Galway v Mayo Sunday May 19th 2013 - Pearse Stadium

[mouview]

The amount of pressing Mayo did high up the field was very impressive. Galway looked like a nice intermediate club team who barely won any individual battle all game. They appeared a team devoid of leaders.

What's the state of Galway club football at the moment? Speaking to a lot of people they say the standard has dropped significantly.

Well done Mayo, we deserved our hiding.

It's been absolute rubbish, absolute drek for many years now, not just recently. You could (justifiably) blame players, structures, management, tactics, approach, discipline etc. for Sunday's debacle. However, priority A1 for the future must be to improve the standard of the domestic fare and competitions in Galway. Do this, and the rest will surely pick up.

[moysider]

The amount of pressing Mayo did high up the field was very impressive. Galway looked like a nice intermediate club team who barely won any individual battle all game. They appeared a team devoid of leaders.

What's the state of Galway club football at the moment? Speaking to a lot of people they say the standard has dropped significantly.

Well done Mayo, we deserved our hiding.

It's been absolute rubbish, absolute drek for many years now, not just recently. You could (justifiably) blame players, structures, management, tactics, approach, discipline etc. for Sunday's debacle. However, priority A1 for the future must be to improve the standard of the domestic fare and competitions in Galway. Do this, and the rest will surely pick up.

The standard of Mayo club football as poor now as I can remember, but maybe some lads from the clubs on top now might have something to say about that.

[Crete Boom]

 Well that was a pleasant surprise for Mayo folk anyway. I was one of the man Mayo fans who were expecting a tight game along with worrying where the scores would come from our inside line. Well the lads fairly put those issues to bed on style. It was a funny sort of a a match and while I have read widely about the death of Galway football I think it's a little easy to write off a team after one bad day at the office.
   
  There were a heap of positives for Mayo in the match like Andy's return , the workrate of the forwards , Kevin Mac back to his best along with Dillion , Varley and Freeman stepping up to the mark etc.... They main things that caught my eye were a couple of things. First Cillian O Connor at 11 seems to be on a steady upward graph. I was buoyed by his distribution in the league semi final which had improved even more on Sunday and the way when he got a second chance to put in Varley he executed perfectly after realising his mistake just minutes earlier. I loved the way the O' Shea brothers broke the ball in a pre planned way for McLoughlin and for the most part they moved the ball on in possession at speed rather than taking too much out of the ball around the middle. Freeman's selflessness in providing a target for the inside line and his distribution was good once he won possession.
 
  There were a couple of negatives with too many silly turnovers especially after we had just turned over possession form good tackling is still a problem. Also at times our movement in the full forward line was very static and this led to hail Mary ball pumped too long over the end line or into the corner over the side line. Again these are recurring problems we need to sort if we are to be contenders come Sept. The full back line looked a little hesitant under the high ball watching the man rather than the ball but adjusted pretty quickly and tightened up well but this is still a slight concern as well.

Lastly to the Galway lads while it was a terrible day at the office the positives are you have 6 weeks to the qualifer and this is where Mulholland can rescue his team. Meehan still has enough class to contribute 7 or 8 scores a game if given some decent ball. Danny Cummins looks yet another classy Galway inside forward who won his own ball well, looked dangerous when he got turned and never gave up throughout the game. Conroy didn't have one of his better days but again has that touch of class and was starved of ball all day which added t his frustration. Armstrong got through a load of work which went unrewarded and definitely has the ability to play the link man in a more defensive set up.Midfield and the backs are the major concerns for the next day. The suicide short passing has to be abandoned. if Finian Hanley comes back in at 3 he will provide a solid base. I would move Jonny Duane to wing back and put Forde in the corner. Also I would drop the wing forwards back deep to protect the backs and play only two inside men. I think Flynn and O Curainn should man the middle for the next day too.
 

[rosnarun]

would not worry too much about galway football.
structure are obviously sound  with underage sucess being proof of that but sonior Football i now a long process of getting players conditoned to their maximun potential. and the on ehting thats stops that from happing is chopping and changing managers and players . Fiontain Currain and Thomas Flynn  have a long way to go in that regard but have unlimited potential.
I think it was all just a year too soo and no one picked up on P joyces leadership vacumn, but given a chance Talent will out in fact being such a young team could we see Galway taking a different attitude to the qualifiers?

[DJGaliv]

Senior club teams in parts of the country are training as professionally as inter-county sides. I don't think that's the case in Galway.
I imagine the rise in lads heading to Dublin for jobs would raise the standard of club football in Dublin, and significantly reduce it in Galway. Is this contributing to Dublin's significant improvement - more lads from all over the country moving there for work and playing football?

A young fancy dan team is one that could do well in the qualifiers. Lets face it, if you don't learn lessons from a hiding like that you never will.

You're right regarding leadership vacuum rosnarun. Also losing Finian Hanley at full back was a far bigger blow than people had imagined.

[Jinxy]

fair play to Mayo, a hungry savage performance............................. A OShea is the best midfielder in the country at the moment

No he's not!

Who then Aidan Walsh ?  I stand by my opinion....if his lung capacity improves by 10 percent A OShea will be the best midfileder on display this year

That's an unusually specific requirement.

[Syferus]

Walsh is more skilful but O'Shea is the more effective midfielder. If You had to only have one it'd be O'Shea for me because he's nearly unstoppable in the air and can single-handily provide a platform for his forwards. He is the prototype for what teams want out of a midfielder.

[Rossfan]

Good gasún Syfín- keep building them up 

[Farrandeelin]

Michael Finneran will test OShea the next day, moreso than the 2 Galway bucks did together on Sunday.

[Wildweasel74]

Would karl Mannion not be a better midfielder than O`Shea. Out of all the midfielders around Murphy out of carlow is the best but he past his career unheralded as carlow are so poor these days. There was big talk of heslin out of westmeath but i thought he was very poor against patsy bradley in the league final.

[Blowitupref]

I also don t subscribe to the notion we need to be strong for each other or anybody else either. The important thing in the championship now is to be alive in August and the cushier way you get there the better.Connacht dominance is a means to an end any more and as such is still important.

I wouldn't agree with that - tough games teach you how to fight to win a game, if you win all your games handy, you end up getting soft and may not have the stomach when it's backs-to-the-wall time. Just look at Dublin in the mid-noughties as an example. Not saying it will happen to this Mayo team but winning tough games is better than winning easy games.

Have to differ on it. Tough games necessary for emerging teams maybe but Mayo s priority now is avoiding injuries and getting to August with the minimum of fuss. We know where we need to be intensity wise.

I wonder how Mayo would have fared v Cork,Dublin (defending All Ireland champions) the last two years without the competitive Connacht finals. A stroll in the park like last Sunday is no use to Mayo it was more about Galway been poor than anything else. I think Mayo learn more about themselves when they come through tough battles in Connacht and the best preparation for August football is to get at least one tough game in Connacht.

[moysider]

I also don t subscribe to the notion we need to be strong for each other or anybody else either. The important thing in the championship now is to be alive in August and the cushier way you get there the better.Connacht dominance is a means to an end any more and as such is still important.

I wouldn't agree with that - tough games teach you how to fight to win a game, if you win all your games handy, you end up getting soft and may not have the stomach when it's backs-to-the-wall time. Just look at Dublin in the mid-noughties as an example. Not saying it will happen to this Mayo team but winning tough games is better than winning easy games.

Have to differ on it. Tough games necessary for emerging teams maybe but Mayo s priority now is avoiding injuries and getting to August with the minimum of fuss. We know where we need to be intensity wise.

I wonder how Mayo would have fared v Cork,Dublin (defending All Ireland champions) the last two years without the competitive Connacht finals. A stroll in the park like last Sunday is no use to Mayo it was more about Galway been poor than anything else. I think Mayo learn more about themselves when they come through tough battles in Connacht and the best preparation for August football is to get at least one tough game in Connacht.

Mayo s wins in Croke Park last 2 years were miles ahead in intensity than anything they produced in Connacht those years. That did not happen by chance. The team was prepared to reach and peak in August.
In division 1 during the league most teams tackled and harried our backs more than Galway could do in a Championship match. And don t let people be codding themselves. That Galway team would still play good football if they were let. But they re not used that kind of pressure being applied and couldn t apply it themselves because it is not the way they play. It doesn t happen at U21 and it doesn t happen in Div2.

Now we could well get a tough game the next day. Especially if management gamble with peaking 6 weeks later, which they have to do. Tough games now don t count. Avoiding defeat and injuries are Mayo s priorities imo.

[From the Bunker]

Its about time they got rid of brolly on rte, never shuts the f**k up and no-one get the word in

I know he can be annoying but he got it right today. Before throw in in Cavan he said that Armagh were disorganised and that proved to be the case.

The Galway Mayo game was easier to call but Galway are clearly a side that don't have serious intent.

Brolly views seemed ok. Jez, O´Rourke hates Mayo. No offence to Galway but they had absolutely no form going into this game. For him and Spillane to pick Galway no matter how bad Mayo injury problems were, was a joke! And then the Comment from Spillane that Mayo should have scored 10 goals and 100 points to show how good a team Mayo were beggars belief. 

Anyway, I enjoyed our win but not so much the margin. This i fear will have damaged Galwayś year. Losing two players to yellow cards does not help either. Mulholland has a tough job and if he goes into the next game with the we have nothing to lose attitude, then they are totally fecked.

Well done to a fully focused Mayo team who no matter what they did will get slated. But sure were used to that. To all the Galway people who commented to me so far this week now go on an win an All Ireland, sure we will do our best! 

[macdanger2]

Would karl Mannion not be a better midfielder than O`Shea. Out of all the midfielders around Murphy out of carlow is the best but he past his career unheralded as carlow are so poor these days. There was big talk of heslin out of westmeath but i thought he was very poor against patsy bradley in the league final.

Wasted Played at FF for most of the game against Westmeath the last day as far as I know

[Syferus]

Jaysis lads, I don't want poor Big Mike on the Mayo Hulk. Much better match-up for him is Barry Moran who I'm assuming will be fit in four weeks' time. Maybe we can try distracting AOS by having Cake running up and down the sideline?