Mayo 3-11 Sligo 0-7 Champions Dethroned

[magpie seanie]

I agree with Sligonian on the attitude of a huge number of Sligo people. It is defeatist and sad alright. I wouldn't be as outspoken as Sligonian about it but I've rarely if ever gone to a Sligo game thinking we're not going to win. Some might call that mental illness but lets not go down that road!

In the 1997 Connacht final Mayo were poor but Sligonian is right - our lads did give them too much respect. Blast is also right - for most of that game we were worse. We only woke up near the end and realised Mayo were there for the taking and nearly caught them. That was my view anyway.

Sunday will be interesting. We have our flaws and Mayo certainly has more depth of talent in their county. However, I know our lads work well as a team. It remains to be seen if Mayo can get their players working well as a team to get the best out of them. The jury will be out on that one until about 5pm Sunday at the earliest.

[kevmy]

Clarke
O'Malley Conroy Nallen
T Mort Heaney K Higgins
Parsons McGarrity
Harte Dillon Gardiner
C Mort A O'Malley A Moran

RnG I don't know how you could be getting more confident with that full-back line? Liam O'Malley has been cleaned once too often for my liking and if he features he will be shown up again. God knows he made Cormac Bane look world-class on two occasions last year! Sadly Nallen is past it, the legs went three or four years ago. He is a legend, but if he is the best option there we know that there are tricky years ahead.

For what its worth I see the following team lining out (not my choice!) -

Clarke

Nallen        Conroy         Boyle (not much better than above)

Heaney     Cunnife         Higgins (Heaney and Cunnife will switch at the start)

McGarrity         Parsons

Harte       Dillon           Trevor (heard last night Dillon is a doubt)

Conor     O'Malley         Andy Moran   

I'd say it'd be closer to Barney's side. I think Trevor will start in half-forward and I don't think LO'Malley will start (where did we get his thing that Johnno likes him - I think nearly everyone would have played him last year against Galway when his form truely went). I do however think that Gardiner will start in wing back and we could see Keith in the corner at some stage before the year is out.
The side I think will be picked:

Clarke

Boyle       Conroy           Nallen 

Gardiner    Heaney         Higgins

McGarrity         Parsons

Harte       Dillon           Trevor

Conor     O'Malley         Andy Moran 

Cunniffe and Adian Higgins will be unlucky not to start. In fact I'd like to see Aidan Higgins start in the corner.

What's wrong with Dillon?

[ildanach]

[Cunniffe and Adian Higgins will be unlucky not to start. In fact I'd like to see Aidan Higgins start in the corner.

i heard higgins was doubtful, can anyone confirm??

[the Deel Rover]

Jesus is there any one fit at all, the boys are going down like flies anyway i'm sure they are all allright when is the official team been announced

[Tubberman]

Jesus is there any one fit at all, the boys are going down like flies  anyway i'm sure they are all allright when is the official team been announced

I haven't heard anything about Higgins being injured (Aidan or Keith?), but Dillon is definitely a major doubt. He had an operation on his hip. It's mentioned in The Mayo News, so I suppose it's ok to mention it here now. Didn't want to give the Sligo boys inside info up to this 

The link to The Mayo News story is http://www.mayonews.ie/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4325&Itemid=39

[the Deel Rover]

Losing not an option

The Fan's View
an Spailpín Fanach

THERE will be one TD on the Yes side of the house who will be serenely indifferent to this week's recriminations and repercussions over last week's ambush of the Lisbon referendum. John O'Mahony, Fine Gael TD for the County Mayo, knows that the people of Mayo can look on the ebb and flow of the geopolitical tide with a steady eye, but losing to Sligo can get a man run out of town on a rail.
When John O'Mahony returned as Mayo manager two years ago, he said that one of his objectives was to calm down the annual early summer frenzy of ambition and excitement that builds from Belmullet to Ballaghaderreen and all points in between as Championship approaches. In this at least, John O'Mahony has been an outstanding success, as there has seldom been a greater air of foreboding and unease on the eve of Mayo's first game of the Championship.
A cloak of invisibility, similar to that favoured by Fionn Mac Cumhaill himself, has enveloped the county team since their final league appearance, against Tyrone in Omagh. The exchanges then were gentle, as the sides waltzed each other around Healy Park, each with eyes firmly fixed on other partners. Since then even the rumours have dried up and no word at all, good, bad or indifferent, has emerged from the camp to get the people talking outside Mass of a Sunday, or during occasions of venial sin on the preceding Saturday night.
The situation reached its nadir when Mayo played Offaly in a challenge in Dr Hyde Park some weeks ago, a challenge about which nobody seems to know or have seen anything. Mayo turned up like a flying column, played a game that nobody seemed to know was on 24 hours before, and then disappeared back into the mist, like they were Brigadoon Sarsfields instead of one of the top eight inter-county teams in the country.
As such, it is perhaps less than surprising that the weight of pre-match discussion centres around a man who isn't on the panel at all. Part of the reputation that John O'Mahony enjoys has to do with his image as a conciliator, a man who can pour oil on troubled waters.
This year, that oil caught fire like a chip pan and left O'Mahony badly burned, as Ciarán McDonald gave an out of character interview to a national newspaper saying that he valued nothing more than wearing the green above the red, and was bitterly disappointed not to have the chance to do so this summer. It was sufficiently explosive to have John O'Mahony do an early morning interview on local radio on the day of that paper's publication saying that nothing was set in stone and the summer is long and all the rest of it, but the damage had already been done.
Now, while news of the county team remains strictly under wraps, McDonald has been like Banquo's ghost during his appearances with Crossmolina, dispatching Ballaghaderreen and Knockmore with some aplomb in recent times. It hasn't got to the stage where they play Simple Minds' 'Don't You Forget About Me' on the PA at the Crossmolina home games, but that step can't be far away now.
Looking back through the years, it seems impossible to be a hero in Mayo football without being dropped or forgotten or overlooked. And the constant turning of the world means that if Mayo do catch fire this summer, and if the coming men arrive this year, then history will very quickly swallow Ciarán McDonald, just as it has McHale and Padden and Corcoran and all the rest. But in the meantime, John O'Mahony has left himself a considerable hostage to fortune is this upsetting public falling out with Mayo's most charismatic player since Willie Joe.
When John O'Mahony was doing a radio show during John Maughan's final year in charge it was fascinating to hear the reverence in which he was held by many of the callers. It was like he was perceived as the football equivalent of the Biblical Joseph, exiled by his own tribe only to win two All-Irelands in the land of the Pharaoh.
The spurned figure of McDonald has now blown away that mystical aura, and John O'Mahony will address his team on Sunday as a man who knows D-Day has come one year sooner than he would have liked. Eamonn O'Hara and co are waiting, eager to show that their Connacht title was no fluke. It's only the first game of the Championship, but even Johnno's legendary political skills will be in extremis should the Yeats county men storm Mayo, and cause a terrible beauty to be born. 

AN Spailpín Fánach is an internet weblog that's an increasingly popular destination for Mayo fans surfing for Mayo football discussion on the World Wide Web. It can be found at http://spailpin.blogspot.com


   


     

 

[RedandGreenSniper]

I'd say it'd be closer to Barney's side. I think Trevor will start in half-forward and I don't think LO'Malley will start (where did we get his thing that Johnno likes him - I think nearly everyone would have played him last year against Galway when his form truely went). I do however think that Gardiner will start in wing back and we could see Keith in the corner at some stage before the year is out.
The side I think will be picked:

Clarke

Boyle       Conroy           Nallen 

Gardiner    Heaney         Higgins

McGarrity         Parsons

Harte       Dillon           Trevor

Conor     O'Malley         Andy Moran 

Cunniffe and Adian Higgins will be unlucky not to start. In fact I'd like to see Aidan Higgins start in the corner.

What's wrong with Dillon?

Just think O'Malley could be picked but I'm a long way away from the action so I could be off the mark. O'Mahony has always persisted with him unless he was injured.
Dillon out would be a major disaster

[SLIGONIAN]

Was chatting a few mayomen and they were very negative about mayo and some said they wont be going to that game. Locally in North Sligo there is big demand for tickets which is unusual for my area especially at this time of year. Really hope a huge Sligo crowd goes, big lift for the players when they run out to a sea of black and white......

Interestingly a Mayoman is tipping Sligo to win in the Sligo weekender newspaper.

John Bannon from longford is down for the referee. That should ensure a fair game.

[jjjshabadoojnr]

Was chatting a few mayomen and they were very negative about mayo and some said they wont be going to that game. Locally in North Sligo there is big demand for tickets which is unusual for my area especially at this time of year. Really hope a huge Sligo crowd goes, big lift for the players when they run out to a sea of black and white......

Interestingly a Mayoman is tipping Sligo to win in the Sligo weekender newspaper.

John Bannon from longford is down for the referee. That should ensure a fair game.

I would say Mr McHale was saying that with tongue firmly in cheek!!

[Farrandeelin]

Clarke

Boyle, Conroy, Nallen probable full-back line

Cunniffe, Heaney, Higgins

McGarrity, Parsons (the only part of the team that has itself picked)

Harte, Moran, Trevor

Conor, Austie, Ronaldson.

That's my stab at a team picked on the basis that Dillon is injured. If he's fit enough, Andy Moran will swop with Ronaldson. Not at all happy with the full-back line I've picked but nobody is happy with that area. Heaney will probably end up at no. 6 with Cunniffe and Higgins flanking him, but seen that Cunniffe is more at home in no 6, maybe himself and Heaney might swop... Oh I don't know how we'll line up!

[laoisgaa]

Sligo captain Noel McGuire has failed to recover from a dislocated elbow in time for Sunday's crunch Connacht SFC semi-final clash with Mayo.
The Easkey man did the damage in a club league game in late April and was sidelined for the Yeats County's quarter-final win over London in Ruislip last month.
Boss Tommy Jordan has opted to name an unchanged side in McGuire's absence but has tinkered with the shape of his team.
Johnny Davey has been moved from left wing-back to left half-forward after hitting two points last time out.
And Eoin McHugh, who began at full forward against the Exiles is now located in the half-back line.
To accommodate the positional switches Mark Breheny will act as target man on the edge of the square and Brendan Egan will move from the wing to centre forward for the reigning champions.

Sligo (SF v Mayo): P Greene; C Harrison, P Naughton, R Donovan; P McGovern, M McNamara, E McHugh; E O'Hara, K Quinn; B Curran, B Egan, J Davey; G Gaughan, M Breheny, D Kelly.

[SLIGONIAN]

Sligo captain Noel McGuire has failed to recover from a dislocated elbow in time for Sunday's crunch Connacht SFC semi-final clash with Mayo.
The Easkey man did the damage in a club league game in late April and was sidelined for the Yeats County's quarter-final win over London in Ruislip last month.
Boss Tommy Jordan has opted to name an unchanged side in McGuire's absence but has tinkered with the shape of his team.
Johnny Davey has been moved from left wing-back to left half-forward after hitting two points last time out.
And Eoin McHugh, who began at full forward against the Exiles is now located in the half-back line.
To accommodate the positional switches Mark Breheny will act as target man on the edge of the square and Brendan Egan will move from the wing to centre forward for the reigning champions.

Sligo (SF v Mayo): P Greene; C Harrison, P Naughton, R Donovan; P McGovern, M McNamara, E McHugh; E O'Hara, K Quinn; B Curran, B Egan, J Davey; G Gaughan, M Breheny, D Kelly.

I dont know what your source is Laoisgaa because on sligogaa.ie and hoganstand there is no word. There is no chance of mcnamara starting CHB (if he starts at all) and mcguire is back so its sounds a bit out of date.

Whether that is the team that has been selected or not, that team will definitly not start on sunday in those positions and mcguire has a club championship game behind him and looked sharp in a challenge last week, he has to start. Im not taking that selection seriously I guess is what Im saying. Could be mind games by sligo management but there fooling no one.

[laoisgaa]

I'm a journalist - where do you expect me to get team news! That came from the Sligo County Board!

[GalwayBayBoy]

I'm a journalist - where do you expect me to get team news! That came from the Sligo County Board!

[RedandGreenSniper]

Judging by Sligoian's response to the team picked the mind games have begun in earnest
Tommy Jordan will be on a mission to show the Mayo county board they were wrong not to appoint him in 2006 (they weren't imho)