All Ireland senior football final 2012 Donegal v Mayo

[Lar Naparka]

I see it looks like Colm Boyle won't start on sunday due to a longer than expected recovery from his virus. You can read the full details here , http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/barrett-may-start-for-mayo-as-boyle-ruled-out-208059.html . I see Darragh has gone for mayo in his Middle Third piece over in the times which is a surprise but deep down I don't think he's a fan of Donegal's style of play so that might have tempered his decision but either way it's a blow to " the nobody gives us a chance/respect Mayo line of thinking " . Still not sure what extra we can expect from Mayo in the match. I definitely think we'll target the first quarter and the 10 mins after half-time as periods to dominate like we have done in all our championship matches to date. Obviously the ideal scenario would be to dominate the first 50 mins and have a ten point lead like the Dublin game but I think even the most fanciful Mayo fan couldn't really expect that? Need a big shift in midfield for this game as I'm sure Donegal will have noticed that a collapse in this area generally leads to a collapse for the whole match where Mayo are concerned in an All Ireland.

Cripes! I've just read in the Indo that Keegan is unlikely to make it either. I haven't time to go and look for the link  just now but if someone doesn't post it, I'll come back on in the afternoon sometime.

[Mayo4Sam]

I had these two articles saved from a couple of years ago
Looks like JH had a good read of the first one! Powerful second article






It's raining in Mayo heartland and hearts as the inquests begin 

Mayo reaction to All-Ireland SFC humiliation: Keith Duggan on the anger and disappointment in the county at their latest setback 

In a Shakespearean touch, it has not stopped raining in the west since Sunday. The rain buckets down on Mayo and there is nothing for it but to bemoan another distorted and inglorious All-Ireland defeat.

Mickey Moran and John Morrison have, understandably, asked for a few days of solitude. Morrison did make encouraging sounds on Sunday night after reviewing the day's events and promising the management would, given time, sit down with the players individually and try to work out what was going on in their heads. 

He vowed Mayo would be back, which was at least an early indication the Ulster men are planning to return for the second year of their managerial term.

For the players, the Mayo club championship looms large, but after a desperately subdued return to the Welcome Inn in Castlebar, the squad officially broke up, a dismaying end to a greatly promising season. 

Much more so than in 2004, when there were clear signs that Mayo were labouring in the build-up to the All-Ireland final, the nature of last Sunday's defeat remains inexplicable and, for many supporters, unacceptable. 

The reaction lies between crushing disappointment and outright anger.

After sitting through The Sunday Game as a panellist, former Mayo star Kevin McStay headed home and wrote a very strong column for the Mayo News arguing that enough was enough. 

"I wasn't angry, it wasn't that," he explains, "as an ex-player, you know what it feels like to get walloped and it isn't pleasant to pick up a newspaper or listen to a radio and see a former player cutting the socks of you. But driving home, I thought of my own people who came over here from Boston thinking, 'God, if they won and I wasn't there, I'd never forgive myself'. Nobody put a gun to their heads, but it was an awful lot of time and effort and hundreds of people did the same. 

"And it was hard to square off that collective effort with what we saw on the field. The bit that killed me was that apparent lack of ordinary effort, the simple blocking and tackling. That feeling that this game was the biggest day in their lives. 

"And I have been critical of David Brady in the past, but I take my hat off to him because he stood up to be counted when he went in. But I felt that there weren't that many standing with him."

Amid the disappointment, theories and criticisms abound. That Mayo did not set out with an obvious contingency plan to counter the threat of Kieran Donaghy has been the chief criticism. But there were problems all over the field and Kerry were masterful in quietening Mayo's key men. 

As Jack O'Connor remarked with a satisfied grimace on Sunday evening, they "cracked" the Mayo midfield. Contrary to pre-match expectations, Tommy Griffin was the key man. The heavyweight pair of Darragh Ó Sé and Ronan McGarritty sort of cancelled each other out. 

"Yeah, but Mayo needed more than for Darragh Ó Sé to be quiet," counters McStay. "We needed Ronan McGarrity to be huge."

Once again, Tom O'Sullivan hounded Conor Mortimer, although a substantial argument can be made that the Shrule man never got quality ball and was playing a dead match before he got his first meaningful touch. 

Aidan O'Mahony marked Ciarán McDonald diligently, tracking the Mayo playmaker back and coolly kicking two points when the opportunities presented themselves as the Crossmolina man, with increasing desperation, tried to make things happen. 

"And the explanation for Alan Dillon's game is that once Mayo's overall game plan was obliterated, his role effectively disappeared," adds McStay.

Still, it is the minor details that haunt him. He instances a sequence when a clearance by Séamus Moynihan was half-blocked down. A Mayo player, racing into defence, was too distracted or rushed to notice that the ball was about to fall near him - as he tore back to cover, Paul Galvin was racing the other way, alive to the break. 

For Donaghy's goal, he noticed a defender was torn between his natural defensive instinct to race to David Heaney's assistance and a fear of leaving his own man unmarked. That second of hesitation was fatal. "We were bamboozled. And there are plenty of examples, I don't want to pick on individual players." 

Anyway, it is as a unit that Mayo failed. And as the team and county go back to the drawing board, there may be a loudening clamour for a fundamental change of the fast and open attacking game that Mayo play.

Mayo are comfortably a Division One team and, as regular provincial championship contenders, a reasonable bet for the last eight of the championship. But there is a mounting feeling that if they are to push on, they will need to play a more sinister and narrow-minded game. 

"I don't know if that is the way," argues McStay. "Our style is our style. And when it is good, it is very pleasing to the eye. If we were to go the other way and try and embrace the darker side, as they say, I am not sure we are cute enough to pull it off. 

"Take a guy like David Brady, one of the toughest players on the Mayo team, but I am not sure he would be able to adapt to playing the game on the borders of the rules the whole time."

Like most Mayo football people, McStay is uncertain as to where or how things will go from here. Leaving Croke Park last week, he met a former Kerry great who was genuinely troubled and perplexed about Mayo's fretful showing. But speaking of the three most impressive forwards who played for Mayo this year, he noted that only Dillon, the industrious, roving wing forward, would have fitted comfortably into the contemporary demands of the Kerry panel. 

"What he was saying was that only Dillon, with his direct approach and incredible work ethic, would have been acceptable to Kerry. I suppose that is a reflection of how we play the game in Mayo. There is an extravagance to our game. 

"Being honest, I suppose I liked being that bit extravagant when I was playing myself. And I look back and think, God above, why didn't someone grab me and shout stop. But I suppose it goes back to the way we play the game." 

And all they can do is keep on playing and keep clinging to the word that has trailed them all summer - faith.

© 2006 The Irish Times

Weep not for Mayo; look to yourselves
Keith Duggan 

Sideline Cut: On Sunday last, 82,000 people witnessed Kerry reconfirm their status as the insatiable, deathless winners of the Sam Maguire. Their 34th All-Ireland championship was achieved at a canter that seemed unimaginable at mid-summer. 

And the rest of the country can but admire Kerry and wonder at the internal dynamic that pushes them towards a need for multiple Celtic Cross medals. If it is a form of greed, it is a magnificent one. And, of course, the sense of entitlement and composure that seems to possess Kerry players and teams on September Sundays makes the plight of Mayo, once again cast in the role of beautiful losers, seem all the more poignant and pitiful. 

By freezing against Kerry twice within three years, Mayo have become an object of pity and perhaps derision among football counties across the land. Kerry won another All-Ireland title through gargantuan physical effort, through consummate football ability, through mental toughness, through arrogance and through a grim-minded adaptation of the more negative realities of the modern game. They look well primed to win more All-Irelands this decade, and the thing about Kerry is they know how to lose and win with a touch of class - they have had plenty of practice. 

The thing I admired most about Kerry on Sunday last was that they destroyed their opponents without once belittling them. Kerry All-Ireland football victories are generally a reflection of the better nature of the game and of sport in general, and in that sense, last Sunday's finale was heartening. 

But as Kerry house the Sam Maguire in all the familiar abodes, the story of Mayo is the more interesting part of the equation of this year's final. Once again, the totality of their collapse meant what ought to have been the climactic minutes of a long, gruelling championship were played out in muted, slightly hallucinatory circumstances. As Kevin O'Neill noted, one could write a thesis on the psyche of Mayo teams on All-Ireland final days. It was as though the sight of Kerry jerseys induced an LSD-type flashback that had a physical as well as a psychological effect - because some of the Mayo guys seemed to be moving in a slower motion. Afterwards, Mayo fans spoke of their hurt, embarrassment and frustration, all of which should be remembered. 

But it is important to remember that since 1996, only Mayo have reached All-Ireland football finals as frequently as Kerry. Mayo know how to get there - which is more than can be said for the majority of other serious football counties. Already, the revisionism has begun on the management style of MickeyMoran/John Morrison, which can be now slammed by Hard Chaw traditionalists as New Age, all josh sticks and fancy jargon. But the fact is, they got to a league semi-final, and won a provincial championship and a semi-final that has been deemed The Greatest Match of All Time. That hardly constitutes a bad year. 

The criticism over the removal of O'Neill last Sunday has substance; and maybe even the disapproval of not starting David Brady is justified. But it ought to be remembered Moran and Morrison resurrected O'Neill's career and persuaded Brady out of retirement. 

As for the performance of the players, it is wrong and curmudgeonly to harangue them for behaving like the amateurs they are in the face of another dog-whipping by Kerry. The truth of it is that very few of us can even imagine what it is like to be out there in Croke Park in those conditions. 

Maybe there is truth in the general belief that for Mayo to actually win an All-Ireland, they must develop a meaner streak. On Sunday, James Nallen's record of one yellow card in a decade of service was presented to him and he was asked if maybe he ought to have been a bit more cynical over the years. Nallen's reply was dignified and profound: he played the game how he played the game; clean was his philosophy. If Mayo wanted an alternative centre back whose philosophy involved the removal of opponents' teeth, then they were welcome to select him. 

Mayo play clean and they play stylish and on days like Sunday, when it goes bad, it makes them look like dandies and pretenders. Over the past few days I kept on wondering how the football life of Ciarán McDonald would have evolved if, for whatever reason, he had moved to Kerry at the age of 15. McDonald has, for better or worse, been the bright, burning emblem of the best and worst of Mayo football. In Kerry, flair is important and celebrated but fairly rigidly harnessed into the team ethic. It could be argued that in Kerry hands, McDonald would have become a more fully realised player and added a few All-Ireland medals to his name in the process. 

But maybe in those circumstances, some gift to Gaelic football, something intangible and arguably more precious than a medal, would have been lost. In Mayo, McDonald has, under several managements, played as an out-and-out free spirit. As late as this year, arguments raged as to whether his highly strung, daring genius was detrimental to his team and anathema to the speed and urgency of the modern game. McDonald infuriates some observers, who believe him to be self-indulgent on the ball and ponderous, complicating the fundamentals. Their frustration is understandable. 

But I have come to think of McDonald as someone helplessly in thrall to the finer possibilities of Gaelic football, a guy who plays the main game - the contest we all watch on the field - but also a game in his mind where he is constantly and helplessly computing passes and angles that the rest of us cannot see, partly to put a colleague in a scoring position but also for the plain aesthetic joy of it. 

Maybe he does not possess that eye for the main chance, that winner's coldness that so many managers and players will tell you counts for everything - although he was pretty icy in clipping the score of the year against Dublin a month ago. But here is the thing: in Ciarán McDonald, Mayo have a player who can play the game of Gaelic football like nobody else on earth. His capacity for elevating what is a fairly simple and rudimentary game into the realm of the sublime, often through a single foot pass, has to be classified as a form of genius. It will not always win you the championship match and, when it deserts him, as it did in the second half last Sunday, the sight can be shocking and dismaying to behold. But the fact remains he can ordain prosaic league Sundays and high-octane championship days that are brutally loaded with effort and brutally lacking in class with one transcendent moment that stays crystal clear and alive long after the season ends. If the game has no room for the celebration of a gift like that, then we might as well say to hell with the game. 

There is no denying Mayo and her talisman are in a dark and uncertain place right now. But only one county is fully entitled to feel pity for Mayo. That is Kerry. And Kerry are too respectful, too cautious and too damn hungry to ever allow pity to come into it. If you belong to any other football county and shake your head at the plight of Mayo, you are only fooling yourself. The old adage that winning is everything in Gaelic games is a complete nonsense, except for the footballers of Kerry and the hurlers of Cork and Kilkenny. If winning is everything, we may as well end the championship now. For the vast majority of counties, the idea of winning the big prize is just a summer conceit, a mass delusion. 

And if Mayo are the beautiful losers of Gaelic games, then most other counties are just regular, everyday losers with nothing to distinguish them. Don't pity Mayo, because they will be turning up and beating you before too long. 

© 2006 The Irish Times

[cadence]

Well boys, Daragh O'Se is going for a Mayo win in his IT column. And he'll not be the last who'll swing as the backlash against the hype begins, just as I predicted.

liking the shi'te incident implied by winnie the pooh. funny old bear.

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=winnie+the+pooh+pulse+letterkenny&num=10&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=615&tbm=isch&tbnid=3R8mE9MAwD3pMM:&imgrefurl=http://www.facebook.com/pulseletterkenny&docid=ZwOTEkmSoCQcpM&imgurl=http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/c99.0.403.403/p403x403/377278_498558473506024_1952690540_n.jpg&w=403&h=403&ei=waZZUJeHEeLZ0QXJzICACg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=113&vpy=132&dur=6771&hovh=225&hovw=225&tx=130&ty=137&sig=102171983799036322580&page=1&tbnh=131&tbnw=131&start=0&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:76

[Crete Boom]

Well boys, Daragh O'Se is going for a Mayo win in his IT column. And he'll not be the last who'll swing as the backlash against the hype begins, just as I predicted.

liking the shi'te incident implied by winnie the pooh. funny old bear.

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=winnie+the+pooh+pulse+letterkenny&num=10&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=615&tbm=isch&tbnid=3R8mE9MAwD3pMM:&imgrefurl=http://www.facebook.com/pulseletterkenny&docid=ZwOTEkmSoCQcpM&imgurl=http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/c99.0.403.403/p403x403/377278_498558473506024_1952690540_n.jpg&w=403&h=403&ei=waZZUJeHEeLZ0QXJzICACg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=113&vpy=132&dur=6771&hovh=225&hovw=225&tx=130&ty=137&sig=102171983799036322580&page=1&tbnh=131&tbnw=131&start=0&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:76

Lads I can't remember Darragh going for Donegal in any of his predictions as I said in a previous post I would guess he isn't a fan of Donegals style of play. I'm sure he won't be the last to swing back the other way in the next couple of days as a few journo's look to make a name for themselves without any of the hard work"! Sure who gives a shite about these, just like Donegal didn't become invincible over night they also didn't become an over hyped mentally frail All Ireland losing team after a couple of bar stool esque opinion pieces!

[cadence]

Well boys, Daragh O'Se is going for a Mayo win in his IT column. And he'll not be the last who'll swing as the backlash against the hype begins, just as I predicted.

liking the shi'te incident implied by winnie the pooh. funny old bear.

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=winnie+the+pooh+pulse+letterkenny&num=10&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=615&tbm=isch&tbnid=3R8mE9MAwD3pMM:&imgrefurl=http://www.facebook.com/pulseletterkenny&docid=ZwOTEkmSoCQcpM&imgurl=http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/c99.0.403.403/p403x403/377278_498558473506024_1952690540_n.jpg&w=403&h=403&ei=waZZUJeHEeLZ0QXJzICACg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=113&vpy=132&dur=6771&hovh=225&hovw=225&tx=130&ty=137&sig=102171983799036322580&page=1&tbnh=131&tbnw=131&start=0&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:76

Lads I can't remember Darragh going for Donegal in any of his predictions as I said in a previous post I would guess he isn't a fan of Donegals style of play. I'm sure he won't be the last to swing back the other way in the next couple of days as a few journo's look to make a name for themselves without any of the hard work"! Sure who gives a shite about these, just like Donegal didn't become invincible over night they also didn't become an over hyped mentally frail All Ireland losing team after a couple of bar stool esque opinion pieces!

i read j70's "swing" as just going one way or the other, mayo or us, starting off nuetral. could be that darragh thinks mayo will win, or that he likes mayo's style more, or both!

i do like that bear though!

[AZOffaly]

Yep. Well done Antrim CLG. I only hope it's the tout and not some poor unfortunate from Mayo or Donegal that gets burned on this. This is from the Antrim GAA Guestbook.


Name : Antrim GAA
19 September 2012
A Chairde,
It has come to our attention that 2 Football tickets, which were allocated to a club in Antrim, are currently on sale via a social networking site.
Theses tickets have now been cancelled and are totally worthless both to the seller and any potential buyer.
Should any other tickets be offered the same action will be taken

[screenexile]

Yep. Well done Antrim CLG. I only hope it's the tout and not some poor unfortunate from Mayo or Donegal that gets burned on this. This is from the Antrim GAA Guestbook.


Name : Antrim GAA
19 September 2012
A Chairde,
It has come to our attention that 2 Football tickets, which were allocated to a club in Antrim, are currently on sale via a social networking site.
Theses tickets have now been cancelled and are totally worthless both to the seller and any potential buyer.
Should any other tickets be offered the same action will be taken

Brilliant News!!!

[johnneycool]

I see there's a set of three premium level tickets for sale on gumtree.

Call Louise today on 07554503812

I just wonder what she wants for them?

[J OGorman]

I see there's a set of three premium level tickets for sale on gumtree.

Call Louise today on 07554503812

I just wonder what she wants for them?

£90 each she says

[oakleafgael]

I see there's a set of three premium level tickets for sale on gumtree.

Call Louise today on 07554503812

I just wonder what she wants for them?

£90 each she says

LOUISE ALL IRELAND SCAMMER BLOCK 522
London
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SCAMMER ALERT

HE SCAMMER ME OUT OF 320 AND THEN A GIRL SPEAKS

DONT DEAL WITH THESE!!

[Lar Naparka]

Here's the link to the report on Lee Keegan's injury that I mentioned in my last post:
http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-football/donegal-fans-hit-by-60000-ticket-tax-3233312.html

The bit about Lee is near the end.

"Meanwhile, Lee Keegan (pictured) is unlikely to make the Mayo team as he continues to recover from the broken finger that ended his All-Ireland semi-final against Dublin.

Mayo won't finalise their team until later in the week, but Keegan looks to have run out of time. Chris Barrett and Richie Feeney are vying for the vacant position."

[Farrandeelin]

This seems like the longest week ever. But to make it worse, I woke this morning thinking it was Thursday!  At least tomorrow will be Thursday. But still it would be nicer if it was Friday tomorrow, and the weekend and all that goes with it!

[Mayo4Sam]

I refuse to believe that you'd miss an all Ireland because of a broken finger, speaking as a man who has several mangled fingers (more due to not being able to catch the ball in the first place). I know it looked awful bad but I'd imagine from his perspective he'd want to be close to collapsing in pain before he'd miss the final?


On Dara O'Shea, he said earlier in the year that the team that beat Donegal would win the all-ireland

[Crete Boom]

I refuse to believe that you'd miss an all Ireland because of a broken finger, speaking as a man who has several mangled fingers (more due to not being able to catch the ball in the first place). I know it looked awful bad but I'd imagine from his perspective he'd want to be close to collapsing in pain before he'd miss the final?


On Dara O'Shea, he said earlier in the year that the team that beat Donegal would win the all-ireland

Didn't know that so fair play to him , he must be picking Mayo on the basis of what he saw in the last few matches so. He did qualify his pick by saying he has got it wrong in predictions with Donegal more often than not!
On Lee's injury I played a few important egg ball games with a couple of broken fingers but missed out on a large part of a sesaon when I got a nasty fracture ( not a straight break) on my index finger so it can be funny sometimes with finger injuries. If he can't catch a ball then he's not much use!

[Captain Obvious]

And she was only 43% pregnant.

In 2003 I got mine the Saturday afternoon in a pub in Dublin
2005 outside Quinns 2 hours before the game
2008 the Friday night.

Where there's a will you'll get there. You'll get lads from neutral counties who'll drink all day Saturday, wake up on Sunday hungover and continue on the rip, selling their tickets to fund the drink. Although the tickets are around 80ish, if you really want them and are worried and upset, you'll need to break the piggy bank and stay overnight the night before to boost your chances.

Also, with Utd/Liverpool followed by Man City/Arsenal on that day, hang around Dubs.

Dublin supporters have more interest in English soccer games than their own minors?