Cluiche ceannais na sraithe: Corcaigh v Maigh Eo

[Foreverhopeful]

A worrying lack of insight?? Are you having a laugh Zulu.. Aidan O'Shea while only around since last year was up against a complete novice full back.. He can win ball but he simply cant move quick enough to do any damage. He might do well against your the second and third tier teams but today it showed that he is not fit for no.14 against the top opposition. And Cork's full back line was their weakest link...
We need a no. 6 who can play ball. Keith Higgins can do that. He is the best Mayo defender to deal with the best no.11 in the game - Declan O'Sullivan. He would have done a far better job on Donncha O'Connor today. it was like shooting practice at times for him. Howley is teak tough but i'm starting to think he's a great club player rather than a county player (at no. 6 anyway) Its amazing that he isn't even the Knockmore no. 6. He plays wing back/wing forward for them. I thought he was great at no. 10 for them last year and he may suit that role for Mayo. They were playing Andy moran in that brian dooher role but i'm not convinced. I think he was doing better at the start of the league when he was playing more in the half forward line and he was contributing to the scoreboard.
Alan Dillon may be better at no.12 because i think he gets more scores for us in this position rather than at no.11 where he tends to overplay the playmaker role. He is a classy footballer but we need him to be getting scores on the board rather than displaying his flashy touches and shimmies with no end product. I know lads will think i'm being harsh on one of best footballers but i think he does his best work cutting in from left-half and popping over with his right.
Regarding Tom Parsons i think he will be a fine Mayo player but i think he will have to toughen up a lot. I just get the impression that he doesnt want to mix it in the middle. If pearse o'neill had got the ball Parsons had in the first half (incidentally it was prob a foul,  not that the ref would give Mayo anything - i thought he was shocking biased towards Cork) it would prob have ended up in the net. Parsons lacks that drive unfortunately. He might also  want to get rid of his black underarm gear.  Doesn't look to good for your midfielder when they wearing them. He wouldn't be getting cold if he was running more!
Barry moran if fully fit is up for it....
Mayo need more direct half-forwards. May have to push Kevin McLoughlin up there. He was the only Mayo player capable of taking on a Cork player, only player who could lay off a pass to another player whilst taking a hit. The only problem for him was that he had to come from left-side so couldnt shoot on the run. If he was coming from no. 10 he's prob have scored 3/4 points for Mayo

[Jinxy]

anyone know what the attendance was today? there looked to be a good crowd there for the armagh/down but they all left for the cork/mayo game. the gaa have a mess on their hands if croke park is going to be empty for the nfl finals. looks awful. i was sad to see micko downplaying the league on the late late, its long overdue that the gaa took a leaf out of the irfus book and promoted the thing. had dublin made the final today there would have been some atmosphere there but thats not enough.

I don't get the IRFU reference.
What is it that they promote?

[Zulu]

A worrying lack of insight?? Are you having a laugh Zulu.. Aidan O'Shea while only around since last year was up against a complete novice full back.. He can win ball but he simply cant move quick enough to do any damage. He might do well against your the second and third tier teams but today it showed that he is not fit for no.14 against the top opposition. And Cork's full back line was their weakest link...

No I'm not having a laugh, I agree with what you said about O'Shea's speed but you don't put a man lacking speed of movement and thought out center forward, that's madness. Keith Higgins is a decent attacking defender but you'd have a hole as wide as the grand canyon if he was your center back, and nobody would be afraid to carry it down the middle when he was around. I've seen a good bit of Barry at Sigerson level and I can assure you he is not the solution to your problems, lovely lad but not up to it.

[Chimley]

That was another tough day in Croke Park. I had hoped that the ghosts of that awful display against Meath last year would be put to rest but it was obvious from the throw-in that we were on for a hiding. Players that played well all through the league looked like they never kicked a ball before togging out today and there was no leadership being shown by the older lads. Kevin McLoughlin was the only Mayo player who seemed to be tuned into the game. We need men who will make the opposition realise that they are in a game and not beat ourselves before a ball is kicked.

[Hound]

Well done to Cork. Fully deserved as they have been the best team throughout the league.

Pity they threw their last game. They still would have won today but at least we would have had an occasion.

[ross4life]

i was away the weekend of the Cork v Mayo last league game what happened? i know mayo won but threw the game??

[Foreverhopeful]

if you remember o'shea when he was a minor he played at no. 11. Difference for him out there is that he gets a little more space from is defender. He can build up his speed over a greater difference. At full forward you need a quicker burst which Aidan O'Shea doesn't have. Also he seems obsessed with trying to bulldozing his way through 3 men when the ball should already have been laid off. Barry Moran would have an adv. because he is quicker off the mark and he looks to pass it off. It was like aidan o'shea was playing a rugby match today with the way he tried to run through players. It was pathetic to watch as a football fan. Was sitting beside neutrals at the game and they were dismayed by O'Shea. He simply does not look to bring other players into the game. It doesnt help that Dillon or Andy are not making runs supporting full-forward line. They were too far from full forward line and once the lads inside got it they were bundled up and all the pace of an attack is wasted.

Who would you play no. 6 Zulu. I think if he has Seamie O'Shea in front of him he would be well protected. He can play a good pass and no one could catch him if he took off. Seamie O'Shea could drop back into the space if Keith was gone forward. However i wouldnt be advocating Keith spending his time going forward. I think it could work. Certainly Howley's number as a 6 is up.
I thought Cafferkey did good today. He did get caught with one or two high balls. He would however be a much better option in the corner.

[muppet]

Well done to Cork. Fully deserved as they have been the best team throughout the league.

Pity they threw their last game. They still would have won today but at least we would have had an occasion.

Cheap shot.

As for the game.

Mayo had huge failures at 6, 8, 9, 10 & 12. and the rest were only ok. Personally I was very disappointed at the lack of action from the sideline to deal with Donncha O'Connor. The problem was obvious after 10 minutes yet nothing was done or even attempted. The 4 point difference at half time was largely down to O'Connor and still no change after ht.

The only positives were the expected collapse of the full back line didn't happen despite O'Connor pulling all the strings, McLoughlin was excellent Alan Dillon did what he usually does and the FF line wasn't too bad. In terms of winning big games though we need a lot more than that. We also learned, what most of us knew, that McG + Parsons is not a credible partnership.

[Foreverhopeful]

There is NO way andy moran and trev can both feature in a half-forward line. We need ALL our forwards scoring. Andy can but not when he's brought back into half-back line. We may as well have switched him and Mcloughlin. Andy isn't going to play that Dooher role. He just ends up out of the game.

[Maigheo Abu]

Aidan O'Shea drew 5 soft frees in Cork which most other refs wouldn't give. He was at the same crack today and it didn't work. Even going back to minor his refusal to lay off the ball has cost us dearly. Enough of a rant on Aidan he did his best. Hopefully we will learn alot from today. We never seem to learn anything from the games we win, or loose by a tight margin, hence the necessary changes have not being made. I was well impressed with Chris Barrett in both the games against Cork, it's more of him we need.
I know there is alot of pessimism out there tonight, but hopefully lessons will be learned by thoses who need them most.

[magickingdom]

anyone know what the attendance was today? there looked to be a good crowd there for the armagh/down but they all left for the cork/mayo game. the gaa have a mess on their hands if croke park is going to be empty for the nfl finals. looks awful. i was sad to see micko downplaying the league on the late late, its long overdue that the gaa took a leaf out of the irfus book and promoted the thing. had dublin made the final today there would have been some atmosphere there but thats not enough.

I don't get the IRFU reference.
What is it that they promote?

jinxy. if the irfu can get 20k+ into thomand pk for magners league games against the likes of  ospreys i think theres something to learn from them. 15 guys jumping on top of an oval shaped ball does nothing for me but it obviously works for a lot of people.

anyone got todays attendance?

[Jinxy]

anyone know what the attendance was today? there looked to be a good crowd there for the armagh/down but they all left for the cork/mayo game. the gaa have a mess on their hands if croke park is going to be empty for the nfl finals. looks awful. i was sad to see micko downplaying the league on the late late, its long overdue that the gaa took a leaf out of the irfus book and promoted the thing. had dublin made the final today there would have been some atmosphere there but thats not enough.

I don't get the IRFU reference.
What is it that they promote?

jinxy. if the irfu can get 20k+ into thomand pk for magners league games against the likes of  ospreys i think theres something to learn from them. 15 guys jumping on top of an oval shaped ball does nothing for me but it obviously works for a lot of people.

anyone got todays attendance?

Lets cut to the chase.
We have 3 professional rugby teams in this country (no offense Connacht).
They each represent an entire province.
Combined together, they make up our international team.
There is massive TV and print media coverage of these 3 teams.
Two of them have recently won Heineken cups.
It doesn't take much promotion to get 20 odd thousand to watch their home games.
If you want to hold the IRFU up as an example of how to promote games maybe it would be a better comparison to look at club rugby which draws pathetic crowds.

[magickingdom]

anyone know what the attendance was today? there looked to be a good crowd there for the armagh/down but they all left for the cork/mayo game. the gaa have a mess on their hands if croke park is going to be empty for the nfl finals. looks awful. i was sad to see micko downplaying the league on the late late, its long overdue that the gaa took a leaf out of the irfus book and promoted the thing. had dublin made the final today there would have been some atmosphere there but thats not enough.

I don't get the IRFU reference.
What is it that they promote?

jinxy. if the irfu can get 20k+ into thomand pk for magners league games against the likes of  ospreys i think theres something to learn from them. 15 guys jumping on top of an oval shaped ball does nothing for me but it obviously works for a lot of people.

anyone got todays attendance?

Lets cut to the chase.
We have 3 professional rugby teams in this country (no offense Connacht).
They each represent an entire province.
Combined together, they make up our international team.
There is massive TV and print media coverage of these 3 teams.
Two of them have recently won Heineken cups.
It doesn't take much promotion to get 20 odd thousand to watch their home games.
If you want to hold the IRFU up as an example of how to promote games maybe it would be a better comparison to look at club rugby which draws pathetic crowds.

i love sport, football/soccer/hurling/baseball/nfl/aussie rules. imo rugby is a tough sell, yet sell it does and big time in ireland. i would rather burn my bits then watch munster v the ospreys yet some of my family were there last night and loved it. so i think the gaa must be able to learn something from rugby, maybe scrap the provincial championship and run a combined championship and league, with the top 8 reaching a knock out stage? non events like today damage the gaa

[small white mayoman]

offense taken jinxy  as for the match well firstly i did not go to croke park could not bear to bring myself up to dublin for another match so i watched the game at home(glad i did) . hard to take any positives from it bar the peformance of Kevin mc louglin and chris barett and mort jnr . i know some of the posters are saying dillon had a good game but i don't recall him getting on the ball to much the last 20 minutes of the game . our distribution of the ball was brutul ( how many times did we kick frees to the cork player) as was our ball rentention . don't know where we go from here plus the same thing happened that happened against meath in the final 15 minutes we just threw in the towel and allowed cork to walk all over us. fair play to cork well deserved win and the team to beat in the ai imo

[moysider]

Johnno seemed ambiguous about this match during the week. He was making sounds like 'now we re in a league final we ll be going out to win it' kind of thing.  But it was nt convincing. As a result we looked like a team that was hoping not to lose by too much rather than bursting a gut to win. Both teams looked embarrassed at the end.
I believe most Mayo people got this vibe because there was no interest in this game to be honest.
This game doesn't matter much in itself. As we though might happen a few wheels came off - though not necessarily the ones we thought. Our half forward line was the worst line on the pitch and Trevor was shocking. Mayo easily broke even in possession in the first half but Cork just had to punish Mayo errors( daft and wild passing and shooting) to pull clear.
Its time to put lazy talk of hoodoos and other shit to bed once and for all. The real reason we lose these games are things like hunger, quality and poor tactics and coaching. Its time to get rid of these psychologists as well. What message is that giving to players - that they re not right in the head. If Johnno persists with this mumbo jumbo he should be fired. He should do his job as a coach. Here is a few things he could work on to make us much better when the serious stuff starts in Sligo.
Get Aidan O Sé to lay the ball off as a matter of priority. Bulldozing through when there is a player on the shoulder is not the right thing to do. If he does lay it off and go for the return he will score more himself as well.
Get others to lay it off as well - like Andy should have done at the end. Would nt have mattered to the result but its again the right thing to do. Others too delayed passing far too often.
Get men behind the ball quicker. People are saying Andy played too deep. Maybe but nobody was helping out the backs and as a result there was no pressure on shooters. Contrast that to the way Cork played. Basically our work rate today was way below what is required at this level. That needs to be sorted quick. Management now need more strings to their bow that just the third midfielder thing.
Get the best kickers to kick the ball and make sure others don't.
If we cant kick 45s then work some plays off them. Andy s attempt looked like a fat kid in primary school givin it the bull top. Cringeworthy.

Now selectors have their work cut out regarding selection. That was the great benefit from this game. They selected the only team they could today. Barrett and O Malley did fine( but O Malley need to stay with his man. In fact all our defenders are to quick to get sucked in and must learn to trust their colleagues). A bit of cover back would help as well.
O Sé and McGar seems the only midfield to go with now. And there is are huge issues with Trevor and Parsons.