2013 All Ireland Final: Mayo v Dublin

[rrhf]

I think its the season for rhubarb

[bucko]

Looking at the Dublin line up, McMahon in to obviously try and shore up what has been Dublin's weakest line so far this season. Am just wondering if Dublin will continue with the all action style they've stuck with all summer or will they play tighter at the back, and if so how much will this affect their normal game? Similarly with ourselves, will we play the sweeper or back McLoughlin's and Higgins' engines and ability to repeatedly cover back and get forward throughout the 70 mins? I really feel we have to choke up the centre channel from our goal out to the D any time Dublin get on the ball to restrict their goal chances. Would be happy with us restricting them to taking points as I don't think they will dominate us enough on the possession front to score enough points to beat us. If we can do this I can see us creating enough opportunities to win, but we have to take those chances. If we let Dublin in for goals, am not so sure. If we play as well as we can, and I'm talking the Donegal performance + 10% more for the full 70 mins, it'll be Mayo by 2+ points.

Whose going to score all these points for Mayo?

We know, yous are the bestest ever.

Not at all but I'm staggered by the Mayo optimism based on the following analysis

Kevin Mc Loughlin- very good hard working wing forward who may score 0-2 a game. Very good player though
Alan Dillon-           - your best forward in my eyes who needs a Tour de Force
Keith Higgins- a defender ( a very good one though)
COC- struggling with injury - top player- but carrying a serious structural injury into the game
Freeman - inconsistent. good player but has rarely strung two top performances back to back.
Moran  -out of form this season. Fine player but not playing well.

You go on about our defence and we just nod our heads and say totally agree with you. But what about Mayo's forwards?

I agree with you about the forwards, however Vaughan, Keegan and Boyle have scored 2-15 between them coming into this game. It'd be hard not to see them contributing something to the scoreboard tomorrow. We don't necessarily need our forwards to shoulder the whole scoring burden. Re your point about Freeman, IMO he's been our most underrated forward all season. He has consistently improved game by game, if his curve keeps going upwards he may cause more problems than one might think....

Mayo's defence is definitely a good bit better then ours. Stronger at midfield too but honestly I don't believe your forwards are in our forwards league.

You'll need 70% posession to win tomorrow. We don't. So midfield will decide the game.

Fair point. It's well known what your forwards are capable off, and they've all performed at one stage or another this year. We know what Andy, Alan and Cillian are possibly capable of, but as you rightly point out there are questions marks in form (Andy), consistency (Alan, tho I disagree with you here, I think he's been our most improved forward this year) and injury (Cillian). However if these guys produce something and Cillian stays on the pitch for the 70, 55-60% possession will do the job.

[Captain Obvious]

I don't believe your forwards are in our forwards league.

I would agree however when looking at what both have scored in this years championship i think Mayos forwards have been underrated.

Dublin

Bernard Brogan..........1-16
Paul Mannion..............3-6
Ciarán Kilkenny..........0-11
Diarmuid Connolly.......1-8
Dean Rock.....................0-10
Paul Flynn.................. ..1-6
Eoghan O'Gara............2-2
Paddy Andrews............1-5

Mayo

Cillian O'Connor.....6-14
Alan Freeman..........2-12
Kevin McLoughlin..0-10
Enda Varley.............1-6
Alan Dillon..............0-7
Darren Coen............1-3
Andy Moran............1-3
Cathal Carolan........1-1

[Jinxy]

Excellent stuff from Keith Duggan and Eoin Butler in todays Times.

[ross matt]

Best of luck to Mayo. You deserve it .... not just for all the AIF defeats of the last 15 years but because you've a fine team led by an intelligent manager that bounced back & improved immensely from the disappoint of last year's final.

That being said I've nothing against the Dubs and their current team is very attractive to watch. They definitely have the edge on Mayo in their more naturally scoring forwards and their excellent bench.

However the scoring workload on this Mayo side has been shared out all year and they've still put up big scores. They've a better midfield than Dublin and have the pace to match them. I also think they are more physical also and can set up better defensively when required during the match.

This is the match all neutrals wanted. Really looking forward to see the two best and most exciting teams in the country go head to head for the ultimate prize. Mayo by 2pt.

Connacht ABU!

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

I don't believe your forwards are in our forwards league.

I would agree however when looking at what both have scored in this years championship i think Mayos forwards have been underrated.

Dublin

Bernard Brogan..........1-16
Paul Mannion..............3-6
Ciarán Kilkenny..........0-11
Diarmuid Connolly.......1-8
Dean Rock.....................0-10
Paul Flynn.................. ..1-6
Eoghan O'Gara............2-2
Paddy Andrews............1-5

Mayo

Cillian O'Connor.....6-14
Alan Freeman..........2-12
Kevin McLoughlin..0-10
Enda Varley.............1-6
Alan Dillon..............0-7
Darren Coen............1-3
Andy Moran............1-3
Cathal Carolan........1-1

Well 

How many extra games had Dublin to score this?

Those 8 v 8 players, Dublin 9 goals, Mayo 12 goals. So what is all the rubbish people are talking about goals when for every 3 Dublin score, Mayo score 4.

[Jinxy]

Like Clint Eastwood said in Unforgiven, "Deserves got nuthin to do with it."

[Captain Obvious]

How many extra games had Dublin to score this?

Both have played five games.

Mayo - Galway,Roscommon,London,Donegal,Tyrone
Dublin - Westmeath,Kildare,Meath,Cork,Kerry

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

Like Clint Eastwood said in Unforgiven, "Deserves got nuthin to do with it."

Munny is gunna clean up that dirty old town.

[The Hill is Blue]

It's nearly time lads.

Hopefully the best team on the day will win decisively (not necessarily by a big score). What we don't need is that the losing team should feel that they left it behind them.

Good luck to both teams and their supporters.

[muppet]

It's nearly time lads.

Hopefully the best team on the day will win decisively (not necessarily by a big score). What we don't need is that the losing team should feel that they left it behind them.

Good luck to both teams and their supporters.

Agreed.

To the winners the plaudits and no need to kick the other team. As Paul Brady said, 'we've had too much of that before'.

[Johnnybegood]

It's nearly time lads.

Hopefully the best team on the day will win decisively (not necessarily by a big score). What we don't need is that the losing team should feel that they left it behind them.

Good luck to both teams and their supporters.

here here ! Gracious in victory and defeat and best of luck to one of the most important players - the ref .
Safe journey to all travelling up. Take your time and arrive alive .
Up the dubs

Agreed.

To the winners the plaudits and no need to kick the other team. As Paul Brady said, 'we've had to0 much of that before'.

[yellowcard]

As a neutral I hope it's a free flowing classic with plenty of attacking football and goals. I really hope that Mayo can do it but if Dublin display the same panache and flair that they have all summer I don't think Mayo will be fit to stay with them for 70 mins.

[J70]

Excellent stuff from Keith Duggan and Eoin Butler in todays Times.

Very interesting piece on Jim Gavin as well by Malachy Clerkin.

[easytiger95]

Well here we go......

I'm never confident before a Dubs game but I just feel that this Dublin team's main quality, despite the acres of newsprint devoted to their "pure" footballing virtues, is their character. In each of their games so far, they have been presented with different challenges - a bad start against Kildare, a full blooded physical challenge from Meath, a Cork side who deliberately targeted our perceived weakest line, and a Kerry side that defied the odds and the ages to fully vindicate their footballing tradition and still ended up the wrong side of a 7 point scoreline - and they have reacted calmly, with no hint of panic and merely trusted in themselves and their plan all the more. They up the pace, they adjust where needed and they remain unified.

I'm not going to go into the relativisim of the form line - but I simply don't think that Mayo have faced challenges of that proportion this year, and that gives the Dubs a real advantage.

It has been brilliant this week to read some of the articles on the history of Mayo football, its triumph and tragedy, but the flip side of that characterisation is the swaggering Dubs, cocky and arrogant, the black hats barging through the swing doors facing the oppressed farmer who might just get mad enough to throw down his scythe and pick up a gun. But the truth of football in Dublin since 1983, is that our nightmare is never far away, the insecurity that lurks underneath the bravado, the years that we wondered why anyone would think that playing against us was a big deal, when it was clear we were well below the standard required. I remember finally after the horrible sequence of 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 saying to my brother that the only consistent thing about Dublin was that each year they found a new way to f#'@k it up outside Leinster.

2011 was necessary to put the steel back in our soul - to remind ourselves that for all the swagger we were also the county that produced Sean Doherty, Gay O'Driscoll, Pat O'Neill, Tommy Drumm, Brian Mullins, Gerry Hargan, Mick Holden, Mick Kennedy, Dave Foran, Paddy Moran, Keith Barr, Eamon Heery - as P Sé would say, "pyschopaths - in the best possible sense of the world".

That steel has not gone away, despite the talk this year of a porous full back line etc - Rory O'Carroll is a genuine traditional full back, one of the best, if not the best on his day, in the country (Ger Cafferky i would rate along side him). If he plays well, and if Philly Mac brings some of the intensity that his forebears above brought, then there is no need for system adjustment - these guys will back themselves man to man.

And as for our forwards and midfield - for all the deficiencies that people have said that the O'Shea brothers will expose, I fully expect us to break even here, on the principle that MDM and COS will know for us to win they will have to attack Mayo's strongest unit - something they have done all year. And our forwards, despite the wastefulness that they can be guilty of, never vary from the plan and never cease to back themselves. I'm thinking of unsung guys like Paddy Andrews, who gradully grew into the game on the 40 against Kerry, until he was doing a very passable Alan Brogan impersonation. And what about Berno Brogan, who ended up for one of the first times this year doing a very passable Bernard Brogan impersonation? Or Paul Mannion,who had a quiet game, yet whose first half finish was both important and absolutely deadly. And the subs who can roll on, with an incredible selfless focus, putting aside their own ambition, elevating the team always.

I'm sure every Mayo fan feels the same about his/her own team - I'm sure the same arguments can be cogently made from the opposite end of the pitch. Which is why I feel tomorrow should be a classic.

But it doesn't change the fact that we had our own cycle of despair to break, and this team feels like it both honours and transcends our past - we're playing in a different way now, when empty swagger mutates into confidence, when entitlement becomes justified, and when the past is no longer a millstone on the present.

If Mayo win, i hope they will feel the same way, their demons consigned to history. But either way, with two young teams competing at the very top of a game they have transformed this summer, I think the next few years might compare to the best of times witnessed before.

Good luck to all the players and to everyone lucky enough to have a ticket. i'll be watching at home with my two year old boy, who already knows how to wave a fist and shout "Up The Dubs!"

Cannot wait!