Twistin, turnin, windin roads - Galway v Mayo 14/6/15

[Syferus]

Cant see anything other than a Mayo win. Galway have not done anything of note in years. Last year they beat Sligo and Tipperary to get to a AI quarter final and were beaten by Mayo and Kerry teams in second gear. To much weight has been put into Corofins AI Club success. Club means little or nothing to inter-county teams. You can ask Galway Hurlers and they will tell you this. Mayo are on the slide and Galway have some really talented. But i feel Mayo are still physically stronger and will bully Galway. It's not an impossible task for Galway, but it is a big ask!

I dunno Bunker. This is about Connacht and if Mayo are not right Galway or Ros can beat us. The reason we lost to Longford in '10 and yet beat likes of Cork, Down, Dublin, Tyrone with same resources under Horan was not about player quality. As in the past in Mayo it s about management. If this management is up to it we should still be a top4 team. If not we could be knocked out by anybody.
The reality for both Galway and Roscommon is that they can not use Mayo as a gauge. Whichever of them take us out this year will have to wait to see where they are at. Seafóid said earlier that Galway had good forwards and Mayo's are poor. Maybe Roscommon folk would feel the same?
Thing is, in the big picture, it's a waste of time evaluating forwards unless they play in August/September. U21 and form in Div2 and Connacht Championship not worth a shite until you come up against the likes of the McGees and McMahons. Different planet.

I don't think we think we have poor backs, indeed we'd be quite happy with our FB line in particular the last two seasons. I'd even says it might be better than Mayo's FB line now, Collins really has matured into a fine CB. The HB uses have plenty of football in them but some of them might have a tendency to go walkabouts, not too dissimilar to your own HB line in all honesty. CHB is particularly important because we've had times when runners aren't bottled up down the middle and whole defence splits open and coughs up a goal or a goal chance. It's in the middle that we've been poor at times, and with Higgins out until July it won't be that great unless someone emerges to partner Cathal Shine.

If we get to the final and go and beat Galway in Salthill or Mayo in McHale in a Connacht final make no mistake, it will be the watershed moment for this team.

Again, not the point I was trying to make.
Last 4 years we won Connacht and did some damage after. Did so after a calamitous 4 years under Johnno and did it quick. Ros. and Galway have been making strides it seems, but the jury is out. Especially in the Galway's case.
Winning Connacht was not the agenda with Horan. He cut it fine but he went toe to toe with the big boys in August from year 1, in spite of having to pick the whole county off the floor after Longford in '10.
If Galway/Roscommon beat Mayo this year, they re going to be judged on what they do after. If Mayo are to lose in Connacht this year it s probably because we ve gone back. The reality is we won t know until August. Ros or Galway winning Connacht and not playing in August would indicate Mayo going backwards rather than the other two progressing.

Both Galway and Roscommon are judging themselves on winning Connacht with good reason. Four seasons' worth of reasons. Just because the excuses are in-built, ah sure they're past it, the managers aren't up to the job, doesn't make the task less meaningful - Mayo will be getting negative labels and vibes when they do eventually lose in Connacht, and would have got it last year if it happened then. That's because both Galway and Roscommon have operated so significantly below Mayo's level that losing to either will make them seem weak. Galway and Roscommon aren't just trying to beat Mayo, they're trying to break a stranglehold. To do that will take mental strength neither team has displayed thus far. It's all just perspective.

Both would happily accept flaming out in an AIQF if you gave them a win over Mayo and a Connacht title right now. They won't be losing sleep about people thinking beating Mayo wasn't a good test of their abilities. It's a strawman really.

[mrhardyannual]

You would have to think that Mayo will still be too powerful for any Connacht opposition because of the depth of their midfield options. Any two from SOS, Barry Moran and Parsons still allows AOS to be released into the forward line. While their league form was erratic you could sense that championship was the target. A settled back line with cover options deepened with the addition of young Durkan. Further forward Kirby showed promise at FF. Cillian will be missed but Doherty has improved greatly over the past year and Diarmaid O Connor adds pace. Dillon and Andy have been given time to recharge the batteries. I expect Mayo to come away from Salthill with a good win after a tough battle. Roscommon in Castlebar makes an interesting final but I feel Roscommon might have missed their chance last year in the Hyde. Forewarned Mayo will still have too much for them.

[Maroon Manc]

Fully expect Mayo to beat Galway comfortably. Galway are just not good enough defensively and will take time for Kevin Walsh to get it right. The extra games in the qualifiers may well help this Galway team become more accustomed to their new tactics.

[galwayman]

Fully expect Mayo to beat Galway comfortably. Galway are just not good enough defensively and will take time for Kevin Walsh to get it right. The extra games in the qualifiers may well help this Galway team become more accustomed to their new tactics.

To be honest Maroon Manc - I haven't seen any evidence so far this year to suggest that Galway are playing any more defensively than they did last year.
It certainly didn't appear that way to me having been at several league games and also in Carrick yesterday.

[Syferus]

You would have to think that Mayo will still be too powerful for any Connacht opposition because of the depth of their midfield options. Any two from SOS, Barry Moran and Parsons still allows AOS to be released into the forward line. While their league form was erratic you could sense that championship was the target. A settled back line with cover options deepened with the addition of young Durkan. Further forward Kirby showed promise at FF. Cillian will be missed but Doherty has improved greatly over the past year and Diarmaid O Connor adds pace. Dillon and Andy have been given time to recharge the batteries. I expect Mayo to come away from Salthill with a good win after a tough battle. Roscommon in Castlebar makes an interesting final but I feel Roscommon might have missed their chance last year in the Hyde. Forewarned Mayo will still have too much for them.

Ye got beaten in the middle by us ast year. Yethave a lot of players that do the same thing. around the middle. Tom Parsons is the only one of them that's a proper all-rounder. AOS is a beast going forward but you could run around him all day when he's on the defensive. That might be as much of a bad thing as anything else. Losing Regan is potentially massive for Mayo. He could well have been the man to take the pressure off COC.

[highorlow]

I'd say it will take us the 2 games to beat Galway.

15/2 on the draw looks like value. I'd be happy leaving Salthill with a draw.

[Crete Boom]

You would have to think that Mayo will still be too powerful for any Connacht opposition because of the depth of their midfield options. Any two from SOS, Barry Moran and Parsons still allows AOS to be released into the forward line. While their league form was erratic you could sense that championship was the target. A settled back line with cover options deepened with the addition of young Durkan. Further forward Kirby showed promise at FF. Cillian will be missed but Doherty has improved greatly over the past year and Diarmaid O Connor adds pace. Dillon and Andy have been given time to recharge the batteries. I expect Mayo to come away from Salthill with a good win after a tough battle. Roscommon in Castlebar makes an interesting final but I feel Roscommon might have missed their chance last year in the Hyde. Forewarned Mayo will still have too much for them.

Ye got beaten in the middle by us ast year. Yethave a lot of players that do the same thing. around the middle. Tom Parsons is the only one of them that's a proper all-rounder. AOS is a beast going forward but you could run around him all day when he's on the defensive. That might be as much of a bad thing as anything else. Losing Regan is potentially massive for Mayo. He could well have been the man to take the pressure off COC.

You haven't watched a lot of Aidan O' Shea then ,the performance against against the Dubs in the 2012 semi when he gave a masterclass of defensive midfield play is the first example that springs to mind, breaking up attacks , winning turnovers and allowing big Barry to get up and down the field. I would have Barry Moran, Jason Gibbons and Parsons as all similar all rounder midfield men for us.Seami O Shea, Aidan O' Shea and Danny Geraghty would be the only middle men over the last four years that could carry out a truly defensive holding role for us effectively in midfield.

Your halfbacks and half forwards dominated the breaks and this was the reason you had a foothold around the middle for large parts of the game last year.Maybe you were one of the many Rossies dancing for joy and waving to the local photographers with 15 mins to go and weren't concentrating totally on what was happening on the pitch . I don't think you beat us, nullified yes but only Dublin in 2013 and Kerry 2014 stayed on top of our midfield for a full 70  , Kerry and David Moran/Johnny Buckley did it for 50 mins in the first game and 70 plus stoppage time in the replay in fairness to them and that's where we were beaten , not the the venue/ref/Donaghy/ cynical tactics!!!! Same for the Dubs in 2013 with MDMA and Cian O sullivan running us ragged in the middle for the majority of that final!!!

If you win the midfield battle it still goes a long way to winning the game so that is where we have to try and hurt Galway. If their forwards don't have the ball they can't score no matter how good they are!!!

[Maroon Manc]

Fully expect Mayo to beat Galway comfortably. Galway are just not good enough defensively and will take time for Kevin Walsh to get it right. The extra games in the qualifiers may well help this Galway team become more accustomed to their new tactics.

To be honest Maroon Manc - I haven't seen any evidence so far this year to suggest that Galway are playing any more defensively than they did last year.
It certainly didn't appear that way to me having been at several league games and also in Carrick yesterday.

Fair enough, I'm looking in from afar. Just got the impression from other posts and match reports that Galway were quite negative yesterday.

I'm coming over for the Mayo game with realistic expectations.

[Blowitupref]

Fully expect Mayo to beat Galway comfortably. Galway are just not good enough defensively and will take time for Kevin Walsh to get it right. The extra games in the qualifiers may well help this Galway team become more accustomed to their new tactics.

To be honest Maroon Manc - I haven't seen any evidence so far this year to suggest that Galway are playing any more defensively than they did last year.
It certainly didn't appear that way to me having been at several league games and also in Carrick yesterday.

Fair enough, I'm looking in from afar. Just got the impression from other posts and match reports that Galway were quite negative yesterday.

I'm coming over for the Mayo game with realistic expectations.

On the independent Leitrim manager, Shane Ward, accused Galway after of being "very negative" in the second-half.

Ward's men were restricted to just two points in the second-half, a statistic he clearly believed was down to a mix of Galway's fouling and, in his view, theatrics.
He questioned the number of "big" Galway players going to ground in contact with "small" Leitrim men and even likened their style to that which draws routine disdain north of the border.
"At one stage they had fifteen men behind their own '45'" said Ward. "Everyone is talking about the negativity of Ulster football but the questions have to go a lot further afield than that. Certainly the big men hit and once they hit we go down in a heap and it doesn't make for good viewing.
"That's a professional team and that is a Division Two team, they know how to kill out a game, but it doesn't make for a nice spectacle. I think people would rather watch fifteen men behind the ball and working hard and the game flowing than big men lying down on the ground with the physio around them all the time."

[Syferus]

You would have to think that Mayo will still be too powerful for any Connacht opposition because of the depth of their midfield options. Any two from SOS, Barry Moran and Parsons still allows AOS to be released into the forward line. While their league form was erratic you could sense that championship was the target. A settled back line with cover options deepened with the addition of young Durkan. Further forward Kirby showed promise at FF. Cillian will be missed but Doherty has improved greatly over the past year and Diarmaid O Connor adds pace. Dillon and Andy have been given time to recharge the batteries. I expect Mayo to come away from Salthill with a good win after a tough battle. Roscommon in Castlebar makes an interesting final but I feel Roscommon might have missed their chance last year in the Hyde. Forewarned Mayo will still have too much for them.

Ye got beaten in the middle by us ast year. Yethave a lot of players that do the same thing. around the middle. Tom Parsons is the only one of them that's a proper all-rounder. AOS is a beast going forward but you could run around him all day when he's on the defensive. That might be as much of a bad thing as anything else. Losing Regan is potentially massive for Mayo. He could well have been the man to take the pressure off COC.

You haven't watched a lot of Aidan O' Shea then ,the performance against against the Dubs in the 2012 semi when he gave a masterclass of defensive midfield play is the first example that springs to mind, breaking up attacks , winning turnovers and allowing big Barry to get up and down the field. I would have Barry Moran, Jason Gibbons and Parsons as all similar all rounder midfield men for us.Seami O Shea, Aidan O' Shea and Danny Geraghty would be the only middle men over the last four years that could carry out a truly defensive holding role for us effectively in midfield.

Your halfbacks and half forwards dominated the breaks and this was the reason you had a foothold around the middle for large parts of the game last year.Maybe you were one of the many Rossies dancing for joy and waving to the local photographers with 15 mins to go and weren't concentrating totally on what was happening on the pitch . I don't think you beat us, nullified yes but only Dublin in 2013 and Kerry 2014 stayed on top of our midfield for a full 70  , Kerry and David Moran/Johnny Buckley did it for 50 mins in the first game and 70 plus stoppage time in the replay in fairness to them and that's where we were beaten , not the the venue/ref/Donaghy/ cynical tactics!!!! Same for the Dubs in 2013 with MDMA and Cian O sullivan running us ragged in the middle for the majority of that final!!!

If you win the midfield battle it still goes a long way to winning the game so that is where we have to try and hurt Galway. If their forwards don't have the ball they can't score no matter how good they are!!!

I've seen AOS a lot and if his marker is a HB (as it invariably was when he was played in the frankly mad position of CHF) that lad tends to make hay gonig forward himself. Don't get me wrong, AOS would be in any All-Ireland XV I'd make, his power and pretty much inability to be stopped when he's going forward is a sight to behold but likewise Ive seen him put on one-armed tackles so many times and the marker slips inside him and he's left for dust. He was a wee bit reckless in years past too but he seems to have matured past that.

I think Moran and to a lesser extent Gibbons are noticeably more immobile than Parsons, who to me was your best MF last year, including AOS. I thought Moran was great in 2012 and deserved an All-Star but since then he's rarely played to his best, thought he has had injuries and club duty that has effected his level of input.

[Rossfan]

Syf , please stop effin blatherin about the Rhubarbs or people will think you're a closet Rhu.
You seem to be fascinated by them 

[Syferus]

Syf , please stop effin blatherin about the Rhubarbs or people will think you're a closet Rhu.
You seem to be fascinated by them 

Know your enemy.

[Lone Shark]

On the independent Leitrim manager, Shane Ward, accused Galway after of being "very negative" in the second-half.

Ward's men were restricted to just two points in the second-half, a statistic he clearly believed was down to a mix of Galway's fouling and, in his view, theatrics.
He questioned the number of "big" Galway players going to ground in contact with "small" Leitrim men and even likened their style to that which draws routine disdain north of the border.
"At one stage they had fifteen men behind their own '45'" said Ward. "Everyone is talking about the negativity of Ulster football but the questions have to go a lot further afield than that. Certainly the big men hit and once they hit we go down in a heap and it doesn't make for good viewing.
"That's a professional team and that is a Division Two team, they know how to kill out a game, but it doesn't make for a nice spectacle. I think people would rather watch fifteen men behind the ball and working hard and the game flowing than big men lying down on the ground with the physio around them all the time."

Leitrim got 26 frees in the second half, and Galway got just six - so if Galway were diving, they weren't getting much from it. I didn't see much diving either, or much by way of aggressive fouling. A lot of those Leitrim frees looked charitable enough to me. 

I appreciate that Shane Ward has to come out and defend his own team, but I was genuinely baffled by that yesterday. I agree that Galway's entire team went into defensive mode once they lost the ball, but they did so in an admirable manner - going after the ball, rather than just dropping back to within forty yards of their own goal and waiting for Leitrim to come on to them.

At one stage Leitrim were passing the ball around in their own back line and there were eight Galway players inside the Leitrim 45 chasing the ball, looking for a turnover high up the field. If he's complaining about that, then I don't know what football has come to. Essentially all forms of defence seem to be frowned upon now. 

Time and again Galway offered Leitrim 2vs2 and 3vs3 looks in the full forward line while their half backs and midfielders hunted possession out the field, but the long ball didn't come in. You can't ask for more than that as a manager, but Leitrim just weren't good enough to take advantage. Ronan Kennedy got a lovely point after a couple of minutes and Cathal Sweeney kept him locked up from then on, McGrail seemed to run everywhere the ball wasn't and coughed it up most of the time when he did get his hands on it, and Wrynn was at least able to win his own ball when it came in high, but he was painfully slow on the ground and then missed his chances when the high ball did come in.

Galway didn't look good yesterday, but I'd be slow to blame them for it. They did all they had to do against a team that literally had no idea how to create scores. Honest answer, I'd say Shane Ward expected Galway to drop back, he prepared his team for that kind of game, then neither he nor the team were able to react when Galway came out and actually tackled them high up the field. His comments after the game would suggest to me that he simply didn't realise that his prediction was all wrong.

[Manning18]

Once again Roscommon talk invades a topic that has little to do with them. I usually dont mind counties looking well ahead at all, but quite where a county like Roscommon are getting the courage to presume with certainty that they'll be in Connacht final is unknown. They'll be no more than 75% shots to come out of Sligo with a win.

Not quite sure what nonsense Shane Ward is on about. If anything Galway were their usually selves from a defensive point of view, as in almost niavely attacking. Leitrim forwards were left 1 on 1 with the cb's on a few occasions, while a couple of their early scores came form players in oceans of space 30-40 yards out. Galway were quite uninspiring on Sunday. Talk of trouble in the Mayo camp is more encouraging than anything we seen on the pitch from Galway, with its usual mix of bright sparks being ruined by sloppy mistakes. 

[Syferus]

Once again Roscommon talk invades a topic that has little to do with them. I usually dont mind counties looking well ahead at all, but quite where a county like Roscommon are getting the courage to presume with certainty that they'll be in Connacht final is unknown. They'll be no more than 75% shots to come out of Sligo with a win.

Not quite sure what nonsense Shane Ward is on about. If anything Galway were their usually selves from a defensive point of view, as in almost niavely attacking. Leitrim forwards were left 1 on 1 with the cb's on a few occasions, while a couple of their early scores came form players in oceans of space 30-40 yards out. Galway were quite uninspiring on Sunday. Talk of trouble in the Mayo camp is more encouraging than anything we seen on the pitch from Galway, with its usual mix of bright sparks being ruined by sloppy mistakes.

It wasn't a Roscommon poster who brought up Roscommon. But don't let reality stop your rant.