Mayo v Westmeath, Sunday March 9th.

[seafoid]

http://gaaboard.com/board/index.php?topic=13.850;wap2

Jack O'Connor came in and spoke with direct compassion about what had just happened on the field. He explained that the one, single year Kerry had been waiting since their All-Ireland final loss to Tyrone had been more cutting and salty than the half-century of constant keening that accompanied Mayo teams. He explained Kerry's need had been greater. Brady listened because he respected O'Connor, and his mind roamed back to the exchanges on the field, the uncompromising hardness of the Kerry tackling, as swift and clean and accurate as middleweight combination shots.

A load of ould fluff that makes good newspaper pieces.  In practical terms, it means shag all.

I think they won that match. And they were hungrier than Mayo (who had a decent team) and Mayo should be that hungry in September and that they are good enough to do it but they have to be absolutely ruthless. Drop those subs and find some young forwards.

[moysider]

http://gaaboard.com/board/index.php?topic=13.850;wap2

Jack O'Connor came in and spoke with direct compassion about what had just happened on the field. He explained that the one, single year Kerry had been waiting since their All-Ireland final loss to Tyrone had been more cutting and salty than the half-century of constant keening that accompanied Mayo teams. He explained Kerry's need had been greater. Brady listened because he respected O'Connor, and his mind roamed back to the exchanges on the field, the uncompromising hardness of the Kerry tackling, as swift and clean and accurate as middleweight combination shots.

A load of ould fluff that makes good newspaper pieces.  In practical terms, it means shag all.

I think they won that match. And they were hungrier than Mayo (who had a decent team) and Mayo should be that hungry in September and that they are good enough to do it but they have to be absolutely ruthless. Drop those subs and find some young forwards.

Yes, they did win that match and O Connor felt empowered as a result to rub it in. To suggest that the difference was was down to hunger amounted to an insult.

Who are the subs that should be dropped? Richie Feeney? Where do we find these young forwards - Donedeal?
Not getting personal but Galway are still picking the likes of Sice and Army and Paul Conroy - have they ever won a championship game in Croke Park and why are they still being wheeled out? I suspect the answer is that they are still the best you ve got in spite of relative success with underage teams. Not that easy to find players that can do it in last 4.

[mayoman dan]

I think they won that match. And they were hungrier than Mayo (who had a decent team) and Mayo should be that hungry in September and that they are good enough to do it but they have to be absolutely ruthless. Drop those subs and find some young forwards.
[/quote]

Of the subs we brought on in the final Doherty and Moran were only back from injury and the other 3 were not good enough IMO. hopefully we can add Galagher this year and i think we can all agree Ritchie Feeney can offer us something and if we have more luck with injuries we will be in better shape.Parsons Harrison Mc Hale and Drake may also stake a claim for a spot so theres no need to tear up the script just yet.I believe for us to get over the line we need Horan and co to smarten up if we had set up right for any of the 2 finals we would have won.A good tactician knows that James can be out manouvered and my big fear is that this will kill us again this year

[moysider]

Ok so can we take it then that the efforts made to reform the team have not really worked out.

I would say reform is a bit strong. Its a 25 man game now and with the panel we have, albeit similar enough to last year I still think we will be there or thereabouts come Aug/Sept.

What we do appear to be doing a fair bit, which is in a similar vein to last year is overplaying the ball in the middle third / centre forward position and getting dis-possessed too easily. I don't think the inside forwards were fast enough last week but the pitch look awful heavy.

If we can improve tactically and play with a bit more intelligence all through this years campaign it might be enough rather than any major reform to the personnel.

Hey, I m not looking for root and branch reform or anything. But a certain amount of 'experimentation' has happened with little positive coming out of it. But a positive would be that management may have realised that there are some things some players cant do. That s important too.

I agree with you about Aug/Sept. Not sure about 25 players (we usually overestimate our depth at this time of year) but by Summer we may have boosted last years panel. But when push came to shove last year, management ended up with a limited enough number of players that they really trusted. Less than 20 imo.

[muppet]

Anyone from Westmeath here at all?

Croí??

Clearly you are hot favourites for this one at home.

[moysider]

We really need 2 more points here to give us a bit of breathing space. No doubt Westmeath will be desperate to take something out of the league and will have to give this a right go at home.

The Mayo selection will be interesting. With the U21s playing the following Wednesday Gallagher might be sitting this one out and maybe the plan is to give Doherty an extended run in the half forward line anyway.

I expect Higgins to remain at the back for the time being anyway in the continued absense of Barrett and Cuniffe and Vaughan and Seamie may be held in reserve for another couple of games yet.

Probably contrary to general consensus I liked the settling influence Andy had the last day and he probably needs all the game time he can get. On last days form Varley deserves to start and Freeman should be persisted with at ff.

Any thoughts?

Persisted with? Surely he's an automatic choice there now, has cemented that position in the last year.

I don't think ye have too much to worry about regarding the 2 points on Sunday. We still have no idea what players are best in what position and are playing to no real identifiable game plan.

Croí appears to have conceded the game on page1. I expect it to be tricky enough.

[Syferus]

Strange to see Mayo facing the #1 maroon team in the country and it not being the Fancy Dans.

[IolarCoisCuain]

Fair play to Seafóid for trying to help out his fellow Connachtmen. With all that's going on at home, you'd think Mayo would be the Laois of his worries.

[Lar Naparka]

Is Dillon a guaranteed starter? I dont think he is but if it was up to me Richie Feeney would be starting  which i think is unlikely to happen.Dillon would be a serious man to come off the bench in a tight game

Come championship and fit I think Dillon will be a guaranteed starter yes. So will Andy, McLoughlin, Freeman and O Connor provided there all fit and well. I don t think much will have changed much. Coaches see a panel in a particular way and don t just tear up the script in my experience.

That would leave a scrum in contention for the 6th spot; Varley, Doherty,Conroy, Coen, Gallagher, Feeney. Maybe a big man like Barry or Aidan or maybe Higgins being given a role.

I thought JH was doing a magnificent job of putting a team together right up to the AI final in 2012.
IMO, he had the best goalie and backs in the country and the midfield was able at least to hold their own with anyone.
Forwards then as now, were the weakest links but he was making good progress in that department. Going into the Down game, he had settled on the HB line and the FF spot with only the corner forward positions still in doubt.
Andy's injury that day was catastrophic  - no doubt about that. We're still feeling the aftershocks.
Eighteen months later, he's still not back to full fitness and there's no guarantee that he will ever recapture his previous form. If that's not bad enough, Cillian's shoulder injury added to Horan's woes.
If both had been available and in top form, the AI result last September might well have been different but there's nothing to be gained by speculation.The run of bad luck is extraordinary with the pair of them along with Dillon also trying to come back from injury - one of them misfiring would be serious enough but if all three are not fully fit, maybe it'll be time to suspect that the effin' priest in Foxford had more influence with he Man Above than we thought.
Let's hope for the best- I can't see Mayo being stopped in Connacht but it's down to Providence.
I'd agree with your choice of forwards above but, while Freeman was on top form last Sunday, I don't remember him ever having two good performances on the trot.
I think Richie, going by his form last year, deserves a spot but it's too soon yet to assume he'll get it.
Really, there's quite  number fighting for forward places but whether the end result will be good enough to go the whole way this year remains to be seen.

[criostlinn]

I dont meant to be hard on him but is CHB his best position? if not where is . i presume our 1st choice full back line is between Barrett cunniffe Caff and higgins .
but we may not always have our 1st choices

For me the only place for McHale is full back and at the moment he isn't going to replace Cafferkey. Good back up for this spot thou.

[criostlinn]

Donie in my opinion had a rip roaring championship after a sluggish league campaign last year and I thought him Keegan , and Bolyer were heroic in the final last year under huge pressure!

[/color]Vaughan is not a cb his positional sense is awful look at Dublins 2nd goal in the final as an example.Donies distribution is also poor although i think he has worked hard on this aspect of his game.Higgins or Cunniffe are better options at 6.However saying this i still think Vaughan is an excellent player and will be starting come summer i would like to see him given a go at mf or name him in in the ff line and give him a bit of a free role where we can best use his strenghts.

[/quote]


Nah. Can't agree with any of this. For me Donie Vaughan is one of the most underrated players on the Mayo team. It seems to be a common thing for so called experts to talk about his positional sense and lack of defending ability. It's like something which they heard someone say once and because it sounds good it's repeated time and again.  You pick out one move in a match last year as an example to prove your point and yet ignore the phenomenal defensive performance that Vaughan put in for the match. A buddy of mine was giving out about Vaughan after the match because he wasn't making the runs forward. The lad can't win. For me Vaughan offers that toughness that Mayo have been missing for years in the back line. He gets in lads faces. What he offers to Mayo forward play cannot be underestimated either but I think the final showed that he's not all about galloping up the pitch to get on the end of scores.

[shark]

We really need 2 more points here to give us a bit of breathing space. No doubt Westmeath will be desperate to take something out of the league and will have to give this a right go at home.

The Mayo selection will be interesting. With the U21s playing the following Wednesday Gallagher might be sitting this one out and maybe the plan is to give Doherty an extended run in the half forward line anyway.

I expect Higgins to remain at the back for the time being anyway in the continued absense of Barrett and Cuniffe and Vaughan and Seamie may be held in reserve for another couple of games yet.

Probably contrary to general consensus I liked the settling influence Andy had the last day and he probably needs all the game time he can get. On last days form Varley deserves to start and Freeman should be persisted with at ff.

Any thoughts?

Persisted with? Surely he's an automatic choice there now, has cemented that position in the last year.

I don't think ye have too much to worry about regarding the 2 points on Sunday. We still have no idea what players are best in what position and are playing to no real identifiable game plan.

Croí appears to have conceded the game on page1. I expect it to be tricky enough.

It won't be. Westmeath will play to keep the score down, just as they have done in the previous 3 games. Bealin doesn't trust the players enough to play any more than 4 players in the opposition half at any one time. Disappointing as their scoring rate last year was very impressive, albeit in division 2.  Mayo might not win by a massive scoreline like Derry did (2 early goals killed them), but the result will never be in doubt.

[Chimley]

http://gaaboard.com/board/index.php?topic=13.850;wap2

Jack O'Connor came in and spoke with direct compassion about what had just happened on the field. He explained that the one, single year Kerry had been waiting since their All-Ireland final loss to Tyrone had been more cutting and salty than the half-century of constant keening that accompanied Mayo teams. He explained Kerry's need had been greater. Brady listened because he respected O'Connor, and his mind roamed back to the exchanges on the field, the uncompromising hardness of the Kerry tackling, as swift and clean and accurate as middleweight combination shots.

A load of ould fluff that makes good newspaper pieces.  In practical terms, it means shag all.

I think they won that match. And they were hungrier than Mayo (who had a decent team) and Mayo should be that hungry in September and that they are good enough to do it but they have to be absolutely ruthless. Drop those subs and find some young forwards.

A better explanation of that day was that Kerry's one year famine was a lighter load to carry than Mayos 55 year famine.

[mayoman dan]

Nah. Can't agree with any of this. For me Donie Vaughan is one of the most underrated players on the Mayo team. It seems to be a common thing for so called experts to talk about his positional sense and lack of defending ability. It's like something which they heard someone say once and because it sounds good it's repeated time and again.  You pick out one move in a match last year as an example to prove your point and yet ignore the phenomenal defensive performance that Vaughan put in for the match. A buddy of mine was giving out about Vaughan after the match because he wasn't making the runs forward. The lad can't win. For me Vaughan offers that toughness that Mayo have been missing for years in the back line. He gets in lads faces. What he offers to Mayo forward play cannot be underestimated either but I think the final showed that he's not all about galloping up the pitch to get on the end of scores.
[/quote]

If u read my post you will  see i didnt question Donals defensive ability i just dont think hes a 6.you say that Vaughan is underestimated well i disagree Dublin thought so much of him that they put Flynn on him to limit his influence in the final.

[Farrandeelin]

Jesus dan, somebody better tell you how to quote properly on this!