Mayo v Dublin: AISF21 (Saturday 14th August)

[MayoBuck]

Great win for us! A few thoughts after travelling home from Croker and reading through the comments...

On Hennelly retaking the 45, everyone around me in the stand assumed it was because all the substitutions hadn't taken place. Darren Coen had come on for Mayo but Stephen Coen hadn't left the pitch so we had 16 players on at the time. Surely correct that it wasn't allowed be taken?

Don't know why there are people criticising Fenton. He was one of Dublin's best players, some huge catches in midfield in the 2nd half under pressure. If I was to pick a few Dublin stars that underperformed, it would be Con and after halftime Kilkenny and McCarthy.

It was a real collective effort from us, hard to pick out 1 individual. Hennelly, Keegan, O'Hora, Ryan O'Donoghue and Tommy Conroy the best of the starters. I thought Enda Hession was unreal when he came on, Oisín Mullin-esque speed and ball carrying ability.

Darren McHale and Aido had nightmares. I can only imagine missing 2 easy chances into the hill against Dublin would rock your confidence and he didn't recover.

We'll be underdogs in the final no doubt, but no reason we can't win it.

[Armagh18]

Best moment of the match? O'Connor's sliding volley back to McLaughlin for his point. The most Mayo score ever!

It was one of game changing moments of the contest.

anyone a link to a video of this?

[Armagh18]

Never want to hear about tyrone being a dirty team again. That Dublin team is a disgrace with their antics and the ref is joke

They likely watched Tyrone videos, but not in a poorly ventilated video room.

Armagh followed Covid protocols?

Unfortunately so and it cost them a place in the Ulster final.

[Farrandeelin]

That was unreal. I thought travelling up yesterday that it would be one of those days, you know that we'd end up losing by one or two. We were terrible in the first half. Our attack was shocking and Dublin seemed to be able to do what they wanted, when they wanted, despite our defence doing their best under the circumstances.

There was a pep in the step after half time I thought, even before AOS, who I agree had an absolute nightmare was hauled off. It was a brave move by Horan and fair fucks to him it was an inspired one and it worked. The team seemed to discover the second half against Galway form again. Yes, it took a retaken 45 by Hennelly in the 7th minute of injury time to finally draw level, but all the momentum was with Mayo for quite a while beforehand. To see Dublin scoring 0-3 in a second half was proof of that.

As MayoBuck said above, it is hard to pick out one individual performance, they were all brilliant when they finally got motoring. O'Hora was brilliant though, well deserved motm, he definitely was mine anyway. Keegan got Sky motm, and one could have sais he deserved it.

I will admit to criticsm of Hennelly, but since Clarke retired it's like he has been freed from the psychology of it all and shows what he can do. Afterall he is only human and I'm sure the debate had to have an effect on him. He showed some balls to kick that 45 in the 77th minute.

The 'ref' was woeful. I hope to Christ he's never given an inter-county game again. Dublin could easily be down to 13 men at different stages in the game. I am biased of course, but I felt he rode us for a lot of the game. How he didn't stop the game at the very least when McLaughlin was assaulted is beyond me. Thankfully Dublin fluffed their lines and missed.

On Dublin themselves they hadn't the bench they had when they were in their peak and it showed there. None of their subs fazed me and I'm sure that helped our lads' cause no end as well.

To summarise, it was the most Mayo-like of wins, so it probably wasn't as 'unreal' as I opened the post with. 

And yes, there is the presence of Kerry (or Tyrone if the GAA come to an agreement) yet to come, but this thread is about yesterday. And my voice is still coming back after it.

[Milltown Row2]

First of, we'll done Mayo, was looking forward to this game, but completely forgot all about as we were out celebrating a 50th and 60th birthday party with everyone then back to mine for a knees up! Didn't record it either ffs!

Can we split Mayo now and complain about their net spend?

[sidelineball]

Never want to hear about tyrone being a dirty team again. That Dublin team is a disgrace with their antics and the ref is joke

They likely watched Tyrone videos, but not in a poorly ventilated video room.

Armagh followed Covid protocols?

Unfortunately so and it cost them a place in the Ulster final.

Plenty of video evidence to suggest otherwise.

[Gold]

G seriously, I remember seeing Jack O'Shea and he was better than Fenton, Don't think he get too much change out of Anthony Tohill either.

Yes I'd agree with that. Jacko and Tohill were far superior

At what though?

I'm old enough to have watched every important game that Tohill played in. Right back to macrory cup. And he was magnificent. Absolutely magnificent.

But in a team of all time greats, Fenton still stands out. His fielding. His energy. His distribution. His aura.

I'm not saying he's definitely the best midfielder of all time.

But anyone who discounts him from such a conversation isn't thinking straight. They're mellowing.

Fenton is fantastic at high fielding and gave an exhibition yesterday! He's very relaxed on the ball and usually strokes over a point or more a game

Because Dublin play the analysed to the hilt, slow passing, possession game he never appears swashbuckling like a Tohill or Jacko did.

Fenton is safety  on the ball in the methodical handpassing unit that is Dublin but I agree If up against Tohill he'd be like a wee boy.

I've never seen anything like Tohill.  His strength, fielding,  power, pace and drive was simply awesome

Totally different sport in a way now.....the drive, drive, drive forward element of the game is gone

[Estimator]

Joe's article from the Gaelic Life before the game!!

Joe Brolly: The inevitable Dublin victory
Posted: 8:30 pm August 13, 2021

THE famed Dublin surgeon and All-Ireland winner David Hickey said last year he had "no time for this Mayo team, they are a tragic outfit. They win All-Star awards and Player of the Year awards and all that sort of crap. Dublin win All-Irelands."

Mayo have now played in five All-Ireland finals since 2012 (six if you count replays) and lost all of them. The team embodies, as does their manager, the culture of the individual that is at the heart of Mayo's dysfunction.

Before Pat Gilroy, Dublin were precisely the same. The dyed hair. The partying in Coppers. The promotional work. The paid appearances. The 'look at me' stuff. Gazza not Ronaldo

Gilroy had a simple philosophy when he took over the Dubs, who were at that time very similar to this Mayo group. He told them "If you are not completely happy to sacrifice yourself for the team, find another pastime." He ruthlessly got rid of those players who set themselves apart from the group. As he later explained "They just weren't suited to serving a cause. It wasn't their fault. But they could not be accommodated. Otherwise, it is like cancer. Leave even a little bit of it in and it will spread and eventually kill the culture."

By Gilroy's arrival, Dublin had played extremely entertaining football for over a decade and like Mayo, had gotten nowhere. Their most recent All-Ireland was 1995, a full 15 years earlier.

In the noughties, they had played a lot of highly enjoyable football, but always wilted on the biggest days.

"We would have won a couple of All-Irelands at least if we hadn't come up against such brilliant Kerry and Tyrone teams," was the constant refrain. "We had no luck."

In the last quarter of those big games, when they had looked as though they might go on and win, they failed. Yet they were 'heroes' in Dublin and around the country. Their culture of victimhood ('Poor me') made them the plucky losers everyone loved. Mayo's 'curse' is the same.

When Pat was asked to take over, he was initially reluctant, and only did so having got assurances from Dublin's chairman John Costello that he had his full backing for what Pat had promised would be a painful transformation of the culture.

He left his glitzy corner-forward Bernard Brogan on the bench for four successive league games. "He wouldn't tackle," said Gilroy. "After four games on the bench, he was the hardest tackler on the team." He dropped Diarmuid Connolly altogether in 2010. Connolly missed a training session two days after the Leinster final. Pat met him that night:

Pat: You're out Dermo. You can stay on as number 40 on the panel with no chance of playing or you can f**k off.

Dairmuid: I'll f**k off so.

Pat: good choice.

They were clubmates and teammates. They were friends. They had played together in the St Vincent's team that won the All-Ireland Club final against Nemo in 2008. Connolly was a big star. That didn't matter. The group was the only thing that did.

On the morning of the 2010 quarter-final, the Dublin bus drove past Connolly, sitting outside Gaffney's in Fairview, having a pint. Later that afternoon, the team made their first serious statement, beating Tyrone in the All-Ireland quarter final.

At the start of 2011, Diarmuid met Pat, apologised and asked to be taken back. Pat said he would have to ask the group.

The group said yes, on condition he get himself properly fit. For two months, Diarmuid trained alone, fanatically, until he was in the shape of his life. When he came back in, no one trained harder.

He dropped Jayo, a Hill 16 icon. Jayo remains bitter about it to this day.

One night, Gilroy went into a bar in the city and bumped into Mark Vaughan, the bleached blonde full-forward from Kilmacud Crokes with the sensational skills and flamboyant on-field persona. The next day he dropped him from the panel. Permanently.

Celebrity appearances were banned. From now on, sponsorship money would go into a shared players' pool.

By 2011 they were ready to play serious football. In September, they were All-Ireland champions, beating the Kerry team that had beaten them by 17 points in the quarter-final two years earlier.

It was, Gilroy recalls, a very painful transition. In particular, dropping Connolly caused Gilroy great personal angst and friction in the club and county. But there was no other way.

Like that pre-Gilroy Dublin, a number of the senior Mayo players succumbed at an early stage of their careers to what Hickey calls "the curse of individuality."

Horan has a charmed group of untouchables, who will never be taken off regardless of performance. This is corrosive to the culture. The others feel they are dispensable and when they are unable to logically justify the disparity in treatment, they become aggrieved, the bonds of togetherness essential for serious success are not forged and the project is doomed.

So, in 2012, they were crushed by Donegal. In 2014, by a very young Kerry team who galloped through them in the semi-final replay. Kildare beat them in 2018. They shook their heads and refused to go to war in the dying moments against Dublin in 2015, 2016 and 2017. This group is doomed and will not win an All-Ireland until the celebrity culture is banished by a manager who is not himself a part of the celebrity culture.

Holmes and Connelly tried but were ejected after one season by a coup spearheaded by the charmed inner circle. Rochford brought them closer than anyone with the excellence of his coaching. But they were doomed to fail, inevitably losing out when it came to the crunch, because Rochford did not have the courage to take on the problem.

Instead, the players quietly got rid of him after two seasons, preferring to go back to the comfort of their first coach. Never mind that he was tried and failed. Things would be just the way they liked them under Horan. Another three years of plucky failures, plenty of commercial opportunities, lots of TV time, TikTok videos and a smattering of All-Star awards.

Dublin's culture means victory is inevitable on Saturday. This Mayo group truly does not understand the joy of football, which is all in the journey, not in the anti-climax of a victory.

They are a team that does not operate in the real world. They do not face the truth and deal with it. Instead, they are happy with the instant gratification that comes from awards and a victory here and there. A league title. A Connacht title. Padraig O'Hora has come in (belatedly) and is made of the right stuff. As are Keegan, O'Donoghue, Mullan and a few others. But it is not enough.

To beat Dublin, you cannot have any weak characters. As Alex Ferguson famously said "sport, in the end, is about character."

Dublin, like the All-Blacks or South Africa, serve a cause bigger than themselves. They have total respect for the game and the opposition. They do everything in their body to achieve the perfect performance. The needs of others are considered ahead of their own. It is inspiring and humbling. They provide us with a guidebook not just for sport but life.

We are lucky to have them as role models, this special, devoted, selfless collective, where the team is the star and TikTok is the sound of a clock.

[StPatsAbu]

Fenton is probably the greatest player of all time m.

Not even the greatest Dublin player of all time. Certainly the most privileged tho.

[JoG2]

Fenton is probably the greatest player of all time m.

Not even the greatest Dublin player of all time. Certainly the most privileged tho.

And he'd swap it all to be a Tyrone man with multiple troll accounts on a GAA message board..

[rosnarun]

G seriously, I remember seeing Jack O'Shea and he was better than Fenton, Don't think he get too much change out of Anthony Tohill either.

Yes I'd agree with that. Jacko and Tohill were far superior

Tohills not even in the argument .only a nordie would think he is
my top 3 would be from my living memory only ,though  I just love the legend of Mick o connell but i only ever saw him play once ,
Jack o shea
Dara o se
Then Fenton - tjhen only Dub toplay close to his abilty yesterday after the 1st half and not a tr**p

[SouthDublinBro]

Like that pre-Gilroy Dublin, a number of the senior Mayo players succumbed at an early stage of their careers to what Hickey calls "the curse of individuality."

Horan has a charmed group of untouchables, who will never be taken off regardless of performance. This is corrosive to the culture. The others feel they are dispensable and when they are unable to logically justify the disparity in treatment, they become aggrieved, the bonds of togetherness essential for serious success are not forged and the project is doomed.

To beat Dublin, you cannot have any weak characters. As Alex Ferguson famously said "sport, in the end, is about character."

He was dead right. Mayo weren't able to do it until they dropped Aidan O'Shea and Cillian O'Connor.

[MayoBuck]

Tomás Ó Se had some great lines in his article too...

Same old failing will come back to haunt Mayo in another tilt at the champions

'The Dubs may be vulnerable, but they're also cold-blooded and street-wise. Do you not think Brian Fenton and Con O'Callaghan have it in them to lift their form half a dozen notches now?'

How sobering it is to think that we're now 17 years on from that moment Michael Lyster so famously turned to Colm O'Rourke at half-time in the '04 All-Ireland final and suggested they were "looking at a murder scene".

All bar a single county wanted Mayo to beat us that day, particularly after their final experiences of '89, '96 and '97. Even back then, people were talking of the gap to '51 as some kind of terrible aberration for such a proud football county.

Yet here we are today, that great lake of time now stretching to an ocean of 70 years.

Most neutrals would love to see them reach the mountain-top, but I'd hazard a guess most realists don't see it happening any time soon. Why? Put me down for precisely the same reasons we were so confident against them in '04.

Reasons, I don't doubt, Dublin are putting their faith in today.


I think we all find entertainment in the venom that's still so palpable between these two teams. They don't much like one another, that's crystal clear.

Yes, there's a level of competitive respect there but make no mistake the over-riding feeling between them isn't far off hatred. Now I imagine there'll be plenty of people ready to take offence at that word. I get it. Hatred isn't a good thing. Hatred isn't anything to be encouraged.

But trust me on this. In serious sport, hatred is never far beneath the surface in relationships between fierce rivals. It's an energy source, a power.

Remember the tunnel incident at half-time in last December's All-Ireland final? There were just two points in the game at the time and the Mayo lads clearly took exception to something Philly McMahon said, all hell suddenly breaking loose.

Plenty of people are appalled when they see that kind of stuff but there's not a senior inter-county hurler or footballer in the country who'd be among them. The field is a hot place to be in championship especially and, if a bit of pushing and shoving makes you queasy, it's time to hand back the jersey.




Now I'm only speculating but my take on that was that Philly, a wise old head on his shoulders, reckoned it was time to rattle a few Mayo cages with the game too close for comfort from the Dubs' point of view (they led by two points).


Remember what then happened when the game resumed?

Down to 14 men because of Robbie McDaid's sin-binning, Dublin completely controlled the next quarter.

That was Mayo's moment to put the squeeze on Dublin, but it seemed to me that they just didn't have the know-how. To drive that hammer home, they needed to get scores. But that third quarter was, essentially, when they lost the final.

So the reason I don't see Mayo getting across the line this evening is the same reason they haven't got across the line against Dublin in league or championship since 2012. Namely, they just don't have the scoring power.

If they're relying today on Tommy Conroy and Ryan O'Donoghue to do things that no Mayo men have done against marquee opposition in 20 years, then they might as well be putting their faith in a scratch-card.

That's not meant to be offensive. They're both good players, but this is Dublin. This is the all-too-familiar reality check. Put it this way: Conroy and O'Donoghue both struggled against Galway. A Galway team we now recognise as bang average.

The only reason Mayo won that game was that Galway could not sustain their intensity for 70-odd minutes. But Dublin will. They always do. Dublin's work-rate is never up for debate. Look at the tackles Cormac Costello gets in around his own '45.

I was listening to Andy Moran on a podcast this week and something he said struck me as an unwitting explanation as to why Mayo just can't close this deal. Andy knows his stuff, to be fair, and his view was that Mayo would have to get goals to win this game. I agree totally.

But he then listed six Mayo players he reckoned carried a potential goal threat and the first four he named were two defenders and two midfielders. Think about that. If you're depending on your backs and midfielders to worry Dublin in an attacking sense, you might as well be trying to climb Everest with only a rope. It seems to me that Dublin just need energy right now and the sight of Mayo is going to give it to them.


Yes, there's a perfectly plausible conversation doing the rounds that Mayo might just catch them here. It's plausible because, if anything, the Dubs have looked a little bored so far. Leinster never stretches them and it's clear as day that it's not exactly the most harmonious camp by recent Dublin standards.

The list is long.

McMahon having to miss training because of his work as a performance coach with Bohemians; Kevin McManamon over in Tokyo for nearly a month with the Olympic boxers; Stephen Cluxton still doing his Greta Garbo thing when it's clear Dessie Farrell wants him back; Eric Lowndes leaving the panel in mid-season without as much as a sentence of explanation.

Or even Dean Rock being taken off the last day against Kildare and choosing not to sit with the other players in what looked to me a minor act of petulance.

It all feels or appears to be that bit looser, which might be down to the players as much as the new management.

But can you imagine any of that happening on Jim Gavin's watch? Not a hope. No squad is ever entirely happy because the players not getting game-time will, inevitably, be inclined to bitch. But this feels something deeper than that.


This feels like a process of transition that is hitting trouble.

All of which is why people are giving Mayo such a big shout here. I get that. And let me be clear, I expect Mayo will run them close. They invariably do.

But beat them?

The Dubs may be vulnerable, but they're also cold-blooded and streetwise. Do you not think Brian Fenton and Con O'Callaghan have it in them to lift their form half a dozen notches now as we arrive at the business end of championship? Of course they do. And Mayo know that better than anyone.

I'm assuming they'll put Paddy Durcan on Ciarán Kilkenny and Oisín Mullin on O'Callaghan or maybe vice versa. But Durcan and Mullin were two of the players Andy Moran identified as potential goal threats for Mayo. If they're having to keep tabs on Kilkenny and O'Callaghan?

I can't see it.

What Mayo wouldn't do to have a young Lee Keegan on hand now, the kind of player who could keeps tabs on a superstar like Diarmuid Connolly and still nail 1-2 of his own. That Keegan doesn't exist anymore.


He can't really do both anymore.

I think James Horan has shown a remarkable ability to regenerate this team, so much so it's hard to argue that they're significantly weaker than they were a few years ago.

Yes Cillian O'Connor's absence is being felt, especially from frees. I watched Mayo's first half against Galway again this week and it's fair to say that they were shocking. Just taking stupid options, kicking awful wides, spilling deplorable handpasses and missing the kind of frees O'Connor kicks in his sleep.

With over half an hour of that game gone, Mayo had a miserly 0-4 on the board.

Yes, the second half was a different story with the likes of Matthew Ruane especially thundering into the game. But I don't doubt the Dubs will be giving Brian Fenton earache now about just how well Ruane is playing. That's how this always works.

When we were going so poorly in '09, the only thing my brothers Darragh and Marc kept hearing before our quarter-final against Dublin was how Ciarán Whelan and Bernard Brogan were both flying. Fair to say by the end of that week, the two boys were primed for war. Trust me, that's how Fenton will be feeling this week. He'll be looking at what he considers a pretender to his throne and thinking, 'No, not today buddy!'


Kildare asked nothing of Dublin. They never pressed up on Evan Comerford's kick-outs, which is fine if you've built a lead.

Then – by all means – hold your shape, stay defensively tight. But if you're chasing a game and still refuse to push bodies forward then you're, essentially, just accepting your fate.

Mayo will ask questions. I don't doubt that.

They know just how important Cluxton has been to this Dublin story and will aim to find profit in his absence now.

Across all of the All-Ireland finals Cluxton played for Dublin, you could count on one hand his second-half kick-outs that were lost.

Cluxton's second-half showings in those finals were almost flawless.


Mayo forced him to go long six times in last year's first half and all six failed to end up in Dublin hands. That should have been the foundation stone on which Mayo made a profit. But they couldn't. And come the second half? Every single Cluxton kick was on the money.

It makes sense for Mayo to go after Evan Comerford's kicks this evening. He's a fine goalkeeper, but we can't really say if he's a readymade replacement for the greatest number one of all when he hasn't yet weathered a fraction of Cluxton's wars.

The trouble for Mayo is their scoring purple patches don't tend to come against Dublin or Kerry and, until that changes, they're not getting their hands on Sam. Not a hope.

Mayo greatest strength is their work-rate and they have so many defensive players that we'd love to have in Kerry. But, let's face it, they'd kill for Kerry's six forwards too. And forwards, ultimately, win All-Irelands.

I've massive time for Horan as a manager by the way, but he can only work with the talent at his disposal. And Mayo seem to be regenerating only in the areas they're already strong in. The marquee forward they've craved for a decade now has yet to be unveiled.


Yes, Cillian O'Connor has been an outstanding player, but he's never been the game-changer in a final that the likes of Kilkenny and O'Callaghan have been for Dublin.

Now I hasten to add, that can still be said of David Clifford and Seánie O'Shea in Kerry too. The difference, of course, is that O'Connor has spent a decade trying to get over that line, the Kerry boyos are just starting.

Which is the big problem for Mayo now. In my opinion, they were a trickier opponent back in my day when the likes of Moran and Ciarán McDonald were still playing. They were certainly more unpredictable.

I expect Mayo to try running the legs off Dublin today because, man for man, they just don't have the stuff to outplay them.

People are making an argument for them on the basis that Dublin seem to have regressed spectacularly. I'm more inclined to think they've just been a little distracted until now. But that changes here.


The Dubs may not be what they were, but that doesn't mean they can't make it seven in a row. All that talk of an unhappy camp isn't legal tender until they lose.

They categorically don't like Mayo and rest assured that will give them energy this evening.

An energy I just can't see the Connacht champions overcoming.

[StPatsAbu]

Fenton is probably the greatest player of all time m.

Not even the greatest Dublin player of all time. Certainly the most privileged tho.

And he'd swap it all to be a Tyrone man with multiple troll accounts on a GAA message board..

I don't have any other accounts. Feeling tetchy?

[JoG2]

Fenton is probably the greatest player of all time m.

Not even the greatest Dublin player of all time. Certainly the most privileged tho.

And he'd swap it all to be a Tyrone man with multiple troll accounts on a GAA message board..

I don't have any other accounts. Feeling tetchy?

I don't believe you...