Mayo v Galway 26.6.11

[macdanger2]

Wouldn't have a problem with Hennelly taking the frees but he'd need to have a better return from 2/7.

On a separate point and I'm possibly being overly critical here but the point McG scored shouldn't have even been attempted. 9 out of 10 times, that shot goes wide and is wasted ball. Players should be coached not to attempt that type of shot at all, instead they should work a better position and play the percentage shots.

[mjg]

If ye bred ciaran mac with cora now wouldnt ye have some throughbred of a free taker or better still imagine if ye bred ciaran with conor

[Turlough O Carolan]

If ye bred ciaran mac with cora now wouldnt ye have some throughbred of a free taker or better still imagine if ye bred ciaran with conor

Ciaran McDonald was a mighty player but strangely enough he, too, had problems with 45s.

[mannix]

Obviously they need to train somebody that has the range.

[Lar Naparka]

If ye bred ciaran mac with cora now wouldnt ye have some throughbred of a free taker or better still imagine if ye bred ciaran with conor

Ciaran McDonald was a mighty player but strangely enough he, too, had problems with 45s.

He had indeed and he also had problems at times with close in frees at times.
I think it's fair to say that unpredictability was his hallmark. Maurice Sheridan is the only free taker of note I can think of unless I go back to the days of Jinking Joe and Seamus O'Dowd.
Sheridan paraphrased Arnold Palmer one time and said that the harder he practiced the luckier he got.
He spent hours on end honing his skills and I very much doubt that any of the present players follow his example. The only times you find success before work is in the dictionary as an old teacher used to say.
McStay was generally accurate but has woefully short range; I recall him landing 21 yard frees on top of the net time after time.
Right now, we could have a serious problem in the making unless some of the potential free takers follow Sheridan's example. A problem became apparent at Ruislip and was compounded at Castlebar. By the time the CF comes around, we could have lads jibbing at the thought of taking 14 yard frees!

[RedandGreenSniper]

Wouldn't have a problem with Hennelly taking the frees but he'd need to have a better return from 2/7.

On a separate point and I'm possibly being overly critical here but the point McG scored shouldn't have even been attempted. 9 out of 10 times, that shot goes wide and is wasted ball. Players should be coached not to attempt that type of shot at all, instead they should work a better position and play the percentage shots.

McGarrity hardly ever misses from that range. He has scored some amount of points for Mayo and Ballina from that right side pocket. When you see him lining up from there you can almost always mark it down.

[spuds]

I think it's fair to say that unpredictability was his hallmark. Maurice Sheridan is the only free taker of note I can think of unless I go back to the days of Jinking Joe and Seamus O'Dowd.

Michael Fitzmaurice was a quality freetaker, could hit them from distance also.

[westmayo]

McGarrity hardly ever misses from that range. He has scored some amount of points for Mayo and Ballina from that right side pocket. When you see him lining up from there you can almost always mark it down.

Totally agree with that, it's the one spot on the pitch you can nearly bet your house on McGarrity will land one from,

[kevmy]

I think lads are a little harsh on Hennellys free-taking here. He nailed two and went very close with two more, one of which was near the sideline on his wrong side.

He slipped on two of them which won't happen on a dry day - or I'd say on a wet day again as he's probably learnt his lesson.

He only missed one badly. I would imagine even the best free takers would have missed two out of the 7 he had the last day.

[Lar Naparka]

I think it's fair to say that unpredictability was his hallmark. Maurice Sheridan is the only free taker of note I can think of unless I go back to the days of Jinking Joe and Seamus O'Dowd.

Michael Fitzmaurice was a quality freetaker, could hit them from distance also.

He was a good one alright. I overlooked him when I started reminiscing; probably because he was overshadowed so much by McStay.

[macdanger2]

McGarrity hardly ever misses from that range. He has scored some amount of points for Mayo and Ballina from that right side pocket. When you see him lining up from there you can almost always mark it down.

Totally agree with that, it's the one spot on the pitch you can nearly bet your house on McGarrity will land one from,

It's still poor shot selection IMO. Ye've probably watched him a lot more at club level than I have but I'd imagine that the ones he scores are more memorable than the ones he misses.

Regardless of who's kicking it, I think players should be coached not to take it on from an angle like that unless he has no other option - statistically you are far more likely to put the ball wide and that's a waste of possession.

[muppet]

McGarrity hardly ever misses from that range. He has scored some amount of points for Mayo and Ballina from that right side pocket. When you see him lining up from there you can almost always mark it down.

Totally agree with that, it's the one spot on the pitch you can nearly bet your house on McGarrity will land one from,

It's still poor shot selection IMO. Ye've probably watched him a lot more at club level than I have but I'd imagine that the ones he scores are more memorable than the ones he misses.

Regardless of who's kicking it, I think players should be coached not to take it on from an angle like that unless he has no other option - statistically you are far more likely to put the ball wide and that's a waste of possession.

Statistically we shouldn't waste our money paying to see Mayo in an AIF, but we wouldn't miss it wold we?

[RedandGreenSniper]

McGarrity hardly ever misses from that range. He has scored some amount of points for Mayo and Ballina from that right side pocket. When you see him lining up from there you can almost always mark it down.

Totally agree with that, it's the one spot on the pitch you can nearly bet your house on McGarrity will land one from,

It's still poor shot selection IMO. Ye've probably watched him a lot more at club level than I have but I'd imagine that the ones he scores are more memorable than the ones he misses.

Regardless of who's kicking it, I think players should be coached not to take it on from an angle like that unless he has no other option - statistically you are far more likely to put the ball wide and that's a waste of possession.

Statistically you or me might be far more likely to put the ball wide than score but I've seen McGarrity line up so often in that pocket that when he misses it is remarkable and I only remember the once, it was an FBD game. Look at where it was from as well. The angle wasn't that unforgiving either, it probably looked like a better point than it was because of the booming air he put on it.

[IolarCoisCuain]

Wouldn't have a problem with Hennelly taking the frees but he'd need to have a better return from 2/7.

On a separate point and I'm possibly being overly critical here but the point McG scored shouldn't have even been attempted. 9 out of 10 times, that shot goes wide and is wasted ball. Players should be coached not to attempt that type of shot at all, instead they should work a better position and play the percentage shots.

I've been wondering about this comment since yesterday. I knew you had a point about shot selection Macdanger but I remember my reaction on Sunday to McGarrity's point being totally at odds with yours.

And then today, the penny dropped: off all the bad shot selections we saw on Sunday, you chose the one that went over and broke Galway hearts doing it. You chose a shot that went over the bar and not any of the ones that were missed. That's very odd, if you don't mind me saying.

[macdanger2]

My point is that it doesn't matter whether the shot goes over or not - it's easy to see that it's poor shot selection when it goes wide but when it goes over, the general reaction is that it's a great point when in fact it was the same poor decision as the one that went wide but you got lucky.

When you have limited possession, you need to make the most of it and that means being disciplined when taking shots, not just "having a go" cos it went over last time - there are exceptions to this of course e.g. Gooch, MacDanger, Maurice Fitz etc.

If a team takes most of it's shots from relatively central positions less than 40 yards out, odds are they'll score more than a team who takes shot from all over the place.