Connacht Senior Football Championship 2021

[thebackbar1]

hard to know where to go from here, but first off congrats to Mayo and James Horan. Credit to James Horan for his lead in rebuilding this Mayo team, and in fairness to Mayo they have been putting the effort in with the Mayo Coaching plan.

I really think it's time for PJ to go, fundamentally he didn't have much experience in coaching coming into the role and it's showing. He seems to want to be the manager of a Galway team that wins an all ireland, but does he want to be a great coach/manager ? How come he never managed a club team prior to getting the Galway gig ? compared to Horan who has gone on to do a Msc in Coaching and has a couple of stints managing teams.

As a county how can we expect to compete with Mayo when we're not investing the same in s&c as Mayo are ?

I don't want to be slating the county board, but the structures are wrong to me, we're a big dual county like Cork and Dublin, we should have a CEO to run the whole operation. Where does the buck stop? Is it the football committee or the county committee, or in between ? For some reason HQ don't think we need a ceo. imho Gottchse should be promoted to CEO. The last CEO didn't work out, but that's no reason not to appoint another one.

We need a person of the calibre of Lukasz Kirszenstein overseeing an S&C programme, someone who has experience working in a professional sports environment. If it's good enough for the hurlers, why not the footballers ? the s&c coach should be independent of the county manager and they need to be fulltime.

[GaillimhIarthair]

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/galway-failed-to-reckon-with-fact-that-mayo-always-turn-up-at-croke-park-1.4630169

And so Mayo go through to their 10th All-Ireland semi-final in 11 years.
For a bit of context, consider the fact that before 2011 they had been in 10 All-Ireland semi-finals in the previous 30 years.

How about 2 semi-finals in 25 years 1955-1980

We are well on our way to emulating that or even bettering it based on Sundays display.  One would hope the second half "display" provokes the much desired response from the powers that be in Galway football - recent history suggests not....................

[seafoid]

hard to know where to go from here, but first off congrats to Mayo and James Horan. Credit to James Horan for his lead in rebuilding this Mayo team, and in fairness to Mayo they have been putting the effort in with the Mayo Coaching plan.

I really think it's time for PJ to go, fundamentally he didn't have much experience in coaching coming into the role and it's showing. He seems to want to be the manager of a Galway team that wins an all ireland, but does he want to be a great coach/manager ? How come he never managed a club team prior to getting the Galway gig ? compared to Horan who has gone on to do a Msc in Coaching and has a couple of stints managing teams.

As a county how can we expect to compete with Mayo when we're not investing the same in s&c as Mayo are ?

I don't want to be slating the county board, but the structures are wrong to me, we're a big dual county like Cork and Dublin, we should have a CEO to run the whole operation. Where does the buck stop? Is it the football committee or the county committee, or in between ? For some reason HQ don't think we need a ceo. imho Gottchse should be promoted to CEO. The last CEO didn't work out, but that's no reason not to appoint another one.

We need a person of the calibre of Lukasz Kirszenstein overseeing an S&C programme, someone who has experience working in a professional sports environment. If it's good enough for the hurlers, why not the footballers ? the s&c coach should be independent of the county manager and they need to be fulltime.

Picking all Ireland winners to manage the county team is hit and miss. Conor Hayes, Noel Lane and Anthony Cunningham all tried with the hurlers but left disillusioned.

[Captain Obvious]

All due respect to a legend of the game, we have seen nothing that indicates Galway are going to improve from here, will be an absolute dogfight to get back to Div One next year as well.
Not entirely his fault - Galway football problems are of a more systemic nature I feel and outside of a few players a lot of them have just not done it at Senior level - but the cold facts are what they are, Mayo have made a team transition without skipping a beat, people on about all the young players that have started for Galway, the Mayo young lads have come in and are winning, they look absolutely miles ahead in terms of conditioning, attitude and aggression.
Depressing enough really, I don't know do many people even care, if you look at the pathetic fund raising return from earlier in the year, the shambles that is the county website, everything points to a two bob operation.
For the people I see on social media trying to go on about Mayo's failure to land the big one to make themselves feel a bit better about the hames we are in at the moment it makes me cringe.
Mayo are the ones rightly laughing at us, 10 semi finals in 11 years, they are the only show in town West of the Shannon at the top table, Galway have had one good year in twenty and failed utterly to build off the back of that. Expecting some out of nowhere event like 98 to happen again is a Fools errant, we're hopelessly exposed in CP all the time and I've yet to hear a coherent plan about how Galway football is going to be turned around, forget the underage wins, we had those before and made no use of them, what's the plan to get Galway consistently playing in the later stages the Senior Championship?

Not saying it would be a panacea or anything, but one thing I would like to see is a more competitive domestic championship. Corofin's dominance has been a real drag on player development at club level I feel over the past decade and the championship has subsequently been of poor standard. With Moycullen - M/M contesting the most recent final maybe the portents in this area are about to change. It mightn't help our hurling counterparts too much but at least the championship there is of a much higher calibre and helps identify players with county potential.

Crossmaglen's multiple club all Irelands didn't do anything for Armagh.Similar for Athenry and Portumna in the hurling. Or St Thomas' ?
6 teams on a similar level develop over time and can generate a very decent pick.
Sure Galway wouldn't have won in 98 without being beaten by Mayo in 97.

Didn't do anything?

Crossmaglen Ulster titles 1996, 1998, 1999, 2004, 2006 and All-Ireland titles 1997, 1999, 2000, 2007

Armagh Ulster titles 1999, 2000, 2002, '04, '05, '06. All Ireland in 2002 and Division 1 title in 2005. In that period of time lost by 1 point to the eventual All-Ireland champions a few times.

When did Galway last retain a Connacht title? how many All-Ireland semi final appearances in the last 20 years? how many times did they lose to the eventual All-Ireland champions by 1 score?

When you answer those questions you should realise with all the club and underage All Ireland success there is no doubt that Galway seniors have been and continues to be the great underachievers of the last two decades.

[mouview]

All due respect to a legend of the game, we have seen nothing that indicates Galway are going to improve from here, will be an absolute dogfight to get back to Div One next year as well.
Not entirely his fault - Galway football problems are of a more systemic nature I feel and outside of a few players a lot of them have just not done it at Senior level - but the cold facts are what they are, Mayo have made a team transition without skipping a beat, people on about all the young players that have started for Galway, the Mayo young lads have come in and are winning, they look absolutely miles ahead in terms of conditioning, attitude and aggression.
Depressing enough really, I don't know do many people even care, if you look at the pathetic fund raising return from earlier in the year, the shambles that is the county website, everything points to a two bob operation.
For the people I see on social media trying to go on about Mayo's failure to land the big one to make themselves feel a bit better about the hames we are in at the moment it makes me cringe.
Mayo are the ones rightly laughing at us, 10 semi finals in 11 years, they are the only show in town West of the Shannon at the top table, Galway have had one good year in twenty and failed utterly to build off the back of that. Expecting some out of nowhere event like 98 to happen again is a Fools errant, we're hopelessly exposed in CP all the time and I've yet to hear a coherent plan about how Galway football is going to be turned around, forget the underage wins, we had those before and made no use of them, what's the plan to get Galway consistently playing in the later stages the Senior Championship?

Not saying it would be a panacea or anything, but one thing I would like to see is a more competitive domestic championship. Corofin's dominance has been a real drag on player development at club level I feel over the past decade and the championship has subsequently been of poor standard. With Moycullen - M/M contesting the most recent final maybe the portents in this area are about to change. It mightn't help our hurling counterparts too much but at least the championship there is of a much higher calibre and helps identify players with county potential.

Crossmaglen's multiple club all Irelands didn't do anything for Armagh.Similar for Athenry and Portumna in the hurling. Or St Thomas' ?
6 teams on a similar level develop over time and can generate a very decent pick.
Sure Galway wouldn't have won in 98 without being beaten by Mayo in 97.

I think you're confirming what I'm saying Seaf? For the best part of a decade, Corofin's dominance has been almost total, such that many clubs have been half-hearted in their preparation and the c'ship itself became largely predictable and lacklustre, and a turn-off for supporters. Only in later years did Annaghdown, Tuam and Mountbellew mount a belated challenge.

Thomas' have achieved an admirable 3-in-a-row in hurling but have been pushed all the way in that time by such as Sarsfields, Mellows, Cappataggle and of late Turlough'. The knockout stages are always competitive and the semi-finals are very often the best days out on the domestic scene, drawing large crowds. You don't have nearly the same excitement or attraction in the big ball game.

[mouview]

hard to know where to go from here, but first off congrats to Mayo and James Horan. Credit to James Horan for his lead in rebuilding this Mayo team, and in fairness to Mayo they have been putting the effort in with the Mayo Coaching plan.

I really think it's time for PJ to go, fundamentally he didn't have much experience in coaching coming into the role and it's showing. He seems to want to be the manager of a Galway team that wins an all ireland, but does he want to be a great coach/manager ? How come he never managed a club team prior to getting the Galway gig ? compared to Horan who has gone on to do a Msc in Coaching and has a couple of stints managing teams.

As a county how can we expect to compete with Mayo when we're not investing the same in s&c as Mayo are ?

I don't want to be slating the county board, but the structures are wrong to me, we're a big dual county like Cork and Dublin, we should have a CEO to run the whole operation. Where does the buck stop? Is it the football committee or the county committee, or in between ? For some reason HQ don't think we need a ceo. imho Gottchse should be promoted to CEO. The last CEO didn't work out, but that's no reason not to appoint another one.

We need a person of the calibre of Lukasz Kirszenstein overseeing an S&C programme, someone who has experience working in a professional sports environment. If it's good enough for the hurlers, why not the footballers ? the s&c coach should be independent of the county manager and they need to be fulltime.

I'm ambivalent about PJ staying or going. A new manager is not suddenly going to win Sam next year and our best young players, our mainstays for the years ahead, will need a couple of years experience yet to reach their potential. If the team could somehow improve next year, they might be in a better shape for a new manager to push on further.

Don't think too many are impressed with the hurlers S&C in the wake of Saturday's result, whatever Kirzenstein must have been doing with them.

[thebackbar1]

i thought the hurlers didnt lack fitness against Waterford ? they weren't playing for each other a totally different thing.

Winning Sam is a nice goal, but i would be happy with instilling a process of continual improvement.

The team haven't improved in the last two years, so i can't see why that would change next year unless something changes.

If some of our best young players don't get good coaching now they may move on and forget about intercounty football.

[seafoid]

Steve Hansen to Ireland after NZ beat them again in the RWC.

"Just because you've played for a long time, you might not  have learned things you don't want to learn or you might have learned nothing along the way"

[mouview]

i thought the hurlers didnt lack fitness against Waterford ? they weren't playing for each other a totally different thing.

Winning Sam is a nice goal, but i would be happy with instilling a process of continual improvement.

The team haven't improved in the last two years, so i can't see why that would change next year unless something changes.

If some of our best young players don't get good coaching now they may move on and forget about intercounty football.

The hurlers lacked pace though and bite, especially in the middle third when the game was still in the balance. This was obvious in the game against Dublin but not rectified afterwards, a very blatant management failure. Picking Loftus, who's too nice a player and who was replaced v BAC, and Linnane, a practical debutant with a history of leg injuries, was a disaster waiting to happen. Don't agree they didn't play for each other, they combined well enough in the closing stretches; not a lot you can do earlier in the game, on a sweltering day when you're being bossed out of it.

[seafoid]

i thought the hurlers didnt lack fitness against Waterford ? they weren't playing for each other a totally different thing.

Winning Sam is a nice goal, but i would be happy with instilling a process of continual improvement.

The team haven't improved in the last two years, so i can't see why that would change next year unless something changes.

If some of our best young players don't get good coaching now they may move on and forget about intercounty football.

The hurlers lacked pace though and bite, especially in the middle third when the game was still in the balance. This was obvious in the game against Dublin but not rectified afterwards, a very blatant management failure. Picking Loftus, who's too nice a player and who was replaced v BAC, and Linnane, a practical debutant with a history of leg injuries, was a disaster waiting to happen. Don't agree they didn't play for each other, they combined well enough in the closing stretches; not a lot you can do earlier in the game, on a sweltering day when you're being bossed out of it.

They were also sloppy.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/hurling/nicky-english-if-cork-reach-croke-park-it-could-open-up-for-them-1.4629985
"Their touch was poor and they looked very slow. They made numerous mistakes, handling errors, poor distribution and left themselves open to a serious beating from a good team."

They have some psychological issues going back as far as the 2018 all Ireland final. They shouldn't be getting beaten by the likes of the Dubs and the Deise.

[GalwayBayBoy]

The S&C of the Galway set-up is trailing miles behind the top sides. I remember the first league game this year. I was shocked at the condition of the Kerry players. And that was even before a ball was thrown in. They were bursting out of their jerseys. Even lads who were a bit skinny last year. And they then proceeded to run us off and then hockey us off the pitch.

Look at the physical transformation of someone like Tommy Conroy for Mayo from last year to this. He's piled on muscle. An equivalent on the Galway side would be Robert Finnerty who is a very talented player but doesn't look any different this year than he did last. The body looks the same. There is no physical development there. Unless someone else can see it but I can't.

Galway can live with the other counties even in their current condition but there is a significant gap now to the top 3 maybe 4 sides at a push. You can stay with them for 50 odd minutes but they will burn you off in the last 20. A problem probably exacerbated by playing on a pitch like CP which suits teams that can keep running hard for 70+ minutes.

Also Mark Ronaldson made a good point in his article last week. How are so many players walking off the Galway panel? He said he couldn't remember the last time a Mayo player made himself unavailable to the county team. Granted it's easier to stay involved when there is the possibility of maybe competing for an AI title. But those missing players would have been very handy for Galway off the bench at the very least last weekend. Instead we had players coming on that hadn't togged out for Galway in 2 years and fans didn't even know were still on the panel.

[Rossfan]

Ye Galway lads are fairly beating yereselves up over the team's performances and overall set up!
Seems no panic or concern in Roscommon.... the only team Galway have bet (twice!) in the covid times.
Maybe we should be more concerned but I suppose underage exploits and forthcoming club championships have taken over.

[An Fhairche Abu]

Ye Galway lads are fairly beating yereselves up over the team's performances and overall set up!
Seems no panic or concern in Roscommon.... the only team Galway have bet (twice!) in the covid times.
Maybe we should be more concerned but I suppose underage exploits and forthcoming club championships have taken over.

If there's no gut check for Galway GAA after this year then what's the point of competing at all really? It's plainly not good enough, I feel as bad about the footballers today as I did after the Mayo match in 2013, feels like we're going nowhere, there's no identity, no plan, nothing positive to point at really.

[seafoid]

Ye Galway lads are fairly beating yereselves up over the team's performances and overall set up!
Seems no panic or concern in Roscommon.... the only team Galway have bet (twice!) in the covid times.
Maybe we should be more concerned but I suppose underage exploits and forthcoming club championships have taken over.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/kevin-mcstay-i-was-surprised-by-roscommon-s-defensive-set-up-against-galway-1.4612125
Roscommon have had two championship games in two years and lost both. What does that do for the best group the county has produced since 1990? There is no new wave coming up behind them because the underage development has not been at a level to allow for that.
So it becomes a predictable shuffle. A team goes forward for a few years and then slips back dramatically.
I don't see things changing when the pandemic has passed because by then morale will be shot. Roscommon made a huge effort to make it to that next level but they are back at square one now.
I am not sure that crowds will come back in the numbers we take for granted. Why go to watch Leitrim or Sligo or Roscommon get pulverized by Galway and Mayo over the next few years? These teams and counties are lost: they are out of solutions.
If the GAA doesn't step in then we will have two or three counties dominating and the vast majority in retreat. Many counties will look at the cost of participation in terms of finance and time and figure it is not worth it.
The top teams are like a runaway train.

[seafoid]

All due respect to a legend of the game, we have seen nothing that indicates Galway are going to improve from here, will be an absolute dogfight to get back to Div One next year as well.
Not entirely his fault - Galway football problems are of a more systemic nature I feel and outside of a few players a lot of them have just not done it at Senior level - but the cold facts are what they are, Mayo have made a team transition without skipping a beat, people on about all the young players that have started for Galway, the Mayo young lads have come in and are winning, they look absolutely miles ahead in terms of conditioning, attitude and aggression.
Depressing enough really, I don't know do many people even care, if you look at the pathetic fund raising return from earlier in the year, the shambles that is the county website, everything points to a two bob operation.
For the people I see on social media trying to go on about Mayo's failure to land the big one to make themselves feel a bit better about the hames we are in at the moment it makes me cringe.
Mayo are the ones rightly laughing at us, 10 semi finals in 11 years, they are the only show in town West of the Shannon at the top table, Galway have had one good year in twenty and failed utterly to build off the back of that. Expecting some out of nowhere event like 98 to happen again is a Fools errant, we're hopelessly exposed in CP all the time and I've yet to hear a coherent plan about how Galway football is going to be turned around, forget the underage wins, we had those before and made no use of them, what's the plan to get Galway consistently playing in the later stages the Senior Championship?

Not saying it would be a panacea or anything, but one thing I would like to see is a more competitive domestic championship. Corofin's dominance has been a real drag on player development at club level I feel over the past decade and the championship has subsequently been of poor standard. With Moycullen - M/M contesting the most recent final maybe the portents in this area are about to change. It mightn't help our hurling counterparts too much but at least the championship there is of a much higher calibre and helps identify players with county potential.

Crossmaglen's multiple club all Irelands didn't do anything for Armagh.Similar for Athenry and Portumna in the hurling. Or St Thomas' ?
6 teams on a similar level develop over time and can generate a very decent pick.
Sure Galway wouldn't have won in 98 without being beaten by Mayo in 97.

Didn't do anything?

Crossmaglen Ulster titles 1996, 1998, 1999, 2004, 2006 and All-Ireland titles 1997, 1999, 2000, 2007

Armagh Ulster titles 1999, 2000, 2002, '04, '05, '06. All Ireland in 2002 and Division 1 title in 2005. In that period of time lost by 1 point to the eventual All-Ireland champions a few times.

When did Galway last retain a Connacht title? how many All-Ireland semi final appearances in the last 20 years? how many times did they lose to the eventual All-Ireland champions by 1 score?

When you answer those questions you should realise with all the club and underage All Ireland success there is no doubt that Galway seniors have been and continues to be the great underachievers of the last two decades.

The greatest underachievers of the last 2 decades is a very wide field.