Search for New Mayo Manager

[Shrewdness]

larryin89, why do you have to bring Roscommon into every thread? It's getting tiresome at this stage

[larryin89]

Lol, you're some man to make that comment shrewdness. On page 67 of this thread things turned to Cillian , first man in was a rossie who said Cillian wouldn't make the Roscommon team , hence my comment,I couldn't give two hoots in reality about Roscommon , they are of no concern to me as of yet because they are no threat imo for the foreseeable.

[Syferus]

50% of this thread is just Larryin trying to troll Mayo, Roscommon posters and anyone else that wanders by with one of his many accounts. Branched out into 'Dublin' and 'Sligo' posters I see.

[moysider]

The mickey mouse match in Longford was championship Lar!

I was not using this as an example of how good our forwards were either. Just that all but remained after that disaster and all but one were still there this year.

I m just wondering do you consider some of them to have been passengers?

You say 'Why not take the results of the AI finals in successive years and see how Mayo's forwards ability to score from play stacks up against top class opposition'.

I dunno why you bring this up but seeing as you have are you suggesting that there were passengers there that should not have been selected?

Care to name them if that is the case?

I would suspect that 4 of our provincial neighbours and probably 20+ of countries nationwide think they have better forwards than we do. They base this assessment on watching their forwards play between February and early July. Their heroes never meet the proper tests of the bigger teams when things are getting serious in mid- August, let alone an AI final.

My own view of our failings in AI finals would differ from yours considerably. I would argue that our tactical nous was more instrumental that having fellas that could wallop ball over from 40- 50 metres. As if they d be let do that. I don t remember us giving Diarmuid Connolly the space to kick his mighty points that he does so freely during the earlier championship games. In the last 4 in recent the difference between winning and losing is far more complex than the tired old cliché of scoring forwards thrown out by likes of Spillane and McGee.

I'm teetotally lost here.
Of course the game in Longford was a championship one but it was against a Div 4 side and yet we managed to lose it. Of all the most unrepresentative games I have had the misfortune to watch, this one and the previous one against Sligo were the two that rocked me the most .We're in the business if winning AIs and anything less is a failure. Now, if you feel that the spread of scores that day means a) that there was no passenger forward on that team and b) that with that attack we could win an AI. There is no logical alternative to either or both.
You dunno why I bring up the subject of the Mayo forwards failings in not one but two AI finals! Where the hell else is more important? Is the gutless display against a Div 4 side a better measure of the quality of Mayo's attack than the results of not one but two AI finals? Cora Staunton would have shot the lights out in Longford that awful day.
Take the selected line ups (forwards) in the 2013: On the Mayo side, you Kevin McLoughlin, Keith Higgins , Alan Dillon; Cillian O'Connor Alan Freeman, Andy Moran.
How many would get a place in the Dub attack if this were possible?
On the day in question, I'd say none of them.

Now take P Flynn, P Andrews, D Connolly; P Mannion, C Kilkenny, B Brogan.
If any one of them was up for grabs would he get a place in Mayo's starting front six?
I'd say every one of them would.
Recall the game against Donegal in '12?
Why did Donegal not bother to contest Mayo kick outs in the second half? I say it was because they knew they could contain the Mayo forwards without a bother. Whadya think?
No matter what you or I think, the Donegal defence wasn't seriously bothered by the Mayo attack throughout that second half. Would the forwards we put out against Longford in '10 have won that game for us?
I'm a bit lost re Diarmuid Connolly. It wasn't the bleddy forwards that put the spancil on him, was it? Keegan could have shanked an assload of attempts from straight in front of goal for the purposes of this discussion and Maroon Manc's argument still stands. He sez "Lee Keegan has more scores from play in All Ireland Finals & Semi Finals than COC, from memory that's 9 games each."
Do you agree with him or not; is that true or false? You don't seriously expect me to name players who were doing their best but were not on top of their men. do you? I don't blame any man for lack of effort, merely lack of scores from play.
Yup; no problem in agreeing that a lack of tactical nous was a big, big factor in us coming up short in both finals but when it's done and dusted, it's scores on the board that counts and if your forwards, for whatever reason, don't/can't deliver, the outcome is not going to be a positive one. Simple as...

A few things Lar.

I accept that my point about that Longford may have been a bit opaque but the scores after players' names was incidental and not meant to show how great the forwards were. I just copied and pasted a source and the scores were included. What I was trying to say was that the players on that team in a nadir for Mayo football have had fine careers. Like maybe there is more to it than just the playing personnel?

Donegal Lar, habitually conceded opposition kick-outs. It meant they had loads of men behind the ball early and had nothing to do with not  being bothered by Mayo forward. On the contrary. They made sure they wouldn 't be troubled by getting most of the team back in their own 45. Remember the Dublin players you admire so much only managed 0-8 against that system in 2011 AISF.

My point about Connolly is that even the best forwards can be contained if planning is right and if defenders are good enough/disciplined enough to stick to a plan. I'd go as for as to say if we had either a Connolly, Brogan, Gooch or Murphy in this team we still would not have got over the line. Why not? The opposition would have planned for them and limited their impact. Like Dublin did with Aidan O Sé this year. Not all countries are as generous as we are to alpha forwards like we were to Gooch (X pick a number), Brogan, Murphy.

I don t know where the Keegan/O Connor thing is going. The way we play and the way Horan encouraged fbs to take a chance and make runs from deep it was always likely Keegan and Vaughan would get more opportunities than forwards with no space. Kudos to Horan for pursuing this tactic to break down defences. H&C tried to reign it in a bit but by the time we got to Dublin it looked like our running game was our best weapon yet again.

You know as well as I do Lar that Mayo have had forwards who knew how to score. Some had shorter careers but like of Jinkin Joe, Willie McGee, Seamie O Dowd, Joe McGrath, Billie Fitz were not gun shy. They never got within an ass's roar of an AI. There is more to this than freewheeling forwards imo. The scoring forwards are only part of the big picture. If everything else is in place the scores flow and you don t need any better than what we have to get that imo.

Funnily enough some observers think Rochfords priority is to get us to stop conceding soft goals, not scoring more.

But I m sure many people in Mayo will look at it like ...... if the forwards scored loads more we could concede soft goals and it be ok.

[seafoid]

O Connor is so cool under pressure. I think he adds a lot to Mayo.
One or two free scoring forwards might be enough to get them over the line.

[Lar Naparka]

The mickey mouse match in Longford was championship Lar!

I was not using this as an example of how good our forwards were either. Just that all but remained after that disaster and all but one were still there this year.

I m just wondering do you consider some of them to have been passengers?

You say 'Why not take the results of the AI finals in successive years and see how Mayo's forwards ability to score from play stacks up against top class opposition'.

I dunno why you bring this up but seeing as you have are you suggesting that there were passengers there that should not have been selected?

Care to name them if that is the case?

I would suspect that 4 of our provincial neighbours and probably 20+ of countries nationwide think they have better forwards than we do. They base this assessment on watching their forwards play between February and early July. Their heroes never meet the proper tests of the bigger teams when things are getting serious in mid- August, let alone an AI final.

My own view of our failings in AI finals would differ from yours considerably. I would argue that our tactical nous was more instrumental that having fellas that could wallop ball over from 40- 50 metres. As if they d be let do that. I don t remember us giving Diarmuid Connolly the space to kick his mighty points that he does so freely during the earlier championship games. In the last 4 in recent the difference between winning and losing is far more complex than the tired old cliché of scoring forwards thrown out by likes of Spillane and McGee.

I'm teetotally lost here.
Of course the game in Longford was a championship one but it was against a Div 4 side and yet we managed to lose it. Of all the most unrepresentative games I have had the misfortune to watch, this one and the previous one against Sligo were the two that rocked me the most .We're in the business if winning AIs and anything less is a failure. Now, if you feel that the spread of scores that day means a) that there was no passenger forward on that team and b) that with that attack we could win an AI. There is no logical alternative to either or both.
You dunno why I bring up the subject of the Mayo forwards failings in not one but two AI finals! Where the hell else is more important? Is the gutless display against a Div 4 side a better measure of the quality of Mayo's attack than the results of not one but two AI finals? Cora Staunton would have shot the lights out in Longford that awful day.
Take the selected line ups (forwards) in the 2013: On the Mayo side, you Kevin McLoughlin, Keith Higgins , Alan Dillon; Cillian O'Connor Alan Freeman, Andy Moran.
How many would get a place in the Dub attack if this were possible?
On the day in question, I'd say none of them.

Now take P Flynn, P Andrews, D Connolly; P Mannion, C Kilkenny, B Brogan.
If any one of them was up for grabs would he get a place in Mayo's starting front six?
I'd say every one of them would.
Recall the game against Donegal in '12?
Why did Donegal not bother to contest Mayo kick outs in the second half? I say it was because they knew they could contain the Mayo forwards without a bother. Whadya think?
No matter what you or I think, the Donegal defence wasn't seriously bothered by the Mayo attack throughout that second half. Would the forwards we put out against Longford in '10 have won that game for us?
I'm a bit lost re Diarmuid Connolly. It wasn't the bleddy forwards that put the spancil on him, was it? Keegan could have shanked an assload of attempts from straight in front of goal for the purposes of this discussion and Maroon Manc's argument still stands. He sez "Lee Keegan has more scores from play in All Ireland Finals & Semi Finals than COC, from memory that's 9 games each."
Do you agree with him or not; is that true or false? You don't seriously expect me to name players who were doing their best but were not on top of their men. do you? I don't blame any man for lack of effort, merely lack of scores from play.
Yup; no problem in agreeing that a lack of tactical nous was a big, big factor in us coming up short in both finals but when it's done and dusted, it's scores on the board that counts and if your forwards, for whatever reason, don't/can't deliver, the outcome is not going to be a positive one. Simple as...

A few things Lar.

I accept that my point about that Longford may have been a bit opaque but the scores after players' names was incidental and not meant to show how great the forwards were. I just copied and pasted a source and the scores were included. What I was trying to say was that the players on that team in a nadir for Mayo football have had fine careers. Like maybe there is more to it than just the playing personnel?

Donegal Lar, habitually conceded opposition kick-outs. It meant they had loads of men behind the ball early and had nothing to do with not  being bothered by Mayo forward. On the contrary. They made sure they wouldn 't be troubled by getting most of the team back in their own 45. Remember the Dublin players you admire so much only managed 0-8 against that system in 2011 AISF.

My point about Connolly is that even the best forwards can be contained if planning is right and if defenders are good enough/disciplined enough to stick to a plan. I'd go as for as to say if we had either a Connolly, Brogan, Gooch or Murphy in this team we still would not have got over the line. Why not? The opposition would have planned for them and limited their impact. Like Dublin did with Aidan O Sé this year. Not all countries are as generous as we are to alpha forwards like we were to Gooch (X pick a number), Brogan, Murphy.

I don t know where the Keegan/O Connor thing is going. The way we play and the way Horan encouraged fbs to take a chance and make runs from deep it was always likely Keegan and Vaughan would get more opportunities than forwards with no space. Kudos to Horan for pursuing this tactic to break down defences. H&C tried to reign it in a bit but by the time we got to Dublin it looked like our running game was our best weapon yet again.

You know as well as I do Lar that Mayo have had forwards who knew how to score. Some had shorter careers but like of Jinkin Joe, Willie McGee, Seamie O Dowd, Joe McGrath, Billie Fitz were not gun shy. They never got within an ass's roar of an AI. There is more to this than freewheeling forwards imo. The scoring forwards are only part of the big picture. If everything else is in place the scores flow and you don t need any better than what we have to get that imo.

Funnily enough some observers think Rochfords priority is to get us to stop conceding soft goals, not scoring more.

But I m sure many people in Mayo will look at it like ...... if the forwards scored loads more we could concede soft goals and it be ok.

All well and good moy but there's no denying the fact that when it counted, as in 20012 and 20013, Mayo scored less than the opposition. Donegal and Dublin would up with Sam and we wound up with memories of what might have been.
Now, I'd never criticise any player personally. They are an incredible bunch of lads and they owe nobody anything. But while Mayo could be expected to get to the quarters without too much fuss and made it to the semis each time, they weren't able to go go the full way. 
So near and yet so far...
In my humble opinion they lacked the necessary firepower up front to do so and lacked the ruthlessness necessary to capitalise on their chances when the opposition were on the ropes.
Like you say "Donegal Lar, habitually conceded opposition kick-outs. It meant they had loads of men behind the ball early and had nothing to do with not  being bothered by Mayo forward. On the contrary. They made sure they wouldn 't be troubled by getting most of the team back in their own 45. Remember the Dublin players you admire so much only managed 0-8 against that system in 2011 AISF.

But you'd have to go on and say that the Mayo attack were unable to overcome the Donegal defence. Yup, Dublin were only able to score 0-8 against them but the crucial  fact is that they confined the Donegal to 0-5. Their defence wasn't in the habit of letting soft scores in, which is another problem with Mayo.
Connolly can be held and Lee is the man to do it but what about the other 5?
Dublin have won 3 of the last 5 All-Irelands which is cause enough for me to admire them. It has taken Mayo 131 years to amass the same amount!
Finally, of course there have been many fine Mayo forwards but, like you say, they hadn't enough of them at any one time and the various Mayo managers down the years were no tactical magicians either: more a case of Neville Longbottoms than Harry Potters.
Players can't be blamed for all the failings that have afflicted Mayo down the years but if Mayo score X  and the opposition score X+1, the end result is all that counts.

[moysider]

We re not too far apart Lar. This new technology is great but things do sometimes get lost 'in translation'.

God be with the days when people talked about football in pubs over a quota of pints and not this keyboard stuff.

[seafoid]

#if Mayo score X  and the opposition score X+1, the end result is all that counts.#

Mayo players know what the result will be 5 minutes before the end in the biggest match of the year. How to change that (and then pass on the message to the Galway hurlers ).

[muppet]

#if Mayo score X  and the opposition score X+1, the end result is all that counts.#

Mayo players know what the result will be 5 minutes before the end in the biggest match of the year. How to change that (and then pass on the message to the Galway hurlers ).

What were they thinking at 5 points down to Dublin, with 5 minutes to go?

[giveballaghback]

They were thinking "we were 5 up against Kerry last year and managed a draw, lets do the same from 5 down today" simple muppet its called reverse psychology.

[seafoid]

#if Mayo score X  and the opposition score X+1, the end result is all that counts.#

Mayo players know what the result will be 5 minutes before the end in the biggest match of the year. How to change that (and then pass on the message to the Galway hurlers ).

What were they thinking at 5 points down to Dublin, with 5 minutes to go?

The finals. Last 5 mins. As a fan you know and the players know. It is inevitable. Same with Galway hurlers. How to change that?
Psychology might help. With 5,minutes left losing is not a fact. It is just an opinion......

[From the Bunker]

Mayo and Galway have been predicted to win AI's in Football and Hurling respectively in 2016 in Old Moores Almanac!  Jez can you imagine the Party! Every drink house from Belmullet to Portumna would be bone dry!

[Syferus]

Mayo and Galway have been predicted to win AI's in Football and Hurling respectively in 2016 in Old Moores Almanac!  Jez can you imagine the Party! Every drink house from Belmullet to Portumna would be bone dry!

Sounds like Old Moore is a Rossie taking the piss.

[criostlinn]

Mayo and Galway have been predicted to win AI's in Football and Hurling respectively in 2016 in Old Moores Almanac!  Jez can you imagine the Party! Every drink house from Belmullet to Portumna would be bone dry!

Sounds like Old Moore is a Rossie taking the piss.

Well he did call Roscommon for the FBD so you could be right on that one

[Shrewdness]

Since news spread that Old Moore was predicting a Mayo victory in 2016, palletloads of the 'Almanac' have been bought and set on fire throughout Roscommon. How dare he predict such misery for us