CONNAUGHT JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP

[rocco]

ROSCOMMON 1.12... MAYO 1.07........LEITRIM 2.15...SLIGO 2.11

[Shrewdness]

This Ros panel had very little work done in the run up to this.

The team contained quite a few of the 2006 All Ireland Minors plus Senior players who Maughan had discarded such as Frankie Dolan , Brian Higgins, Dunning. A young team overall.

Frankie looked very poor.

[45GoneShort]

Leitrim 2-15 Sligo 2-11 AET

Good game last night - although Sligo didn't look as well prepared as Leitrim.  Great performances from Daniel Beck and Ray Cox, while the full back line were excellent.  The result was very heartning as it was a completely second string team minus senior panelists and un21 players.  Roll on the final against the sheepstealers which is being played as curtain raiser to the Ross Galway Snr game, question for Ross fans was there many of the snr panel involved??

[magpie seanie]

Any word on the Sligo team - who was playing. I heard it was going to be very much second string.

How did Alan Costello perform for Mayo?

[Farrandeelin]

So that's the end of Billy Fitz's reign. We have to make do with him on MWR anymore.

[westmayo]

Unfortunate to hear that Mayo went down to Ross on Friday night, Anyone have any idea of the team that lined out in the game. Well done to Ross and hope the rest of the championship goes well for him. But it's a weird situation the way it's run with Mayo not being allowed to pick any players who have played senior club championship  while other sides in Connacht are allowed to do so. Are Galway in the championship. 

[BigJohnBrowne]

Just saw 2 Match reports on the newly revamped ConnachtGAA.ie site.

[spectator]

How did Alan Costello perform for Mayo?

Not so bad, a strong bustling kind of player well ableto break through tackles & hard enough to dispossess too. If memory serves me correctly, it was him who blazed over the first half penalty. He was active enough with plenty of movement, but his point shooting let him down a little overall.

[AhFeckRef]

Just saw 2 Match reports on the newly revamped ConnachtGAA.ie site.

Fine site. Strange resemblance to Leitrim gaa site!! ;-)

[magpie seanie]

Thanks for the reply spectator.

That Connacht GAA website is a huge improvement. Hope they keep it going.

[blast05]

So that's the end of Billy Fitz's reign. We have to make do with him on MWR anymore.

After about 445 years as team manager. It seems the sole purpose of Mayo entering a junior team is as of some sort of favour to Billy Fitz. The whole thing is a joke - picks his team from the same few clubs with numerous junior and intermediate clubs in the county never having had a player given a chance at junior grade under his stewardship. I'd say there are clubs in the county that the guy has never heard of never mind decent club players ...... and as for his analysis on the radio - there was a recent example in the U-21 semi versus Kerry ... he made a comment in the first half along the lines of "ah Mike, Mayo midfield are well on top today". About 1 minute later Seamus Parsons got on the ball and made a burst forward  .... Billys comment along the lines of "well Mike, thats the first time we have seen either Tom Parsons or Seamus o'Shea get on the ball today"
And the stupid thing, Mayo have won a couple of junior All-Irelands with him in charge - to give him even 1% of credit would be a stretch though.

[SLIGONIAN]

Ya kudos to the connaght gaa website. Good reports from the games. Disppointed with the sligo result, probably should of won it in normal time but man sent off swung the game in leitrims favour. Best of luck to them in the final. Sean flannery scoring 2-5 is quite notably and bodes well for our seniors.

If I had a choice of what game to win against leitrim this weekend it definitly would of been the minor game last night though so not too disappointed.

[BigJohnBrowne]

As far as I know the new connacht site is developed by Brendan Doyle who is involved in IT for connacht and is also our PRO in Leitrim.  I believe that the site layout will change over time but the current format should suffice as it's based on the LEitrim one which gets huge praise and deservedly so. 
Content is everything and I just hope that the new site continues and doesn't fade.

[RedandGreenSniper]

After about 445 years as team manager. It seems the sole purpose of Mayo entering a junior team is as of some sort of favour to Billy Fitz. The whole thing is a joke - picks his team from the same few clubs with numerous junior and intermediate clubs in the county never having had a player given a chance at junior grade under his stewardship. I'd say there are clubs in the county that the guy has never heard of never mind decent club players ...... and as for his analysis on the radio - there was a recent example in the U-21 semi versus Kerry ... he made a comment in the first half along the lines of "ah Mike, Mayo midfield are well on top today". About 1 minute later Seamus Parsons got on the ball and made a burst forward  .... Billys comment along the lines of "well Mike, thats the first time we have seen either Tom Parsons or Seamus o'Shea get on the ball today"
And the stupid thing, Mayo have won a couple of junior All-Irelands with him in charge - to give him even 1% of credit would be a stretch though.

Have to pull you up there Blast. There's probably no trials for the junior team, but that's more of a county board problem than the fault of Billy Fitzpatrick. The man keeps coming back for more, even when it is the case that a lot of players don't believe playing at this level is worth their while. He's had problems too with Maughan not releasing players in the past. If we want to do well at Junior level, it needs to be run almost in tandem with the senior squad as a development squad (I know its not always possible because of the grading Mayo have to comply with). At the minute not enough people take it serious enough.
Regarding the players that are picked if we look at the team that lined out the last day
Mayo
F Ruddy; O Feeney, S Barrett, P Earley; D Costello (0-1), C Cafferkey, D Kilkenny; P Collins, P Barrett; D Corrigan, C Carty (0-4), P Doherty; A Costello (0-1), R Hannick (1-0), P Casey.
Subs used: M Conroy for P Barrett; C Boyle for D Corrigan; D Dempsey for C Boyle (inj); V Callaghan for C Cafferkey; P O'Connor (0-1) for M Conroy (inj).

We can see there's a serious spread of clubs, from Senior (Ballintubber), Intermediate (Cill Chomain, Belmullet, Aghamore, Kilmaine, Davitts, Bonniconlon, Swinford) and Junior (Islandeady, Carramore, Achill, Balla, Killala, The Neale). That's fourteen clubs, don't think he can be accused of not spreading the net wide enough.
Regarding his radio analysis I think its fairly decent. Everyone makes mistakes.

["ah Mike, Mayo midfield are well on top today". About 1 minute later Seamus Parsons got on the ball and made a burst forward  .... Billys comment along the lines of "well Mike, thats the first time we have seen either Tom Parsons or Seamus o'Shea get on the ball today"

Even you, can't say I've ever heard of this player. But by and large Billy's a good man to call a game

[Rossfan]

Could ye Mayo lads ever move on to the Senior championship and leave us and our lovely Laythrum neighbours to get on with this Connacht Final.
I hear it's on at 2 pm Sunday 18th May as a curtain raiser to the Ros/Galway Senior game.
I fear we may be losing three or four at least of the players who bet Mayo ( ) bet Mayo  so it's hard to know what to make of the Final.
Hopefully we'll go all out for it as it might be our only hope of a Connacht Title this year seeing as our U21s were sabotaged by the the Tanman's dog track training.