mean the whole Mayo team was outclassed. Declan Browne used usually roast his man. So does Mattie Forde.  Does it follow that Tipperary outclassed their opponents. Wexford are in division 3.

Joe Mcgrath was a top class forward. So were Seamas O Dowd, Joe Corcoran, Tom langan, Peter Solan, Mick Flanagan, Paddy Moclair and Gerald Courell. A few over the last 25 years were not bad either! Not being smart but having a good forward is largely a matter of good fortune as is any good footballer. No county ' produces' them. Down are going to find it difficult to produce a Blaney and Linden again in the same generation. Tyrone may well look back and wished they cloned Canavan, McGuigan and O Neill. The emergence of any good footballer anywhere is largely in the lap of the Gods. Its not that likes of the Gooch is discovered or groomed. They re naturals and it would take some idiot not to recognise what special talents they have.

You re right about M Moran.

Not going to give up on him returning yet. Of all the mayo lads who have walked away without that Celtic cross down the years McDanger s exit will be particularly poignant. A lot of these lads were special but Kieran is a once off. When he goes we wont see his likes again - anywhere. I m not giving up hope yet.

[sometimes]

We re usually much better than teams we beat and often better than teams than manage to beat us.

I really think you should rephrase that as

"We re sometimes much better than teams we beat and sometimes better than teams than manage to beat us"

If you really meant it the way you originally phrased it then , frankly, you are delusional.

Yeah. I reckon you ve managed to nail the phrasing better than i did but you knew what I meant    Mind you i was talking about games during last 25 years and not the last 3 or 4.

I could still pick a few bones Sniper but I ll move on  - except for one point!

I dont believe we were outclasssed  last year by either Galway or Derry. I think we can be grouped with those teams ability wise. The recent league games would support that view.We would be outclassed if we played Galway in hurling but hardly in football. Well beaten on both days last summer but venue and tactics were the deciding factors rather than any great gulf in class between the teams.
Our match - ups in defence v Galway allowed them to have a dream start and we lacked the necessary intensity to get back into it.
How many teams would fancy a trip to Celtic park for a qualifier? Even Kerry would be pushed to win there. We did nt do ourselves any favours by not having a plan for Paddy Bradley [ our attempt to deal with him was as hopeless as our attempt to deal with Donaghy the year before - at least we made a change there]. But it was hardly a class thing. Still believe we would have won if we had got home advantage.

Why is it that so few Cork punters contribute to this discussion board? And what they do is short and sweet. This is a Cork/ Armagh thread but it s completely one-sided. Are they above this type of thing? They do nt attend matches too often either yet they would appear to have the most likely team to follow that have a chance of beating Kerry this year. Are they spoiled with regular easy success in the past and are too cool to socialise with lower life on discussion boards like this? Even Kerrymen make time to contribute regularly on here but Cork ....... They re not much fun.

Doherty only a minor also. We might lack forwards but there was some serious talent in backs and midfield. Campbell is a very good forward. I too was at the Leitrim game and yes they stank the place out but there was never a doubt about the exceptional individual ability of at least 7 players which is a good foundation for any team. Their no show against Down in AI final can only be explained by the management at that time. They did nt play. I would fancy them to reverse that result now. Of course we ll give the u21 management some credit but as regards Holmes and silverware -  well if your lucky enough to manage a good team there is always the possibility they will win something.

Doherty isn't minor, he was underage last year but not this year. Agree there are some exceptional players on that team but Campbell is the only one in the forward line. Two excellent midfielders, Chris Barrett, Tom Cunniffe and possibly Ger Cafferkey and Donal Vaughan in defence. But it says all you need to know about the lack of attacking options when you see some of the players that got runs in attack. I don't think it would be fair to name but having seen them with their clubs you'd worry about the conveyor belt. Also the fact, as Maradona says, that D Kilcullen, Hanley and the O'Boyle brothers are gone from the attacking six of the minors of '05 is fairly cripling.
Against Down in '05 Mayo were outclassed all over the pitch, pure and simple. I really think they overreached themselves getting that far that year, producing their best game of the year in the quarter-final against Armagh and somehow sneaking past Kerry in the semi-final. Don't rate Holmes highly either (and I don't think he should be back in the senior set-up) but himself and Connelly have a good working relationship and have really done wonders with the Under 21's. Anyone that remembers 2006 will remember that they beat Tyrone (semi) and Cork (final) not because they were the better team (Tyrone played them off the park for large parts of the game) but because they played with a savage intensity and never gave up. Management has to take a fair amount of credit for that I think.
[/quote]

1. The O Boyle brothers were never going to be around long term and doubtful if they would improve matters.

2  James Burke was a huge addition. Only played in final in 05 and then out of position.

3. Got to the Minor final in '05 on merit. Attended both Armagh and Kerry matches and were good enough value for our wins. Choked in final and made Down look good on the day rather than being outclassed. 6 months later 6 of them started and beat Cork in u21 all Ireland final. More than those Down lads achieved since.

4. Against Tyrone and Cork in 06 I thought over the course of the games we were the best team. We blew Tyrone away early and they rallied. One of the reasons they came back into it was we had a 2/3 weak half forward line and Tyrone got an advantage there.
We were the better team though.

5. County teams in Championship are always expected to play with a savage intensity and never give up - otherwise they should nt be there.

Senior All Ireland '96 Mayo dominated but Meath won. Did you ever hear a Meath man say they overachieved that year? Or should have been beat? Or were outclassed? Or any other underdog nonesense?

Our beloved County Secretary started coming out with this overachieving spin a few years ago for whatever reason. Dont think we hear that underdog nonsense in other counties.

We re a big football county with several strong clubs and lots of good players. We re seldom outclassed but we re often poorly prepared. We re usually much better than teams we beat and often better than teams than manage to beat us. As a rule we have in fact been underachieving at all levels.