Mayo v Galway - Connacht Final 13/07/08 14:00 McHale Park, Castlebar

[Barney]

With Galway have made significant improvements since last year all Mayo supporters will be extremely wary of shipping another heavy beating. Pride though should make the game competitive for probably 40 minutes when the Tribemen will in all likeliehood pull away.

[mannix]

With that crystal ball you have can you tell how MAYO got on for the year?
Galway to pull away after 40 minutes? 
Mayo will be a different proposition than last year if they can take the scores that are available to them.

[belleaqua]

Ha nice try Barney but theres no way you can describe Mayo as underdogs for this one!

We can analyse this game all we want but it wont even be a contest if Galway dont sort out midfield. Mayo will win by 6-7 IF Mayo win as much ball as Leitrim did the last day. Mayo looked very strong there yesterday so unless Cullinane hits form...we are screwed. People givin out about Galway's backs and with good reason but if midfield is shored up that will take lots of pressure off them. With Fitzy and Blake or Coyne (or both) to come in they should be a lot tighter. Im not goin puttin silly favourite tags on either...it should be a close battle, Castlebar a factor but how much so im not sure...

[kevmy]

I reckon Barney is Johnno in disguise. He was on the Sligo thread downplaying our chances right up until the match yesterday. Now it's barely over and he's saying we'll barely stick with Galway for the first half

I'm not cocky at all but at the moment it's 50/50 between us and Galway. We will be slight favourites due to home advantage.

[mouview]

Don't think C'bar will be a factor but I do expect Mayo to win by 4+  Galway will get wiped at midfield and in the half-back line and the all the forwards will have to win their own batlles (i.e. score) rather than hoping for Joyce and M Meehan to do it for them. It may be the loss that Sammon needs to finally take a sharp look at his team's layout. That said, looking forward to the day out.

[GalwayBayBoy]

Should be a good game. I think Mayo almost certainly go in as favourites seeing as they won fairly impressively yesterday (albeit against a dismal Sligo), they have home advantage, it's their turn to win and Pat Spillane tipped them in the paper yesterday.

Think there is more scoring power amongst the Galway forwards but that won't matter a jot if the midfield can't win enough ball to supply them and Mayo will have McGarrity, Parsons and Harte around the middle so it's difficult to see where Galway are going to get parity there or even close to parity. Cullinane I think will win his share of ball in the air but I don't see anyone there that's going to help him out much. Sammon may have to come up with a plan or something different here.

I'm not overly worried about the Galway defence as with Fitzy and Coyne/Blake back I think they'll be a lot better than the Leitrim game (where in fairness they did only concede 1-3 from play). Plus Hanley won't have to deal with Declan Maxwell. That said if they are they are getting beaten up a stick at midfield it won't matter because no defence can hold out if the opposition keep winning the ball in the middle of the park.

[Galforever]

Its hard to say who will be favourites as we dont really know what Mayo are like. For them to be favourites, they will have to have improved a lot since their league form. all they have done since is beat a very poor Sligo team. Galway had a good league & have beaten Roscommon & Leitrim while playing badly so its hard to justify Mayo being favourites. That being said, I would not expect there to be too much in it at the end!

Midfield is obviously the key area. Coleman has done alright aaginst Mayo though in the past so we might be ok there. Could break even. I imagine Cullinane will be starting the next day. He really needs to be in a performance from start to finish (Has he ever done that for Galway??). Always seems to play well coming off the bench. I wonder if Bergin might be able to tog as well? He was due back if we got to an all-ireland QF, Hows his recovery coming along? Also, in the backs, Damien Burke was terrible against Leitrim but he has done well on Conor Mortimer in the last few years. I wonder would it be worth leaving him there, up against a player he knows well, could get his confidence back.

Don't think C'bar will be a factor

Castlebar will be a big factor. There wont be many Galway fans but there will be shit loads of Mayo fans. If they start to get a sniff of a win in the match, they'll go into their usual overhyped frantic mode.

[kevmy]

Our league form wasn't that bad, sure we had some poor results but some of the performances was alright.

I was basing my there isn't much between us comment on the fact that ye only beat us by a point in the league and that was due to a poor kickout by the goalie. Mayo mightn't be great but I've yet to see any proof that Galway are very good either.

[An Fhairche Abu]

Our league form wasn't that bad, sure we had some poor results but some of the performances was alright.

I was basing my there isn't much between us comment on the fact that ye only beat us by a point in the league and that was due to a poor kickout by the goalie. Mayo mightn't be great but I've yet to see any proof that Galway are very good either.

League form won't matter a jot in this final, much as last year the league semi-final was a bad indicator of how the May 20th match would go. You're absolutely correct that there's no proof that Galway are very good, you'd be doing well to find any evidence of it as we are fairly far from it. Unfortunately for Mayo I'd have ye as not very good either, it will be two average sides in the general scheme of things contesting this final.

I would say in favour of Galway that, although they have been overhyped previous years, the attack does have a nice cut about it in 2008, mainly due to the return to form of one P. Joyce, as he has been majestic again this year so far. Problem is that it's hard to see Meehan and the Joyces getting enough of the ball to do the damage.

As stated already by other Galwaymen on this topic, Mayo should win this match because they have comfortably the better midfield, regardless of the quality (or lack thereof) of the Galway backs the fact remains that no backline can cope with a constant stream of ball coming into the oppostions forwards without coughing up scores from frees and general play.

Besides all that it seems that we're taking it in turns to beat each other in the championship the last few years, why should it be any different in '08?!

[moysider]

A few early thoughts on this one.

* Mayo will have to get the match ups in defense right from the start. Heaney /Joyce. Higgins/ Meehan. Conroy/Breathnach or Conroy. Boyle/ Armstrong etc. But they will have to make sure likes of Cuniffe does nt get dragged into a corner back spot. That would be curtains.

* Mayo might not have the dominance around the middle as some people think. Galway have plenty of muscle there compared to Sligo. Coleman can do plenty of sledging, He was very angry and fired up against us last year and will be again. Thing is we dont have anybody to cut him down to size. When you see the things our midfielders were booked for yesterday it is worrying. Corner forwards get booked for those types of challenges. Midfielders should be crunching somebody for a yellow. Remember Whelan s challenge on Ronan. Cullinane has nt much class about him but he can catch ball and equally important he can prevent the opposition from catching any. V Sligo both Harte and Conroy were able to chip in around the middle largely unopposed but the next day Conroy may have his hands full further back. Galway have plenty of big men around the middle third and likes of PJ wins more than his fair share of breaks. The team that uses the ball best will win as I would expect possession to be 50/50 for most of the match anyhow. This will not be clear cut at all.

* The Mayo forwards as constituted the last day wont be good enough to score enough. I expect Fitzgerald and either or both of Blake and Coyne to start. This changes a lot. Fitz would do ok on Andy. Austin suits Hanley down to the ground cause Austin wont be able to get behind him.When Hanley was asked to turn v Leitrim he looked awful - another reason I d start Dillon on Hanley. Dont think he would handle Dillon while Austin would be easy meat for him. Burke usually beats Conor up. Only an early yellow for Burke would open that door a little. Think we should leave Harte at 11 to deal with the physicality of Blake.

[stephenite]

That Galway at least had some sort of test against Leitrim should stand to them a lot more than our relatively facile win against Sligo. Would also agree that with Moysider that a lack of agression around centrefield should be a big concern against Galway - not having seen the Sligo game it's hard to comment but it certainly sounded like Parsons and McGarrity did not have too much physicality to contend with and this will be an even bigget test for Parsons to see if he can deal with this at a higher level. The lack of Brady type bruiser would be a big concern for Mayo if we are to progress further.
The idea of flooding the centre area of the pitch might be the best route but an isolated forward line will still find it difficult enough to break even - an experienced Gardiner back to the half back line would be something that I think might work - much better at getting the ball deeper and heading forward, but his distribution will need to improve considerably.
Mayo and Galway games usually don't have too much between them so I don't think it will matter too much who is pre match favourites to be honest - there'll be very little between them I feel.

[Son_of_Sam]

Don't think C'bar will be a factor

Castlebar will be a big factor. There wont be many Galway fans but there will be shit loads of Mayo fans. If they start to get a sniff of a win in the match, they'll go into their usual overhyped frantic mode.

Funny because its so so true, always an intimitating atmosphere when the Mayo fans get going in any stadium, especially McHale Park, a match for Hill 16 anyday. Ya have to love seeing the faces of Mayo fans, red from roaring, blood vessels about to burst, that feeds on to a confidence team like Mayo.

[furboot]

this could be and probably will be a match decided by goals. Mayo's record in the recent past in this department is dreadful -  Mayo were tops in goals conceded in the league (10) and interestingly Galway came second (7) but Galway did also manage to be in top spot for goals scored (.
We all know that Mayo has a defence that leaks badly at times. Even last Sunday Sligo (despite their worst ) breached the Mayo defence a couple of times only for David Clarke making some good saves the score might have less flattering. If Mayo are to win there needs to be a 'bodies on the line' attitude because the Galway goal scoring machine is a major threat - much greater than Mayo's. It sound's like an RTE pundit line but 'goals will win it' and on that basis advantage Galway.
One other aspect of Mayo's defence that was not tested at all last Sunday was dealing with the high-ball attack as Sligo had small forwards and opted to play a passing game - - I can't recall one high ball !!! Galway on the other hand do use the high ball option at times to good effect - can the Mayo full back line deal with that ?

[Kilconly SuperSub]

this could be and probably will be a match decided by goals. Mayo's record in the recent past in this department is dreadful -  Mayo were tops in goals conceded in the league (10) and interestingly Galway came second (7) but Galway did also manage to be in top spot for goals scored (.
We all know that Mayo has a defence that leaks badly at times. Even last Sunday Sligo (despite their worst ) breached the Mayo defence a couple of times only for David Clarke making some good saves the score might have less flattering. If Mayo are to win there needs to be a 'bodies on the line' attitude because the Galway goal scoring machine is a major threat - much greater than Mayo's. It sound's like an RTE pundit line but 'goals will win it' and on that basis advantage Galway.
One other aspect of Mayo's defence that was not tested at all last Sunday was dealing with the high-ball attack as Sligo had small forwards and opted to play a passing game - - I can't recall one high ball !!! Galway on the other hand do use the high ball option at times to good effect - can the Mayo full back line deal with that ?

Funny thing about Castlebar is that the Tuam following will go there while not go to Galway... There will be plenty of support from the Maroon..

This should be a great day..A classic match up.. Two managers who are pretty shrude.. Salmon is cooking up something (you know it, it's too bloody quite). Johno can't take a double baiting from Galway especially with Galway probably getting stronger next year..

This match is 50/50.. While Mayo has home advantage, Galway will be bouyed by extra support from home...

Everyone is talking about Midfield which is fair enough but Galway have very few losses this year with the multitude of midfield combos used. This game is so knife edge, midfield will be distroyed imho while the game will be won or lost in the half forward and half back... If Galway can break almost even there they will win with better convert ratio compared to mayo...

[AbbeySider]

an experienced Gardiner back to the half back line would be something that I think might work - much better at getting the ball deeper and heading forward, but his distribution will need to improve considerably.

Im surprised at that comment and would totally disagree.
Gardiner going forward like a headless chicken is exactly the problem that left us exposed last year in Pearse Stadium.
It lead to at least one goal and a few points because he could not get back in time and they punished us for it.