Mayo v Donegal Saturday August 8th, 2015 Páirc an Chrócaigh

[Main Street]

Mayo fans really deserve an AI, I hope to God they win it.

They'll only deserve it if they win it.

Bullshit Sy. We face odds others don t.

How in God's name did the officials send off Keane when Murphy was the aggressor. It ll be rescinded but not the point. Yon ref would have rode us if it was anyway tight. Unless Keane hit Murphy off camera with a sledge that decision was a joke.

Now this will be the fifth AI semi v Dublin that I can recall. All the previous were played as home games for Dublin. In fairness this needs to be played in Mayo or neutral like Limerick!!
A big hullaboloo was made about giving Sligo fair play a few weeks ago so what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
CP is too much a + for Dublin. Add in a homer ref and we d have to be 10+ a better team to have a chance.

Moydider, Keane threw a punch Murphy didn't. That why he was sent off. Pure stupid.

The both slapped each other. Murphy threw first and caught Keane in the neck. Keane did what AOXI didn't do all day, he reacted to the provocation and got sent off. It may be rescinded when they get a look at it, but I wouldn't be certain of that. McBrearty had actually started all that niggle earlier, and got booked for it, while Cafferkey was marshalling everything expertly. He kept the others from reacting.....

My impression echoes an earlier impression expressed in this thread. It was added-on time, donegal had well and truly lost the game,  yet Murphy provoked a reaction, he got some reaction, he exaggerated his pain and emotional torment  and went pleading to the ref.
Whether keane's punishment was deserved is besides the point, Murphy had no moral business being involved and a straight red has consequences for Keane who has to be gutted at missing out on the semi final, and just what joy is it for Murphy to have orchestrated that?

[trileacman]

How many f**king steps was Keegan allowed for his goal?

[BennyHarp]

How many f**king steps was Keegan allowed for his goal?

Maybe, but he was absolutely outstanding today. He completely dominated Odrán MacNiallais and drove Mayo forward time after time after time. As complete a performance from a half back as I've seen - a joy to watch. Mayo impressed me today but to be fair Donegal looked like a team that had come a long hard road and there looked like a lot of tired legs out there especially lads like Lacey and McFadden. It's going to be tough for them lads to go again next year.

[trileacman]

How many f**king steps was Keegan allowed for his goal?

Maybe, but he was absolutely outstanding today. He completely dominated Odrán MacNiallais and drove Mayo forward time after time after time. As complete a performance from a half back as I've seen - a joy to watch. Mayo impressed me today but to be fair Donegal looked like a team that had come a long hard road and there looked like a lot of tired legs out there especially lads like Lacey and McFadden. It's going to be tough for them lads to go again next year.

He took 7-8 steps from my count. It shouldn't have stood.

[Syferus]

How many f**king steps was Keegan allowed for his goal?

Maybe, but he was absolutely outstanding today. He completely dominated Odrán MacNiallais and drove Mayo forward time after time after time. As complete a performance from a half back as I've seen - a joy to watch. Mayo impressed me today but to be fair Donegal looked like a team that had come a long hard road and there looked like a lot of tired legs out there especially lads like Lacey and McFadden. It's going to be tough for them lads to go again next year.

He took 7-8 steps from my count. It shouldn't have stood.

In Ulster you'd never get more than three steps before you're rugby tackled so Marty assumed he didn't need to county steps.

[BennyHarp]

How many f**king steps was Keegan allowed for his goal?

Maybe, but he was absolutely outstanding today. He completely dominated Odrán MacNiallais and drove Mayo forward time after time after time. As complete a performance from a half back as I've seen - a joy to watch. Mayo impressed me today but to be fair Donegal looked like a team that had come a long hard road and there looked like a lot of tired legs out there especially lads like Lacey and McFadden. It's going to be tough for them lads to go again next year.

He took 7-8 steps from my count. It shouldn't have stood.

In Ulster you'd never get more than three steps before you're rugby tackled so Marty assumed he didn't need to county steps.

Marty who?

[INDIANA]

How many f**king steps was Keegan allowed for his goal?

Maybe, but he was absolutely outstanding today. He completely dominated Odrán MacNiallais and drove Mayo forward time after time after time. As complete a performance from a half back as I've seen - a joy to watch. Mayo impressed me today but to be fair Donegal looked like a team that had come a long hard road and there looked like a lot of tired legs out there especially lads like Lacey and McFadden. It's going to be tough for them lads to go again next year.

Some of those lads are surely going to retire now. That's a 3-5 year rebuild job for Donegal . That hip injury has debilitated Lacey a lot.

[BluestackBoy]

McGee was the wrong match up for Donegal on O`Se, i think if Donegal had more than a week to prepare, they tried Gallagher at full back, height was needed to counter Big Aidan

I can't agree with you on this one weasel.

I hugely enjoyed the battle between the two of them which, goal apart, was pretty even.

O'Sé is a superb full forward & anyone who does any better on him than Neil McGee did yesterday is going to have played some game.

I'd say Jim Gavin will have a few sleepless nights over the next couple of weeks!!

[haze]

Murphy was poor today, McManus was very good.

Murphy rarely scores heavily from play, and gets away with an awful lot of nasty fouling and mouthing off.

Complete and utter nonsense. Murphy hit three superb scores from play and was the only Donegal forward to consistently win any ball going in.

Nail on head. After watching the dross served up by Tyrone and Monaghan it was a pleasure to watch Murphy (and the O'Se/McGee first half battle). First time I have seen him live in a few years; his work rate is outrageous (tv doesn't do him enough credit) and his ability at full forward to win low ball, high ball, dirty ball and bad ball is different class.

The only pity is how little we see of the man at full forward.

[charlieTully]

Murphy was poor today, McManus was very good.

Murphy rarely scores heavily from play, and gets away with an awful lot of nasty fouling and mouthing off.

Complete and utter nonsense. Murphy hit three superb scores from play and was the only Donegal forward to consistently win any ball going in.

Nail on head. After watching the dross served up by Tyrone and Monaghan it was a pleasure to watch Murphy (and the O'Se/McGee first half battle). First time I have seen him live in a few years; his work rate is outrageous (tv doesn't do him enough credit) and his ability at full forward to win low ball, high ball, dirty ball and bad ball is different class.

The only pity is how little we see of the man at full forward.

Irrespective of the last ten mins in the tyrone monaghan gam it was hardly dross. Some fantastic scores hit by both teams.

[Rossfan]

Unfortunately all the good stuff from that is lost in the general and widespread disgust at Tyrone's antics.

[haze]

Murphy was poor today, McManus was very good.

Murphy rarely scores heavily from play, and gets away with an awful lot of nasty fouling and mouthing off.

Complete and utter nonsense. Murphy hit three superb scores from play and was the only Donegal forward to consistently win any ball going in.

Nail on head. After watching the dross served up by Tyrone and Monaghan it was a pleasure to watch Murphy (and the O'Se/McGee first half battle). First time I have seen him live in a few years; his work rate is outrageous (tv doesn't do him enough credit) and his ability at full forward to win low ball, high ball, dirty ball and bad ball is different class.

The only pity is how little we see of the man at full forward.

Irrespective of the last ten mins in the tyrone monaghan gam it was hardly dross. Some fantastic scores hit by both teams.

Dross being an exaggeration but for an All Ireland quarter final, the athmosphere was terrible and regardless of the high quality scores, I personally thought it was a poor game even before the crap in last 10 mins started. With 10/15 mins to go and 5 points down Monaghan continued to retreat 14 men into their own half. Hard to believe.

Out of the 4 quarter finals, only the first 40/45 minutes of Donegal Mayo had anything to savour.

[Farrandeelin]

First of all, if there's any Mayo ST holders here, let me apologise for shouting like a lunatic yesterday. Wasn't confident beforehand, nor throughout the first half until Aidan O'Shea got the goal. I felt more relaxed then. Wish I relaxed on the shouting though! Voice not back to normal yet

Am as well to add on to this reply than start another one. I wasn't confident in the first half, even though I was impressed with how Mayo set up yesterday. I thought that initially when Barry started that he might be at full forward and that AOS would be given a free role to move in and out as the case may be. Fair play to the management though for setting up like that. However, they will need to have a different defensive ploy for the Dubs.

Our backs were very good. Cafferkey did well enough on Murphy, but Murphy is some colossus of a player (despite his provocation at the end) that he was still hard to handle. Higgins and the rest were brilliant. Boyle went as sweeper every time Barry went out to midfield and put in a solid defensive shift too. Keegan seemed to be back to his marauding best yesterday. Two great points in the first half and a great goal in the second half - that's enough to get man of the match for me any day, especially from a half back! I also thought we dominated the middle of the field. Parsons played well as did Seamie, while Big Barry did a good job on the kickouts as well. Vaughan had a good game too but it was a pull down and a black card too for him. No complaints about that one. As for the forwards, I thought Diarmuid struggled yesterday, he just seemed to lack a bit of confidence in himself, as did Cillian, he had a well below par performance, at least both have another day to rectify the problem. AOS struggled early on but once he got the goal his confidence seemed to rise too. I also thought McLoughlin had his best day since the 2012 semi final. He didn't put a foot wrong all day.

I thought the subs did ok. Patrick Durcan fluffed his chance badly but hopefully he will learn from the mistake and develop into a top wingback. Andy scored a beauty of a point and settled the nerves as they ahd hit a few other short balls into the keeper's hands, and a few wides too IIRC. Keane was unlucky to be sent off in my humble opinion. Murphy instigated it and I don't think Keane threw a punch at all, more just raised his hands and gave him a tipín in the face. Still though, Murphy mustn't be as hard as we made out to be if that made him go wailing for Keane to be given a straight red. I hope it's rescinded.

As Pat Holmes might say it was a very, very good day for Mayo, and kudos to the management team for setting up right.

[omagh_gael]

Lee Keegan was fantastic, could become an all time great if Mayo ever get over the line. What age is he?

[DJGaliv]

McGee was the wrong match up for Donegal on O`Se, i think if Donegal had more than a week to prepare, they tried Gallagher at full back, height was needed to counter Big Aidan

I can't agree with you on this one weasel.

I hugely enjoyed the battle between the two of them which, goal apart, was pretty even.

O'Sé is a superb full forward & anyone who does any better on him than Neil McGee did yesterday is going to have played some game.

I'd say Jim Gavin will have a few sleepless nights over the next couple of weeks!!

Great battle between McGee and o se. I don't know what more people expect from a full back.
From being at the game could see Murphys work rate is something else.

I was very impressed with Lee Keegan yesterday. Odhran was completely anonymous and keegans contribution was immense. I thought Frank mcglynn was excellent too, up and down the field. Mark mchugh looked a bit off and allowed Mayo a couple of kick outs due to poor concentration. Not much tenacity shown by him yesterday compared to the likes of McGlynn, McGee and Murphy.

Well done Mayo, fully expected them to win after watching us lose to both teams in the championship this season. It's a strange one - with the best corner back in the game, I'd still say mayos full back line still don't fill me with confidence