All-Ireland Final, September 18th, 2016 - Dublin v Mayo

[muppet]

According to Willies blog this morning and the man himself he used the term bullsh#t. re Mcgs involvement.

If we take the article as credible, are we supposed to believe that a ''talk', from someone not involved,  last weekend, will dictate how we set up defensively?

If that is the case, we might as well not bother at all.

Anyway.........

BennyCake and anyone else from outside Mayo who happens to find themselves in Castlebar on Monday, if we win tomorrow, send me a PM and I guarantee you a free pint, a probable score and a P45.

[bucko]

I'd safely say that if McGuinness was involved the extent of it was probably just giving a talk to the players with no involvement in any of the training sessions. No different from any other team in GAA or other sports bringing in someone with success in their sport or a psychologist to give a talk before a big match. McGuinness just happens to cover both bases and just the rumour alone will stir a bit of shite. I'd ask the question, who would the notion of Jimmy McGuinness being involved with Mayo affect more?

[Zulu]

If the question is who is the best team then it's Dublin every time, however Mayo are close enough to be realistic winners in a once off game like tomorrow. Perhaps it's the neutrals desire for Mayo to get over the hump that's clouding my judgement a bit but I think Mayo might just do it. The form talk is nonsense IMO but I'm concerned Mayo haven't the firepower. Nevertheless, I'm going to back COC and his fellow forwards to have a day they don't regularly have and kick Mayo over the line.

Hope it's a great game too!

[Mayo Mick]

If the question is who is the best team then it's Dublin every time, however Mayo are close enough to be realistic winners in a once off game like tomorrow. Perhaps it's the neutrals desire for Mayo to get over the hump that's clouding my judgement a bit but I think Mayo might just do it. The form talk is nonsense IMO but I'm concerned Mayo haven't the firepower. Nevertheless, I'm going to back COC and his fellow forwards to have a day they don't regularly have and kick Mayo over the line.

Hope it's a great game too!

Spot on Zulu. I see some clown saying Dublin to win by how much they decide. Raiméis. We are nicely set up for this, no fear of the Dubs who are way over confident, and tomorrow you will a performance way above anything else you have seen from us so far this year. Once we stay in this game up to the final 15 or 20 minutes we will win it - pressure will get to the Dubs and we will smell blood. Mayo by 5.

[yellowcard]

I reckon Jimmy was definitely in with Mayo last week. Even reading his article during the week it was a most unlike Jimmy article and very poor on content. Basically said that Mayo had to play like Maniacs but presented absolutely no solutions tactically which he normally does. I'd say he was brought in his capacity as sports psychologist rather than giving any tactical advice.

I hope we get a cracker of a match tomorrow and it will be like Christmas morning tomorrow for both sets of fans. May the best team win and if that is the Dubs then so be it as they are the finest Gaelic football side I've had the privilege of watching. However if Mayo could somehow upset the apple cart and bring home Sam there won't be a dry eye in the house. No county deserves it more for.

[ballinaman]

Hitting the road at 7 in the morning....hope to get mass in the big tree at 12 before heading down for a look.
Mayo have more questions to answer than Dublin do, everyone knows what's coming down the tracks for us. I've faith in the management, in game tactical switches will be key. Rub of the green could be handy as well.
C'mon ta fcuk Mayo.

[macdanger2]

I'm not being a smartarse but do Mayo fans still believe after all these years of defeat? I mean at some point do you not just abandon hope because the pain is just too much to take. I've watched my club and county get beaten and swore I'd never be fit to put my heart and soul behind them again.

Minds me of that ROG interview where he says he can't do it anymore.

The answer in short is no and we will abandon nothing whatever at any point.
We haven't done so yet and Hell can fecking freeze over before Mayo fans will give up on their team.
All I will ever ask of them is that they give it their best shot and if that's not enough, I know they will be back next year.
I don't look for nor welcome any sympathy from anyone and I'm acutely aware that at least 30 other counties would dearly love to be where we will be on Sunday next. I ignore shit about Mayo's lack of mental toughness and the likes- it takes a team with immense resolve to keep coming back year upon year and sooner or later, we will crack it.
I'm proud to be a Mayo man and I'm proud of the team that represents us. Frig the begrudgers and bring on the Dubs!

Good man Lar, great stuff

Excited now, we definitely have a chance but we need everything to go in our favour

[seafoid]

Sideline Cut: Mayo might find Dublin vulnerability if they scratch beneath the surface
Connacht men need to turn Jim Gavin's fabulous machine into a mere 15 individuals
about 13 hours ago Updated: about 12 hours ago
Keith Duggan

In the 62nd minute of the All-Ireland semi-final the Kerry players had their first real grasp on the winning of the game – and the reversal of the mythology which has fast built up around Dublin. The quality of the play from both sides was liquid gold at this stage but there was something about the manner of Kerry's next score that stood out.
They were already three hand-passes into their move when Stephen O'Brien exchanged hand-passes with Bryan Sheehan, who in turn managed to move the ball onto Paul Geaney before the Dubs could do what they do so brilliantly: converge, stall the attacker, strip the ball and haul ass to the other end of the field. Geaney sucked in three Dublin defenders and played a ball to Colm Cooper.
So far, the Kerry men had used six-hand passes in a sequence that illuminated the pointlessness of decrying the absence of the kick-pass: when you are playing against a rush-defence like Dublin's, there is simply no time to kick. Move it or lose it.
Except then Cooper, eluding his marker, looked infield and made perfect, judicious use of the foot-pass to find Paul Murphy standing all alone and unmarked. If you freeze the picture just as Cooper is about to make his pass, you can count seven Dublin players in his vicinity and one just out of the picture. They are all looking at the ball.
All heads turn to see where his pass is going and by the time it reaches Murphy, there is nothing they can do about it. As Darragh Maloney remarks in the RTÉ commentary box: "And now there is no pressure on Paul Murphy." The score made it 2-13 to 0-16; a three point lead with eight minutes left. The Dubs managed to parlay that unpromising position into a three-point win but that was an instant in which Kerry cracked the code.

Pressuring the ball-carrier
It was one of the few visible instances in this championship in which Dublin betrayed their vulnerabilities still lurking beneath the surface. Someday, hopefully, we will get to hear the detail of how much time and effort Jim Gavin and his squad have put into transforming themselves into such an impressive defensive unit. But their defensive system, like all systems, can be stretched and the Murphy point illustrated that.
One of the central tenets of Dublin's approach involves pressuring the ball-carrier. In a way, their approach is a calculated gamble because it leaves space elsewhere. For Murphy's point, Kerry just kept moving the ball until they discovered where the space was. They played on instinct and were rewarded for it. Can Mayo move the ball with the same composure under that kind of heat? If so, their task on Sunday becomes achievable.
When Donegal played Dublin in the quarter-final, the Dubs led by 0-11 to 0-5 and were in cruise-control when the evening was coloured by that rare thing: a stray pass from the immaculate Cian O'Sullivan. No harm should have come: his kick landed inside Donegal's 45. Just over 13 seconds later, after seven slick Donegal hand-passes, Stephen Cluxton was picking the ball out of his net.
Donegal are an exceptionally instinctive counter-attacking team. But nonetheless, the response of Dublin's collective defensive system in that moment was interesting: it was non-existent. Nobody knew who to pick up or whether to mark space, and once it was turned to face its own goal, Dublin's collective – the aura of the machine – disappeared and they became individual again.
If Mayo are win their first All-Ireland since 1951, that is something they are going to have to work on for 70 long minutes and then some: stripping Dublin down into 15 individuals, into athletes who are, by virtue of being human, less than perfect. Dublin's range of splendours have been analysed and celebrated to death. But what are the chinks?
Yes, Diarmuid Connolly is an incredible score-getter of either foot. But are all of the Dublin attackers? And if not, how often can Mayo force the others to shoot off their weaker side? In the Kerry game, everyone praised the classy points from McManamon and Connolly late on. But it's Dublin's quiet points which are the killers. After Murphy's point for Kerry, Dublin responded with a move that finished with Philly McMahon breaking forward and tapping over from close in.
It was a huge, huge score. Maybe Mayo decide that while they can live with Connolly contributing six works of art from open play, they cannot allow Philly to get on the scoreboard. And maybe they decide to be brave and gamble and break with absolute abandon from deep – to overwhelm Dublin as the Dubs overwhelm others – for specific periods. There will be plenty of players from both teams with memories of the meeting in 2012 when Mayo obliterated Dublin, the then All-Ireland champions, for 50 minutes: up 0-17 to 0-7 and in for a goal chance which would have killed the game dead.
Less expressive
Yes, that was before Jim Gavin's era and Dublin are a better overall team now. Still, players are players. Mayo know deep down what they did that day. Mayo are different now too: colder, less expressive, less excitable and maybe finally sick to death of hearing how brave they are.
Only once, since that day, have Dublin been forced to doubt themselves. Only once have they been disassembled and stripped down into something less than the omnipotent force, the summer beast (the cliché: "Dublin are a different animal"). Jim Gavin's most brilliant achievement is to present a squad that seems impervious to doubt.

You watch Dublin in their pomp, all heads-up assurance and full of give-and-go chutzpah and it is easy to believe it all. When Dublin attack, they look majestic because they move the ball with the heightened confidence and boldness which comes with winning four national leagues and three All-Irelands. The Hill believes it. The press box believes it: the only time these Dublin players will doubt that they are going to win is when the final whistle goes and they find themselves behind on the scoreboard.
But it doesn't matter to the Mayo players what the world believes. It only matters what they themselves believe. Cold, clear aggression and relentless organisation and psychological belligerence and Calvinist toughness are not the Mayo traits of old but maybe this vintage of Mayo, less heralded and less liked, have that stuff. In order to win the big battle, they have to be prepared to win their share of a thousand little scraps and to sabotage – somehow, anyhow – that fabulous machine which Jim Gavin has assembled.
If Mayo come ready and prepared to do that, then hold on to your hat because it's back to the future. They better hope 1952 is all it's cracked up to be.

[T Toatler]

As a Dub I really expect a win by 3/4 points. It wud be a bonus if the game is good but I will take the win no matter. I would love to see Mayo win one but not at Dublins expense tomorrow. I have seen nothing that makes me think any result other than a Blue win is possible. Mayo were better last year I think and every player they have including the 6 subs would have to be on their 'A' game to take it tomorrow. Can't  wait, on de road early.

[Lar Naparka]

Back to the real stuff. Dublin by however much they want to win by.

May you be as right as your were in your predictions for the Connacht Final.
Incidentally, sister-in-law said she was very moved by the support for Mayo to be seen in Roscommon. She passed though Roscommon Town and said it rivalled Ballagh with the amount of flags and good luck messages to be seen.
Fair play to the Rosssies, (apart from the odd-balls on here), they are by and large a very sporting county.

[johnpower]

Hoping for a great match tomorror.just watching up for the match one thing I agree is that the whole thing is so much more serious nowadays. Probably like most neutrals my head says Dublin but my heart says Mayo.
.

[heffo]

I posted ten days ago that he was involved and he was

[Jinxy]

Get up the yard, Heffo.

[muppet]

I posted ten days ago that he was involved and he was.....

....still in Limerick....
....telling us to have 12 backs.....
....fast...
...Bud.

[heffo]

Until victory always