Longford v Mayo 26th June

[From the Bunker]

Congrats to Longford. This is exactly the reason why the qualifiers have been a success. Counties that struggle against tradition (imagine if Mayo had to beat Meath, Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Offaly etc just to win a provincial title) seem to thrive against teams that pick up titles sometimes purely because of tradition (will Galway bate Mayo?).

more than just will Galway bate Mayo? IMO Connacht is better the munster kerry or cork? (last time Clare way back when) & Ulster Armagh or Tyrone? (Derry in 1998) i think most younger mayo fans and watching public don't remember the lack of success mayo endured prior to the last 25 years, they went 12 years (1969 to 1981) without a single connacht victory e.g i wouldn't like to see the Mayo fan's response if that happened again

In fact from 1955 to 1981 Mayo won only 2 Connacht titles, now that's starvation!

[muppet]

Congrats to Longford. This is exactly the reason why the qualifiers have been a success. Counties that struggle against tradition (imagine if Mayo had to beat Meath, Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Offaly etc just to win a provincial title) seem to thrive against teams that pick up titles sometimes purely because of tradition (will Galway bate Mayo?).

more than just will Galway bate Mayo? IMO Connacht is better the munster kerry or cork? (last time Clare way back when) & Ulster Armagh or Tyrone? (Derry in 1998) i think most younger mayo fans and watching public don't remember the lack of success mayo endured prior to the last 25 years, they went 12 years (1969 to 1981) without a single connacht victory e.g i wouldn't like to see the Mayo fan's response if that happened again

In fact from 1955 to 1981 Mayo won only 2 Connacht titles, now that's starvation!

Galway 44
Mayo 42
The rest 24.

78% of the time the issue was 'would Galway bate Mayo?'.

[ross4life]

Congrats to Longford. This is exactly the reason why the qualifiers have been a success. Counties that struggle against tradition (imagine if Mayo had to beat Meath, Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Offaly etc just to win a provincial title) seem to thrive against teams that pick up titles sometimes purely because of tradition (will Galway bate Mayo?).

more than just will Galway bate Mayo? IMO Connacht is better the munster kerry or cork? (last time Clare way back when) & Ulster Armagh or Tyrone? (Derry in 1998) i think most younger mayo fans and watching public don't remember the lack of success mayo endured prior to the last 25 years, they went 12 years (1969 to 1981) without a single connacht victory e.g i wouldn't like to see the Mayo fan's response if that happened again

In fact from 1955 to 1981 Mayo won only 2 Connacht titles, now that's starvation!

Galway 44
Mayo 42
The rest 24.

78% of the time the issue was 'would Galway bate Mayo?'.

24 for the rest is quite good when you consider the size of Galway/Mayo to the rest & tell me the % of Munster before you knock connacht football

[muppet]

Congrats to Longford. This is exactly the reason why the qualifiers have been a success. Counties that struggle against tradition (imagine if Mayo had to beat Meath, Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Offaly etc just to win a provincial title) seem to thrive against teams that pick up titles sometimes purely because of tradition (will Galway bate Mayo?).

more than just will Galway bate Mayo? IMO Connacht is better the munster kerry or cork? (last time Clare way back when) & Ulster Armagh or Tyrone? (Derry in 1998) i think most younger mayo fans and watching public don't remember the lack of success mayo endured prior to the last 25 years, they went 12 years (1969 to 1981) without a single connacht victory e.g i wouldn't like to see the Mayo fan's response if that happened again

In fact from 1955 to 1981 Mayo won only 2 Connacht titles, now that's starvation!

Galway 44
Mayo 42
The rest 24.

78% of the time the issue was 'would Galway bate Mayo?'.

24 for the rest is quiet good when you consider the size of Galway/Mayo to the rest & tell me the % of Munster before you knock connacht football

24 is very quiet. 

[ross4life]

Congrats to Longford. This is exactly the reason why the qualifiers have been a success. Counties that struggle against tradition (imagine if Mayo had to beat Meath, Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Offaly etc just to win a provincial title) seem to thrive against teams that pick up titles sometimes purely because of tradition (will Galway bate Mayo?).

more than just will Galway bate Mayo? IMO Connacht is better the munster kerry or cork? (last time Clare way back when) & Ulster Armagh or Tyrone? (Derry in 1998) i think most younger mayo fans and watching public don't remember the lack of success mayo endured prior to the last 25 years, they went 12 years (1969 to 1981) without a single connacht victory e.g i wouldn't like to see the Mayo fan's response if that happened again

In fact from 1955 to 1981 Mayo won only 2 Connacht titles, now that's starvation!

Galway 44
Mayo 42
The rest 24.

78% of the time the issue was 'would Galway bate Mayo?'.

24 for the rest is quiet good when you consider the size of Galway/Mayo to the rest & tell me the % of Munster before you knock connacht football

24 is very quiet. 

changed the typo just for you muppet & speaking of typos i bet the Mayo fans abroad thought yesterday result was one 

[muppet]

Congrats to Longford. This is exactly the reason why the qualifiers have been a success. Counties that struggle against tradition (imagine if Mayo had to beat Meath, Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Offaly etc just to win a provincial title) seem to thrive against teams that pick up titles sometimes purely because of tradition (will Galway bate Mayo?).

more than just will Galway bate Mayo? IMO Connacht is better the munster kerry or cork? (last time Clare way back when) & Ulster Armagh or Tyrone? (Derry in 1998) i think most younger mayo fans and watching public don't remember the lack of success mayo endured prior to the last 25 years, they went 12 years (1969 to 1981) without a single connacht victory e.g i wouldn't like to see the Mayo fan's response if that happened again

In fact from 1955 to 1981 Mayo won only 2 Connacht titles, now that's starvation!

Galway 44
Mayo 42
The rest 24.

78% of the time the issue was 'would Galway bate Mayo?'.

24 for the rest is quiet good when you consider the size of Galway/Mayo to the rest & tell me the % of Munster before you knock connacht football

24 is very quiet. 

changed the typo just for you muppet & speaking of typos i bet the Mayo fans abroad thought yesterday result was one 

That Munster statistic is 89%.

[brianboru00]

(imagine if Mayo had to beat Meath, Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Offaly etc just to win a provincial title)

This is a misleading scenario - First of all it wouldn t happen - A max of 4 games to win Leinster - sometimes three. If Sligo were to win Connaught this year they would have to beat two division 1 teams to get there - three in total - thats just one more than in Leinster.
Ulster is the most competitive province. much of a muchness between the other three.

[muppet]

(imagine if Mayo had to beat Meath, Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Offaly etc just to win a provincial title)

This is a misleading scenario - First of all it wouldn t happen - A max of 4 games to win Leinster - sometimes three. If Sligo were to win Connaught this year they would have to beat two division 1 teams to get there - three in total - thats just one more than in Leinster.
Ulster is the most competitive province. much of a muchness between the other three.

The top 2 teams have won 89% of the Munster titles.
The top 2 teams have won 78% of the Connacht titles.
The top 2 teams have won 56% of the Leinster titles.
The top 2 teams have won 47% of the Ulster titles. (This stat is distorted somewhat by Cavan's great record which ended in the 1960s.)

It's hard to look past tradition in Munster and Connacht.

[IolarCoisCuain]

Secondly, I don't understand why the Longford lads feel the need to go looking for faint praise from us.

....

In other words well done on the win, best of luck the next day, and never mind looking for compliments from other teams supporters, just go out and play your own game.

I don't think any of us are looking for compliments. Not being insulted will do just fine.

We're all too well aware of our limitations. We know we're not Kerry or Tyrone.

That is the difference between us and you. You haven't won a Senior All-Ireland in almost 60 years but you behave as if you were a superpower because you regularly win provincial titles in a province where you're the second largest of five counties.

Having huffed and blown every summer about how great you are, you then fall flat on your arses when faced with serious opposition and whinge about it for the rest of the year. No other county in Ireland - not Cavan, not Roscommon, not even Dublin - have a perception of their own capabilities so totally divorced from reality.

That's a measured and dignified response LaurelEye. Well done Longford and whatever anyone says the bottom line is that you're still in the Championship and Mayo are not. I hope you get better and better and have a good long run at it. Best of luck to you all.

[ross4life]

(imagine if Mayo had to beat Meath, Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Offaly etc just to win a provincial title)

This is a misleading scenario - First of all it wouldn t happen - A max of 4 games to win Leinster - sometimes three. If Sligo were to win Connaught this year they would have to beat two division 1 teams to get there - three in total - thats just one more than in Leinster.
Ulster is the most competitive province. much of a muchness between the other three.

The top 2 teams have won 89% of the Munster titles.
The top 2 teams have won 78% of the Connacht titles.
The top 2 teams have won 56% of the Leinster titles.
The top 2 teams have won 47% of the Ulster titles. (This stat is distorted somewhat by Cavan's great record which ended in the 1960s.)

It's hard to look past tradition in Munster and Connacht.

So with all this great tradition Mayo have still only won one more Senior All Ireland than Roscommon

[muppet]

(imagine if Mayo had to beat Meath, Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Offaly etc just to win a provincial title)

This is a misleading scenario - First of all it wouldn t happen - A max of 4 games to win Leinster - sometimes three. If Sligo were to win Connaught this year they would have to beat two division 1 teams to get there - three in total - thats just one more than in Leinster.
Ulster is the most competitive province. much of a muchness between the other three.

The top 2 teams have won 89% of the Munster titles.
The top 2 teams have won 78% of the Connacht titles.
The top 2 teams have won 56% of the Leinster titles.
The top 2 teams have won 47% of the Ulster titles. (This stat is distorted somewhat by Cavan's great record which ended in the 1960s.)

It's hard to look past tradition in Munster and Connacht.

So with all this great tradition Mayo have they still only won one more Senior All Ireland than Roscommon

It would help if you followed the thread. I mentioned tradition to show how Mayo's apparently relatively elevated status compared to Longford is based on a tradition of winning provincial titles in a relatively easier province versus Longford's tradition of not winning titles in a much harder one.

[Barney]

I don't think any of us are looking for compliments. Not being insulted will do just fine.

We're all too well aware of our limitations. We know we're not Kerry or Tyrone.

That is the difference between us and you. You haven't won a Senior All-Ireland in almost 60 years but you behave as if you were a superpower because you regularly win provincial titles in a province where you're the second largest of five counties.

Having huffed and blown every summer about how great you are, you then fall flat on your arses when faced with serious opposition and whinge about it for the rest of the year. No other county in Ireland - not Cavan, not Roscommon, not even Dublin - have a perception of their own capabilities so totally divorced from reality.

Laurel Eye that's a bit rich. Talking about being insulted and then going on and throwing the insults!

Firstly it is a media creation that Mayo begin every year thinking they are going to win the All ireland. The realities of where we are at have been aired on this board for the past 4 years especially.

It is part of the lazy perception of Mayo - where the rest of the country laugh at us! Yes, we have an abysmal record in All ireland finals but we have had a team there on All Ireland Final Sunday most years in the past 15. We are the only team other than Kerry, Cork and Tyrone to have reached an All Ireland since 2002. We won an u21 All ireland in 2006. We have competed at the top level and that is why we are ambitious but none of us are talking All Irelands.

As I said above Longford were fully deserving winners last night. 99% of the comments from Mayo posters have been very gracious, not that you should really worry.

[ross4life]

(imagine if Mayo had to beat Meath, Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Offaly etc just to win a provincial title)

This is a misleading scenario - First of all it wouldn t happen - A max of 4 games to win Leinster - sometimes three. If Sligo were to win Connaught this year they would have to beat two division 1 teams to get there - three in total - thats just one more than in Leinster.
Ulster is the most competitive province. much of a muchness between the other three.

The top 2 teams have won 89% of the Munster titles.
The top 2 teams have won 78% of the Connacht titles.
The top 2 teams have won 56% of the Leinster titles.
The top 2 teams have won 47% of the Ulster titles. (This stat is distorted somewhat by Cavan's great record which ended in the 1960s.)

It's hard to look past tradition in Munster and Connacht.

So with all this great tradition Mayo have they still only won one more Senior All Ireland than Roscommon

It would help if you followed the thread. I mentioned tradition to show how Mayo's apparently relatively elevated status compared to Longford is based on a tradition of winning provincial titles in a relatively easier province versus Longford's tradition of not winning titles in a much harder one.

Yes i am following the thread, so you think if longford swapped places with Mayo they would have won as many Connacht title's?

Most counties in ireland (outside cork, kerry, galway, meath, armagh and tyrone and perhaps dublin) would kill for the amount of success Mayo footballers have enjoyed over the past 21 years in terms of A-I finals appearances, connaught titles, minor titles, u-21, club championships, league titles.

the problem in Mayo is they think too highly of themselves, this is a belief held not only by the fans in the county but also by the players themselves. couple of years ago you played leitrim (who i would class around the same level as Longford) & got a lucky one point win & yesterday the players had the same attitude again thinking they only needed to turn up to win

[Zapatista]

Yeah, it's much better when you expect to win nothing

[moysider]

Saturday evening was just the sound of the crap being finally flushed away. There was no other way this could have ended really. In the end it was a clean quick end. The way sporting careers usually end.

Talking to a mix of people before this - including a Larry acquaintance of mine who knows his onions - there was a realisation that Longford would fancy this one. We gave them a punchers chance. We were wrong. They had a better chance than that as it turned out. The reverted back to their traditional game and went for it. Mayo on the other hand were tight and it showed as scoring passses went astray and fellas repeatedly  took the wrong option.
Longford didn't play any elborate sweeper system or anything so it is a terrible endictment of Mayo that they were not able to win a traditional open game against a team 3 divisions behind them in the league. And no Mayo did not lie down as they have been accused of ( usually wrongly) in the past. In fact some of the guys who tried hard, like Andy Moran and Donal Vaughan, looked like very ordinary footballers. Others like AOS and McLoughlin looked like Bo Peep. More had the demeanour of very frustrated even desperate men.
Sure Mayo could have won this game and won well too if things had gone their way. And any type of win here would have been immeasurably better than where we find ourselves now.
With Freemen and Moran able to win ball freely inside there were major scores for the taking if we capitalised on it. If Ronaldson had started instead of Conar there would surely have been a goal or two. Conor is a lone assassin all his career and is not going to play off any target man ever. Alternatively AOS should have been played just off the front two and come running onto layoffs. As it was AOS played in no mans land with the ball flying over his head. I mean what was he supposed to be doing? But sure that is typical of the last 4 years. There is no evidence of any coaching done. We cant even move ball out of defence with any fluency any more. Remember how likes of Cahill, Ruane, Nallen, Kenneth Mort, Connelly, Higgins, Heaney etc used move the ball through the hands and run the right angles. Surely Nallen and Heaney were asked to take a few sessions with the new lads before being ushered into the sunset. Surely not I d say.
We are where we are now anyway and most of us can have no complaints. Even posters on here defended this set-up into years 2,3 and 4 when it was obviously going to end in grief. Johnno was allowed sail the ship onto the rocks. Now he has taken the only lifeboat available and sailed away leaving a wreck creaking and battered on a reef. Several of these players have woken up the last few mornings knowing that their careers are finished. When there is some recovery very few of these will be still involved. Careers can not survive the wreckage of the last 3 games. The whole rebuilding project was bullshit - as was talk of transition. Just old guff to disguise the fact that nobody in management knew what to do. A certain board delegate in the M&M shafting called the 06 team 'Ladeens'. Yet four years on in a Championship match we had 3 defenders under 5' 9'' and 2 only making 6'. Yet nobody says anything. Six lads who had never played a competitive match together in their lives. After 4 years there was no team. In gaelic football a team evolves but cant be rebuilt. There will be silly talk now again about rebuilding. Rebuilding means getting knocked out of the championship early every year so players can not improve or develop. Mayo won 5 championship games in 4 years because they put out lambs to the slaughter each year. Cork, kerry and Tyrone often win 4/5 games in one year. And rebuild along the way. Last time Johnno left a mess there was a hangover period that lasted 4 years, 92,93,94 and 95. Decent men were chewed up in an impossible task. This latest adventure could cost the guts of a decade altogether.
I ve concentrated on our failings I know. I dont begrudge Longford their win. Our misfortune is not their concern and our misfortune is deeper and older that last Saturday evening. Longford people must wonder 2 how things dont quite add up. They are 3 divisions down but both teams looked about the same level. How can a team with players like Paddy Dowd, Kavanagh, Barden and the rest end up ranked 3rd or 4th worst in the country. Surely there is something wrong there too?