Messages

[Two weakened teams played each other meaning there is no measure of how good or how bad each team is.]

Keith Higgins is the Higgins that I'm referring to! He only played 4 minutes yesterday. So in reality he did not really play yesterday. Unless you count 4 minutes at the beginning of a game important time to make an impact?

I agree with you on Mickey and Durcan, but in fairness they got game time last year and were not available yesterday.

Look my point was yesterday was not a shock. Two weakened teams played each other meaning there is no measure of how good or how bad each team is.

I agree with you on that. No one knows what side is doing what in terms of training etc. and form that point of view I ain't bothered about this result at all. The real story will be payed out later in the year I assume.

So FBD is finished with another defeat at home to the Rossies.
So what is the outlook for 2016 for the Mayo team itself and the new management team?

Mise le Chéad

Well I also don't see anything new happening within the squad outside the recall of possibly Jason Gibbons and maybe the addition of Evan Regan to get a proper run out and game time in the League. Come Championship though the team will have the same familiar faces. I would like to see youth given more of a chance in the form of S. Coen, S. Cunniffe, A Gallagher. Maybe it will happen in the League but I'm not sure.

Personally I also have my doubts about Stephen Rochford. I think he had a handy number there with the footballers of Corofin. Serious outfit at all ages and without any proper competition in Galway at Senior level.  Its also a big step up from club to inter county and an even greater one in this position becasue of all the history and on top of that the strike and last years in-house issues. hope I'm wrong here but even if he is the real deal it will take time for him to make his mark on this squad.

Overall - its a hard one to call. I will go for us to retain our League position (just about)  but unfortunately reach only the quarters in the championship this year.

[Barrett, Higgins, Cuniffe, Shamie, Barry Moran, Durcan, McLoughlin, Cillian, Andy Moran, Mickey Sweeney, Aido]

It was a day for big upsets.

Man U beat Lpool
Dublin knocked out by Longford as well.

So shock Ros win probably another part of it.

Longford beating Dublin an upset - Yes!
Man Utd Beating Liverpool - Not really!
Ros beating a Mayo side with 7 that played against Dublin last summer - No shock (really)! (no Barrett, Higgins, Cuniffe, Shamie, Barry Moran, Durcan, McLoughlin, Cillian, Andy Moran, Mickey Sweeney, Aido)

Which Higgins are you referring to?
Also you cant really call Mikey Sweeney a first teamer. Nor Paddy Durcan.
Durcan thrown in at the deep end last year becasue of injuries. I doubt he would have played if Vaughan or Cunniffe weren't injured.

It was a day for big upsets.

Man U beat Lpool
Dublin knocked out by Longford as well.

So shock Ros win probably another part of it.

Hard to vote for them while the old guard that were a pivotal part of cabinet for the crash are still there. Specifically Martin, O'Dea and O'Cuiv. Also think that the 30K topup Micheal Martin took is too much to stomach. And was't there another topup then in 2015 according to the Indo. The whole affair stinks back to the bad days era which I assumed FF were trying to get past.

The result at least buys LVG at least another 3 or 4 losses without the sack. And this is what they will have if the overall performance doesn't improve.

In no particular order....
Stephen Cluxton
Robbie O'Malley
Seamus Moynihan
Niall Cahalane
Tomás O Sé
Henry Downey
Martin O'Connell
Willie Joe Padden
Anthony Tohill
Peter Canavan
Colm O'Rourke
Denis Ogie Moran
John Egan
Michael Murphy
Matt Connor

But it's a bit of a lotter especially in the forwards . For instance I also would have love to put in.. if I had another 15 and not many could argue with selection.

Padraic Joyce, Tony Hanahoe, David Hickey, Paidi O'Sé,  Francie Bellew, Brian Corcoran, Brian Mullins, Oisín McConville, Bryan Dooher, Greg Blaney, Micky Linden, Colm Cooper, Brian Stafford, Paul Galvin, Darragh O'Sé, Martin Furlong, Maurice Fitzgerald, Ja Fallon, Dermot Early, Larry Tompkins,

OK - keep your League format. But then you can't have your cake and eat it. I.e.

You can't have elite competitions all the way throughout the year and not have player burnout.
You can't have elite competitions all the way through the year without having professionalism come more and more into it.
You can't have elite competitions all the way through the year and every competiton having equal weight.
You can't have elite competitions all the way through the year and not end up going further down the road where
competitions are redundant becasue of worse and worse results and hammerings.

Something has to give and I thought that was the point of the thread.

Personally I would rather see the championship take precedence over the League as this is the way the GAA has always been run at all levels.

Any thoughts on my previous post of just re-structuring the League to allow weaker counties play stronger ones earlier on and get a taste for it ?

Terrible idea. We need to be increasing the value of the league, not devaluing it.

Of all the ideas trialled for the league over the years the current one is the best as you play teams your own level, and if you want to play better teams, you have to earn it.

If I was to make one change I'd do away with the Div2, 3, 4 finals and bring back quarter-finals. This would go partially towards your idea in that the winners of Div 3 and 4 would get to play in the quarter-finals along with the top 2 in Div 2 and the top 4 in Div 1.

Agree Hound, the league needs to be taken more seriously, not less. You don't get better by playing teams way stronger than you anyway.

So you want to keep an elite competition where the top teams are honing their skills against each other year after year and the weaker teams are falling further behind. The idea that teams will make the leap to this level doesn't stand up either. In the past the only teams I remember that have made the leap have been Westmeath and Kildare  and they are both Div3 again now after one or two seasons.

On the other hand Donegal went down and came straight back up. Down flip-flop between Div1 and Div2. The 2 favorites for relegation this year are Ros and Down (the same 2 that came up) The favorite for Div 2 is Tyrone who came outta Div1.

And after this elite competition is played and teams see the levels they need to be at they come along and destroy everything before them in terms of Div3 and Div4.

The bottom line is that this elite competition is seriously hurting the championship

Any thoughts on my previous post of just re-structuring the League to allow weaker counties play stronger ones earlier on and get a taste for it ?

Isn't that the Carlow proposal; to seed the Championship which gives them realistic chance of a win or maybe two? I would think the league is the priority for all the Division 4 counties. They are more aware of the realities than any of us.

I am afraid the GAA is heading down a bad route and is going to follow the rugby template. There will be 10/12 top counties, paid, there will be no interest by the rest in a secondary competition. Maybe it will all work out for the better in the end - if it means that those counties are only concerned about quality club championships played in the summer months. They would sae a lot of money and effort if that was so - and have a much healthier domestic competition !

Quite possible. Problem with this then of course is when a good player emerges from a weaker county  who no longer participates in the championship. Would end up with those guys going off to stronger counties to get paid and thus abandoning their own clubs. GAA would definitely be on the way out then.

I'm not too worried about them playing in those games. The majority of player do not over-play. They over-train. Its the latter that needs addressed

OK - well I am. Supposing they get injured and are out for the season because they played in some totally unremarkable game in January in a swamp.

That would be unlucky or you might argue bad management but not a motivation to reorganise the game.

I never mentioned about re-organising the FBD.
What I said was that seasoned inter county performers should not be playing in these competitions. Can you point out one thing that management expect to learn from the likes of Cafferkey, Boyle, McLoughlin, Doherty, Parsons and more, that they haven't already seen or won't see later on in the season when pitches are in better shape? 

I'm not too worried about them playing in those games. The majority of player do not over-play. They over-train. Its the latter that needs addressed

OK - well I am. Supposing they get injured and are out for the season because they played in some totally unremarkable game in January in a swamp.

In total the competitive GAA year takes roughly 10 months beginning with the National Leagues on last Sunday in January and ending with most of the provincial club finals being payed in November. The problem is that there are too many  competitive fixtures in this schedule between League, Championship, Club and Inter-County.

Then you add in the likes of the FBD, McKenna Cup and the others which County teams supposedly use as a means for garnishing new talent required for the Leagues as well as the Championship. And its because the Leagues now are so tough and competitive as well that there is a higher onus on players.

I would propose going back to the old format of the League with having 4 divisions and weaker counties alongside stronger ones in the League. OK - you could say it diminishes the League but the the benefits of this are also many.

Primarily it gives County teams  a chance to take a breather before the championship as they don't have to go all out to win every single game in the League as theoretically they should be able to put out weaker/newer team depending on the opposition.

It also gives the secondary counties all the way down to Div4 a chance to play against the top teams prior to meeting them in the championship. The assumption here is that current weaker Div4 teams would be better prepared then when they meet a big gun in the championship as they would have already played at least 2 or 3 top teams and got some feel for whats required.

And it should in theory allow for the non use of regular inter county players in the likes of the FBD, McKenna Cups etc. E.g. I see Mayo played nearly 10 regular Player/panelists from the past few years in that first FBD game. And I disagree whole heatedly with that. Long enough all season will these guys be required. And they should have nothing to prove to the management. The same goes for other regular inter-county players.

No chance of it happening, thankfully.

Of course it can happen, many of the GAA's sacred cows have been changed though, as Rossfan says, it won't be anytime soon. Why you're thankful a flawed format should stay is however beyond me.

I don't know why it can't happen either. If Croke Park put dates that were set in stone in place then Counties would have to adhere or else forfeit.  And theoretically there is plenty of time to do it in a 8/9 month timeframe. Sure some counties would have to make changes to their systems but so be it. The alternative is just  getting worse and worse as the demands on players increase. And this simply can't last indefinitely.