Tyrone v Mayo NFL

[Mike Sheehy]

 

Yes thanks to Mikey Sheehy and the kingdom

<sniff> ....One does what one can to help out the weaker counties.

[never kickt a ball]

Wheels came off when Mugsy got sent off. What was he thinking? An attempted slide tackle from behind (3 metres behind). He didn't even touch the Mayo player. Familiar to McCullagh's sending off last week in that it was completely unnecessary. Tyrone lacking in the guile of Canavan, the vision of McGuigan and the everything Seán Cavanagh brings to the table. O'Neill should stay away from the Irish Grand National tomorrow or at least tell us who he is backing so we can rule it out. Nothing is going right for him at the moment. Mayo sideline including JOM throughly enjoyed the second half. Seemed like they couldn't believe their luck winning a game so comfortably in the end - a game they didn't need to win. 

[Fishead_Sam]

tyroneboi - Tommy Lyons is a different Tommy Lyons, he was the manager of the Ballina when they won the Club All-Ireland a few years back, in fact for the last few matches for the club championships JOM was TLs advisor.

Just back in Castlebar from Tyrone,

Must say hospitality of the year award - Tyrone
Best Organised home ground of the year - Tyrone
Nicest stand of my all away games this year - Tyrone
Weclome to the Under 21 A.I. Champions members of Mayo team - Fair play Tyrone
Best Programme of the year - Tyrone

Now to the match basically after 5 minutes I reckoned if any team where going to conceed 4 goals it would be Mayo.
Liam O'Malley was outstanding, Ger Brady finally stood up to the challenge today, Conor Mortiomer was ace-supremo, for Tyrone Owen Mulligan was ravaging our defence, until that insane (yes defo red card) sliding tackle right beside the ref. what was he thinking. I dont think Owen was thinking, that was blood to the head stuff, Tyrone had plenty of cover behind him, it was near the half way and Mayo not near a scoring position. However it was not just the sending off which swung the match, Mayo where begining to swing it anyways and God was watching over his county again, crossbar and uprights saved us twice.

Big Mayo crowd yet again, even when it did not matter, obviously alot less than the other games but stil great.

While right more later, but this is the brothers computer and he wants me off it now, "all say at the match and now you robbed the computer when I was watching something" will try to right more later when he finished

[ziggysego]

I see the ref at the game was Longford's Derek Fahy. He was the ref at Duagh -v- Greencastle All Ireland Club Junior Final last month.

[KIDDO]

Ref in this tie was not Fahy , changed before throwin.

[Redgreenery]

I see the ref at the game was Longford's Derek Fahy. He was the ref at Duagh -v- Greencastle All Ireland Club Junior Final last month.

Ref in this tie was not Fahy , changed before throwin.

Yeah the ref was changed before throwin, it was Frank Flynn (from Leitrim).

[Fishead_Sam]

Ya ref was changed, it was a ref: from Leitrim

[Lamh Dhearg Alba]

Disappointing result in the end for Tyrone but again I would maintain things arent as doom and gloom as some posters on here suggest. Tyrone will still be in Division 1 next season and that wasnt looking too likely after the Donegal game. The league campaign has also seen the likes of Carlin, Justin McMahon, Mulgrew, Colm Cavanagh and Niall Gormley suggest they can be key men for Tyrone. When we have Jordan, Sean Cavanagh and McGuigan fit (and hopefully the likes of SoN and Mulligan on a bit of form) we will have the makings of a very formidable team. Just depends if we can pull it all together over the next few months. As for yesterday Tyrone were the better team for a fair part of that match but were let down by failing to take their own chances and then defending poorly when Mayo were on top. You would like to hope though we wont be conceding 4 goals when the real action starts in a few weeks.
My only real complaint with the league campaign was the failure for the second year in a row to properly address the full back problem. Cormac McGinley didnt look like the answer in last years league but got a lot of games then and started at FB again this year. Joe McMahon finally got back in there in Limerick but then Peter Donnelly gets the nod for final two matches We've had a problem at FB for a good while now and it hasnt been dealt with.

Overall though hard to argue with what Mickey said about the league...

"We're disappointed with the league. We expected to get more points than we did. We could point to many things as reasons for that but our form is not as good as it has been in recent years and we have six weeks to try to rectify that.  Hopefully we'll use those six weeks well. There are a lot of good players in Tyrone and they are capable of playing good football.  I'd be optimistic about our chances of having a good summer"

[tyroneman]

PETER DONNELLY HAS TO GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Fishead_Sam]

Have to say can't believe this Mayo team is doing so well, when it is missing nearly all its big names, some leadership in JOM boyos, &  U-21's look like they are going to blow everyone else away, the future of Mayo football is looking very very bright folks.

[ONeill]

Any chance of getting PTG patched up and fit for the summer?

[Fear ón Srath Bán]

All been said, well done Mayo, thanks Kerry, work needed Tyrone.

We were on top, perhaps more comfortably than the score reflected, for three quarters of the game... till Muggsy's head-stagger; I've said enough about the standard of NFL refereeing already, but we really need refs who have the competence to apply the rules consistently for 70 minutes, he looked like an apprentice, and didn't seem to know what was what at times (Frank Flynn, Leitrim, late replacement for Derek Fahy).  Bad day at the office for Packie (would have liked to see Jonathan Curran in there), we still need a full-back, and should get the midfield sorted with Seán Cavanagh's return -- were doing fine there till Joe Mc Mahon went off.

All in all, happy enough, we're not too badly set up for the summer.

[Mr. Nakata]

Jesus wept, Mugsy, you are a plank. The Westerners continue to have the hoodoo on us and they are the one team I definitely do not want to meet later in the year. Big Donnelly rose like a salmon for 2 delightful catches, and that was it for the day. Mayo full forward took the piss. Mulgrew has improved on last year, but does he merit a championship starting place? He couldn't get a touch. Harte and Carlin had me in tears with their shooting. These lads have to give the ball to a player who knows how to score. Carlin couldn't score in a Bangkok go-go bar. Colm Cav is a great prospect, but his air kick from 2 yards out did nothing for the hangover. All in all, there were positives I can take from this defeat, but unfortunately, far more negatives. 6 weeks intense work required.

[Tubberman]

Well, even though the match didn't go well for Tyrone, An Spailpin was very impressed with the way you organised the whole day:
http://spailpin.blogspot.com/

Mayo 4-07
Tyrone 1-11

For a team that have the name of the biggest chokers in the Green Isle of Erin, Mayo are becoming quite the second-half specialists. Mayo's second-half comebacks against Cork and Dublin in recent weeks were more notable than their second half performance against Tyrone today – Mayo were behind against both Cork and Dublin while they actually had a one-point lead today, undeserved though it was – but Mayo nonetheless emerged from the Healy Park dressing room different men from the shades of the first half, and ended up humiliating Tyrone to a degree that the host team did not deserve to suffer.

Mayo went off at half-time having only scored once from play yet bizarrely holding a one-point advantage, 2-2 to 0-7. Tyrone were easily the crisper of the teams in the first half, attacking in waves, cracking over their points and seeing a rasper come off the crossbar. Mayo were still in the game thanks to Conor Mortimer, who a converted a penalty awarded for a foul on himself – despite the local support's vociferous protests that Conor succumbs to the law of gravity far more than he ought to – and also scored a goal that was a touching homage to Jimmy Burke's legendary Connacht Final goal in that magical summer of 1989, when the only way was up.

John O'Mahony had rung the first change just before half-time, when James Kilcullen came on for Aidan Kilcoyne, whom the questions did not really suit on this trip to Tyrone. Kilcullen joined James Nallen at midfield, with Pat Harte, who got through a mountain of work in the game, and shipped no small amount of timber too, moving up to fill the gap. O'Mahony tweaked further by replacing Enda Devanney with Trevor Howley early in the second half and suddenly the Tyrone challenge began to crumble as Mayo moved up through their gears. The bottom fell out of Tyrone's world with about fifteen minutes to go when Owen "Muggsy" Mulligan let his frustrations, well past critical mass after a galling afternoon in the close company of Aidan Higgins, blow up by making a reckless sliding tackle, and Mulligan was ejected from the field. Two goals and some celebratory points later, and the Tyrone faithful were leaving Healy Park with heads down, to be told of their Division 1 reprieve when they got to their car radios.

Tyrone, in truth, were a shadow of the team that won two All-Irelands in three years – there has been a lot of talk about northern systems and methods and tactics but a team is only as good as its players, and when that team can no longer call on the talents of Peter Canavan, Sean Cavanagh, Brian McGuigan and the others it will not be easy to paper over the cracks. For Mayo, twenty-four hours after a masterclass in the Connacht Under-21 Final in Castlebar, the future looks rosy indeed.

David Clarke, after some nervous moments at the start of the league, is taking his chance after Kenneth O'Malley's cruel injury, and Clarke's booming kickouts add considerably to his reassuringly pantheresque patrol of his goal. Suspicions that Aidan Higgins wintered not wisely but too well are countered by the fact that having someone with a little bit of beef on the bone on the full back line might do Mayo no harm for a change.

Aidan's namesake, Keith Higgins, is a more vexed question. It has long been a debating point in Gaelic Football's groves of academe as to whether football ability is an asset or a liability in the men who man the rearguard. The idea is that the members of the fullback line shouldn't be too interested in the football at all, but in clinging tightly to their man in the fashion of the butcher's dog and spare bones. Paidí Ó Sé, who knows something of the art, remarks in his autobiography that when he was playing for Kerry in the seventies he could still hear his old teacher roaring at him "Ó Sé! Where's your man?" Paidí posits the view that question of his man's whereabouts should be the only thing bothering a fullback on game day. Keith Higgins' surging runs forward are thrilling, but seeing his man run at Higgins in the opposite direction has rather the opposite effect on the Mayo faithful. It seems unfair to hold a man's football ability against him, but fair doesn't always come into it I'm afraid.

The half-back line looks potent whatever combination O'Mahony chooses, and Billy Joe Padden's perpetual presence at centre-half suggests that the shirt belongs to An tIolar Breá Iorrais for the foreseeable. Pat Harte has been outstanding all year in midfield, and O'Mahony's pick in midfield is returning to the riches with which O'Mahony was spoiled in his first incarnation as bannisteoir Mhaigh Eo, injuries permitting of course.

Up front, Conor might be a scamp but he's our scamp, and these recent days' ability to keep his head up under shocking abuse from his markers (some of whom have been very much of the butchers' dog school that An Spailpín was bigging up earlier) and his newfound fondness for the major score mean his place in the corner is copper-fastened. Michael Conroy was a revelation today, even if he didn't get on the scoresheet as often as he would have liked. He tormented his man, and that's not bad. Ger Brady struggled in the first half but once he cracked over his first point Brady's confidence blossomed, and soon he was cracking over some more, casting markers from around him, setting up Conor Mortimer's hat-trick goal and generally having a fine old time for himself. The search continues for a full-forward, and the county still wonders about Ciarán McDonald's return and how he will integrate into John O'Mahony's second coming, but there are far more pluses than minuses now the line has been drawn under the League season. The news that Mayo's League semi-final opponents are Galway will have given great pause for thought on the long trek home but Mayo cannot but be happy with their Easter Sunday performance.

FOCAL SCOIR: While reflecting on Dublin's demise today, An Spailpín Fánach cannot but reflect on the very nature of the GAA, and whether or not Dublin get it at all. One constant mantra in that disgraceful old lie about "Dublin needing to win an All-Ireland" is that children in Dublin are tempted by so many other sports, and the GAA needs to compete with those. What neither the Dublin GAA, nor their acolytes in the media – An Spailpín half expects tomorrow's Irish Times sports pages to be bordered in black, you know – fail to realise is that the GAA is not another sport. The GAA is a cultural organisation, and that's what makes it different, and that's what makes it the best.

This is a point on which our hosts today in Tyrone are very clear. The Tyrone Board did not miss the opportunity to commemorate the 91st anniversary of the Rising, and the pre-match entertainment featured some marvellous traditional singing from Caola Reid, and an exhibition of set-dancing, when Ciara McAtasney, Nicola Currie, Erin Devlin, Kayleigh Devin, Rachel Cummings, Aileen Hughes, Paula Donaghy and Clare Cullen gave the boards some serious walloping in 4/4 time. I'm also happy to confirm that there was no cheering before the end of the anthem, something that should catch on nationally, but is sadly unlikely to.

Tyrone have got some bad press over the years and brought a lot of it on themselves if the unpleasant truth be told but today their hospitality for their visitors was first rate. The man on the PA, whose voice was just like that of the late Benedict Kiely, Tyrone's second-greatest literary figure, started naming what Mayo had won as the team ran out, including the Under 21 title of last year and yesterday's Connacht title, and then asked the Tyrone faithful to "show your respect for their achievements," An Spailpín was genuinely stunned. I thought that level of courtesy and respect for opponents had been lost forever, or ruled out of existence by some division of the Modernity Police. Not only that, but in the light of the vitriol that can spew between Armagh and Tyrone supporters on the message boards of this world wide web, I thought it a lovely touch to have a panel in the program congratulating Crossmaglen – surely the greatest club team we have seen – on their fourth All-Ireland title last weekend.

The best was yet to come. At half-time The Boys of the County Mayo was played – whether it was a recording (and my guess would be John Feeney if it was) or a member of the local Scór, it was lovely to hear it, and sung beautifully. Tyrone lost a battle today, but at least they know what they're playing for every time they pull on the shirt. Ná laga Dia na Gaeil den scoth seo go deo.

[supersarsfields]

Only really getting round to posting on this now! Thought that for the play we had we should have been in a abetter position that we were at half time. And I'd disagree with Ziggy over a couple of things. Mugsy def had a call for a penalty in the first half. The second one never was, complete dive when he could have made space for himself. And secondly he had to walk for that tackle!! No contact but the intent was there. No attempt to play the ball. What was going through his head is anyone's guess.
Other than that, Thought Tyrone over carried the ball to often. They ran into tackles instead of an early pass. Now I don't know if this is due to a lack of smart runs by the forwards or the defense's inability to hit a quality 20 yard pass. But to often we were getting closed up.
To me they just seem like a team that are low in confidence and don't seem to have clicked together yet. But maybe now when they have a few weeks to iron out the problems who know's. I wouldn't be overly hopeful for the summer, but I had that feeling in 2005 after the Kerry league game. So who knows.