70 thoughts on “Club Championship fixtures”

1. Thanks Willie Joe.
   Time for people to get back on the wagon after last weeks dissapointment and no better way than to watch the club championship.

   A lot of people quick to judge county players without seeing them properly. Here’s everyone’s chance to see what’s coming through and who may deserve a call up for next season.

   Also, last year’s championship was fantastic. The best in years, hopefully the same again.

2. It’s all there Willie Joe, in fairness to you.
   Great stuff, thanks.

3. Willie Joe, it’s hard to believe it’s been over a week since Croke Park. It’s been a very tough week. I’m so disappointed that I haven’t been ever able to bring myself to listen to your all Ireland review podcast (the first time ever as you know well Willie Joe)
   However a new week is upon us and with new week is a new beginning and the new club season. So with this in mind a new podcast is needed. And you and Rob are the men for the job!!!!!!!!
   I’m looking forward to the in-depth previews, players to look out for, predictions from across all 3 championships. Senior, intermediate and junior.
   Looking forward to it Willie Joe and Rob. Up Mayo.

4. Biggest surprises in the league came out of div 2, louisburgh and ballinrobe promoted and crossmolina relegated to div 3.
   Hard to pick a winner of senior championship, probably harder to predict intermediate. Looks to me like we’re in for an exciting few weeks ahead.

5. Looking forward to this, club will always come first. No better tonic

   Just like last year impossible to call. Ballintubber greatly hampered without cillian, while they had 3 of the worst performers in the all Ireland final – can these guys bounce back with a point to prove, or is their confidence shot? Plenty of experience in this squad, and no strangers to winter football

   Castlebar in a state of transition, wouldn’t fully write them off though, they’ve lost a few big names in recent seasons but still plenty of club stalwarts there.

   Breaffy, just like mayo, just can’t get over the line on the big day. A lot of eyes will be on Aidan, but younger brother Conor has actually been their most influential player for a while now, imo. Flynn, Reilly, Fadden were all excellent at stages last campaign also. Ruane is a huge asset at this level too. On paper should be there or thereabouts as ever, maybe it actually will be their year

   Knockmore have serious talent, two in a row won’t be easy though – and while they used their momentum well last year they’ll have to start all over again now with a target on their back. Orme and McHale made no real impression for mayo this year, again will these lads (and Kev Mc) come out all guns blazing with a big point to prove to Horan, or is their confidence rocked after the summer? Summer football probably suited them more last year, with their style of play, good direct attacking football

   Westport have plenty of county panelists, don’t know is there enough experience or cuteness there yet though to eke out tight wins in the knockouts. Fairly clueless at times when it came to the crunch v breaffy last year. Keegan will inevitably be tasked with marking the opposition’s strongest forward, somewhat taking him out of the game in an attacking sense. Keane has made himself into a good focal point of the attack, mcdonagh should have no shortage of motivation to prove Horan wrong, while it’s time for the two Morans to make the step up. Will be there or thereabouts I feel

   Ballina – hard to know – seems to be passing them by, plenty big names , but fairly young and can they dig out ugly wins if required? Perhaps this is the year they’ll step up, knocking firmly on the door the last two seasons

   Ballaghaddereen will be a force – match v Westport next week is a cracker, still plenty experience and big names , will be key to atone for the breaffy game last year. Will have a huge say

   Can’t see anyone else truly contending, garrymore, charlestown and aghamore could go on runs but don’t have enough to go all the way. Claremorris v neighbours Davitts will be like a county final next week, the winner certain to stay up, the loser likely confined to relegation group.

6. Thanks for that Ciaran, that’s a great overview of the main runners and riders for the Moclair Cup.

   On the podcast, we’ve no plans right now to seek an interview with James Horan. We are, though, mapping out plans for regular episodes from here until the end of the year. The focus will be shifting to the club Championships but, Turfman, we won’t be doing a show along the lines you’ve outlined.

7. Thanks very much Willie Joe for all the content this week. I was very disappointed by the atmosphere from the Mayo supporters last Saturday (even worse than the 2013 final I feel) so I look forward to getting out and meeting many great supporters over the coming weeks at the club games. And hopefully several excellent midfielders and forwards too! Up Mayo.

8. anyone at Wesport Breaffy game last night, how did county panel players do, especially A O Shea and Mark Moran.same for Ballina game.

9. Peter
   I was in the Cussack stand near the Hill. Yes Mayo fans were voiceiferous in the first half as we were still in the game! Faraoir in the second half there was complete silence from our fans as our team were not competing on the field. In summary no-one can blame the fans as we outnumbered the the Tyrone fans by 3:1!
   Le cunadh De let’s keep supporting our team by supporting the Mayo GAA lotto etc!
   Bigi linn

10. culmore – Aidan O’Shea, Rob Hennelly, Mattie Ruane, Lee Keegan and Eoghan McLaughlin were not playing. Conor O’Shea did quite well for Breaffy. Mark Moran came off the bench and looked lively. Set up a goal chance and scored a point. Fionn McDonnagh and Rory Brickendon started but were quiet enough. Ben Doyle also came off the bench.

11. Peter Neary I agree with your post regarding the regrettable atmosphere on here all week. I would stop short of referring to them a supporters. A more accurate description would be blog posters.

12. @PJMcManus, It’s clear @Peter Neary is referring to the atmosphere in Croke Park.

    What type of atmosphere would be appropriate in the last week and what would your own definition of a supporter be ?

    What about JP McManus of Limerick, would he need to travel from Barbados to watch his local club every time they take the field in order to be classed as a supporter.

    Or the Mayo man or woman who’s based in London or New York, is he not entitled to support Mayo ?

    I think if anyone were to walk into a bar anywhere in the world and see someone in a Mayo jersey and try to tell them they are not a Mayo supporter, they’d get a two worded answer.

    The last thing we want is some sort of class system of supporter or any prerequisite.

    I didn’t see a lot of evidence of the Mayo supporters trying to lift the team in Croke Park when they needed it so while we may have the numbers the masses are only really vocal when the team is playing well.

    Maybe that needs looking at.

13. Just watched the second half. From the 40-55 min (key time frame in any match) we were all over Tyrone. We were the faster, hungrier and the more skillful team by a distance (chances-missed aside). We moved the ball at pace and got into scoring positions. The McShane goal was unforgivable but we still recovered from it. Stephen Coen’s drive forward around the 55min mark was unreal. (I think the Kev Mcloughlin point resulted from it). There were so many times where the momentum could have really swung in our favour. Tyrone just held us out. Even after the McShane goal they missed opportunities and looked very nervy. However, they got that second goal at the right time and this was the killer.

    The two clear leaders for us were Lee and S Coen. Unfathomable how Aido wasn’t taken off shortly after half time. He had no meaningful touch of the ball in the second half, yet despite this his colleagues still had the will to drive forward and try to attack with purpose. This was the time to make a change, similar to the Dublin match. It was unbelievably poor management that James refused to do this.

    Conor’s misses killed us as they were at crucial times. I can understand James leaving him on until he did because of the amount of ball he was getting on in advanced positions. But as Malacky Clerkin said on the pod, he left 1-4 after him in an All ireland final, and it will be hard for Conor to recover from that.

    The final 10 are difficult to comment on. The game was over really, with each of our misses another nail in our coffin. Our heads were gone at that point.

14. The second half had errie similarities to the beginning of the second half v Dubs. We’d bags of chances for scores, we were on top at the crucial time (championship quarter), but we failed to convert. It looked to me that we did believe we could win, up to a point, of course, because our missed shots smacked of a lack-of-belief. It’s hard to take. The difference is that unlike the Dubs, Tyrone didn’t collapse. But they were there for the taking in a massive way.

    The question is, can the players see a way to right this wrong? It’s unlikely they’ll ever get a better opportunity than last Saturday. And even if they do improve, Tyrone and others will also improve. The difference is, we’ll now be up against even more teams who have the belief that comes with winning All Ireland medals.

15. While there were lots of positives to our movement and attacking play (ie 4 goal chances) I’d agree that we still played with too much chaos and lacked control and structure. But this is James’ style, and maybe he sets his team this way because he sees certain limitations there. Dammit, we were still only millimetres away, and if the penalty goes in, or if a couple of those points go over at crucial times, it’s a different game.

    At starting point for 2022 could be to at try and bring more control to our matches. Less emotion, less leaving things to chance, less unpredictability.

16. @Liberal role in the tie, even with the missed chances which is something any manager has to factor in even before the game starts we still had enough in our locker to beat Tyrone had we had a game plan to negate their threats and take in game action when required.

    Had we done that we would have pulled clear of Tyrone as we had the legs on them as well, their game is draining and you could see they were tiring.

    They must be still thinking this is a dream, the vet and the solicitor wiped the floor with us on the sideline.

    Our decade of knocking on the door meant absolutely nothing, brains won the day.

    It’s a simple game complicated by BS and there’s clearly no BS in Tyrone, they are able to figure out how to get the best out of what they have and stifle the opposition game plan and strengths, they won four out of their last five finals and sideline intelligence was a significant factor in every victory.

    Back of beer mat stuff.

17. We’re not still going on about
    The all ireland final are we? This thread is for club championship chat it’s well truly time to move on and get out next week and support our clubs no luck in the draw or raffle needed loads of tickets available

18. @Glorydays, people will still talk about this latest All-Ireland calamity in 30 years from now, never mind eight days later.

    I don’t think there’s any brushing under the carpet here, if people don’t discuss and debate as much as possible then we are destined to remain on the same road indefinitely and it’s a horrible road that we must get off.

    What do you think the main topic of conversation is at club games, it’s the same as here for football people anyway.

19. Aside from the obvious impediment of the pressure from the ‘weight of history’, we must continue to ask if there were any other more controllable actions that management could have taken. I think there were.

20. Fair enough Viper it’s a free country I prefer to try and move on from the latest fiasco

21. @Glorydays, I understand that because it would do peoples head in but I think it’s definitely something that needs to be revisited and kept in the spotlight to a certain degree.

    To be fair I think most people are just sharing their pain and anger, bottling it all up isn’t ideal either.

    But to solve anything you must first identify what the clear and obvious problems are.

    I don’t think we would be as angry or disappointed had we been beaten by 10 points against Kerry in the final but this was a winnable game even without Cillian and if we cannot manage that then we are actually at nothing so action must be taken, the question is will the powers that be actually understand what’s required.

    Tyrone are no better than Mayo but they are smarter and if you go into a game without smarts, you may as well stay at home.

    We’re living on this speed, strength and conditioning game to get us so far but apart from that what else have we got to our game, are we expecting one trick to win us an All-Ireland and have we the ability to actually be able to properly analyze the opposition and come up with the necessary tweaks to beat them when it matters ?

    Clearly not, and until we do, we will continue to fall short.

22. You make a lot of sense viper and we are all feeling the
    Frustration. I have to admit this defeat felt like a death in the family was really tough for a few days and this blog was a Godsend to release that emotion. But we need to bring our thoughts on this to our club delegates, County board and Liam Moffatt. My thinking on it is next year will be a year wasted cos Horan won’t change and it’s we’ll known he doesn’t listen to his selectors. Horan has done loads for Mayo football but he won’t win Sam not now after losing 4 all Ireland’s as a manager and 2 as a player so I am going to bury my head In the club championship and hope for a fresh approach in 2023 cos nothing will change in 2022 it will be Horanball all the way until we are found out again

23. Looking forward to the club games and seeing some of the panel getting back on the horse, so to speak. Aidan has a faulty kicking technique – all his shots veer off to the left, possibly due to unintentional outside of the foot contact. This fault may be ingrained but one immediate solution would be to aim further to his right, rather as free takers do to counteract a breeze coming from the right. Also I hope Colm Boyle stays on – criminally underused this campaign.

24. Well spotted Jack Martin, my 15 year old Son is a bit like that, I’m working on his style of kicking, the foot must kinda turn in as the boot makes contact with the ball.
    Why hasn’t Mayo management seen this long ago.

25. Mayo 88. You can teach and coach a 15 year old. You will not teach a 30 year old Aiden O Shea. You cannot teach an old dog new tricks. Aiden has his learning days with football long over.

26. Good man Mayo88- glad to see you’re teaching
    the basic skills! AOS has, so far, telied on his brute strength, his lack of a sidestep of any kind or ability
    to get on his right foot has cost him badly as he suffers as much as anyone. Not someone to introduce new skills a whole lot it seems? Up Mayo.

27. Imagine being a budding club player in Mayo, and/or a player already on the fringe of the Mayo panel who gets a call-up next year. The pressure will be huge but equally so will be the opportunity. To go where others have not. In fairness to James he’s giving these opportunities and I don’t doubt that he’ll continue to do so. The pressure on James (and all previous Mayo managers) must also be enormous.

    Look, to win an All Ireland, not everything is going to be perfect. Players and management alike will make mistakes. Looking back at Saturday, Tyrone made as many as us, bar them taking their goals. Both palm-ins mind, so you couldn’t say that they had the class forwards and we didn’t. That simply doesn’t stack up. Yet, this is the charge always laid against Mayo players post-final defeat. It angers me.

    Someone posted here recently that if we had McShane and Darragh Canavan we’d have started them them both the last day. So true. I think this is the single best point made in the last week’s postmortem.

    Kevin McStay in the podcast preview simply couldn’t entertain the possibility that McShane wouldn’t start. He was dumbfounded by Billy Joe suggesting McShane would be held in reserve. Well, we all know how that panned out. Perhaps that’s what separates All Ireland intercounty managers from the rest. Kevin also previously stressed that it must be “14 or nowhere” for Aidan O’Shea.

    In fairness to Dooher and Logan, the pressure must have been huge on them to start both those players. But they didnt, they held their nerve. These subs came in and made the difference. It’s even more noteworthy if you consider the reports that Peter Canavan, Darragh’s father, had some sort of advisory role for Tyrone this year. I suspect James didn’t access the same expertise in Mayo. Darragh is going to be lethal in the coming years, and I wish him well. Super talent.

    Hindsight is great but perhaps if we held, for instance, Aido and Kev Mc in reserve the outcome would have been different.

    These are points to ponder. They’re relevant points going forward. If we continue not to learn, we’ll continue to have winters moaning about what might have been.

28. Where is aidos role next year ? Is there anything to be said for a sweeper type role ?

29. @Glorydays, the day you start allowing sentiment to take over your thought process in any business is the day you’ll usually rue.

    Had Tyrone allowed that it’s unlikely they would be All-Ireland champions today because Harte would still be there.

    Kenny Dalglish would still be managing Liverpool.

    At the top of any pyramid you need a ruthless intellectual which is not always easy to find in the GAA world. That’s why I suggested a “Project Manager” or “Director of Football”, call it what you like is needed in Mayo, not one of the boys who through no fault of their own has become too close to everyone in the set up.

    It’s a separate role between County Board and team management but who is responsible for hiring and firing a manager when and if that is required.

    There’s a long list of responsibilities of a Director of Football, too many to list here, but I believe it’s the way forward.

    First the idea needs to be sold to the County Board and secondly you must make sure that whoever is appointed ticks all the right boxes.

30. Marina Granovskaia of Chelsea would be the perfect example of the type of person I mean.

    No sentiment towards a Chelsea icon Frank Lampard, wasn’t working out so he was fired, in with Thomas Tuchel, same group of players, sorted out their defense, made a few tweaks and wins the Champions League.

    Ruthless but effective.

31. I actually thought Aidan did fine in the first half. Won all the ball that was fired in his direction.

    He always needs one or two running in to lay off to, people that are facing goal and can score.

    He actually did well winning ball in the first half against Dublin as well but again needed those runners in close proximity to lay off to and score.

32. Can he lay it off , has he the hands ? Can you point out a few examples where he laid it off ala donaghy to Jod in 2014 ? My point is for whatever reason it doesnt seem to fit . I will admit I remember one ball he won in first half and it was ideal for a runner and nobody there, not a sinner in support . Do you not think it’s time to develop something different , several commentators have passed comment that mayo will keep coming at ya but its all the same stuff , we are so repetitive . We need more goals, ,give james carr a go a proper go , it’s time now. He desperately needs game time .

33. Great overview Ciaran.

    Do you know, or does anyone, if Oisín MacLoughlin is playing for Westport. He really was a flyer at u20 and I would love to see him prosper. Paul Lambert also.

34. Excellent points raised@Viper and i see Antrim have now appointed Gearoid Adams as Director of Football. Did anyone read John.Cuffe in the Western? As usual he is spot on.

35. I just found out this evening that my father and my two uncles were at the All-Ireland Final in 1951 to see Mayo win Sam. I am delighted.
    We were speaking about Saturday’s match with my uncle in London this evening and mentioned Paddy Prendergast as being hale and hearty.
    Immediately he said, “Oh, yes, he was the full back on that Mayo team”. I was stumped that he remembered that after 70 years.
    He went on to name the entire full back line and most of the team.
    We were mad about football then and I don’t think it’ll stop this year either.

36. Thanks for the fixtures list Willie joe.
    Hope to get to a game.

37. @ Sean. He won the throw in and fed it to Tommy for our first score to get us off to the perfect start.

    You are correct. We should be planning another attack strategy but we had what we had on final day for whatever reason.

    I haven’t had the stomach to watch it back again, maybe someday, but I think Aidan won every ball that was directed towards him in the first half.

    He ended up with one blocked shot and one wide in the half.

    We all know he cannot turn on a sixpence so it is puzzling why he would be played in at full forward, have the ball pumped in to him and have no one in the vicinity to lay it off to who could put the finishing touches to it and score.

    Even if he had been instructed to stay on the edge of the small box, I think it would have made Morgan have second thoughts about his forays up the pitch.

    I don’t think Aidan has the motor for midfield anymore. Some have suggested a sweeper role. I don’t think that would work either. He would be given the run around by nifty half forwards.

    They could still use him for that ball winning in the full forward position for periods of games as a sub, in the future, but only if there is support there for him to give the ball off to.

    Every county in the country knows how we are going to play, run the ball up the pitch. We can still use that element of the game but not on its own.

    The league will tell us if we are a developing team or not. If we continue with a running game only, then it is going to be very hard to win an AI final.

38. @Liberal role in the tie, McShane is not fully fit and recovering from an injury and I can understand why Canavan would be held back as well so I don’t think Dooher and Logan would have pondered on the idea of starting them for too long.

    I agree hindsight is great but hindsight is only great if you face something unexpected, did we face anything unexpected playing Tyrone, I cant say we did , the dogs in the street knew what to expect.

    Forewarned is forearmed as they say, the difference is Tyrone had their homework done on us.

    I’d say they still can’t believe their luck that we turned up with no curveball.

    They’ll never win a handier All – Ireland and we’ll never leave a better chance behind us.

    The difference between Tyrone and Mayo is they are all singing off the same hymn sheet and they know how to set up a team to maximize their chances of winning.

    If we are not careful we are going to be quickly left behind and destroy everything we have created.

    When you do not tackle the main issues which have lost us finals that we should have won, then is it not the definition of lunacy to expect the outcome to be any different.

    And for anyone who puts this narrative forward that we would have won had Cillian being playing, let me give you this deflater, if Cillian had been playing Tyrone would have had a plan for him as well.

    I agree with you about forwards, Kerry were supposed to have the best forward six in the country but they still couldn’t beat Tyrone, why, because Tyrone had a game plan to stifle them and when you don’t have forwards who can take long range points then you must tailor your game plan to suit what you have.

    You can only p**s with the c**k you have.

39. Long time reader, first time commenter.
    Great resource for all the news and historical data, thanks to all involved.
    Very fortunate to attend all Croke park games this year, fascinating year for Mayo football and inter county football in general.
    I’m certainly not qualified to analyse the final at a micro level, but some observations from the stand and having watched the game back several times on both sky and RTÉ is that we were much better than I initially thought.
    Tyrone though, controlled the narrative brilliantly in the build up and during the game.
    They seemed IMO to use the medics as maor foirnes to great effect. Not sure if this is allowed?
    When we applied purposeful pressure in the second half and converted chances, one or two of there players would cramp up and require a few moments to stretch out, taking the zing out of the Mayo crowd ( tv cameras didn’t capture this ).
    They would not engage in any fighting/ off the ball shenanigans, again it seems to me, with a view to keeping the crowd quite. Nothing wrong with this obviously.
    Horanball, as it now seems to be known, seems to rely on a rather unique type of chaos to ignite, a chaos helped hugely by the Mayo crowd, a chaos that allows scores to come from everywhere and anywhere. Brilliant to watch.
    My only complaint was that we didn’t find a way, or a few ways to spark Horanball into life, by whatever means, maybe pulling one of the “cramping” Tyrone players off the ground or getting in one of the medics faces when they appeared on the pitch for what seemed like an excessive number of times.
    We often got a huge lift when Philly McMahon came on the pitch because we knew it would get us going. It brought chaos but Dublin always backed themselves collectively and individually to beat anyone.
    Huge amount of positives despite the massive disappointment of losing, and hopefully the frequently mentioned selectors stay on for next year. As long as everyone is pulling in the same direction there’s no reason all bridges can’t be mended as this group is quite special.
    Onwards and upwards.
    Ps great to attend a club game lastnight.

40. My tips for championships . Senior Ballina. Intermediate Crossmolina. Junior kilmeena..
    Its time to forget about the county team until January.

41. @Revellino, when you do get around to watching it again on youtube freeze frame it on 39:35 on the game clock, and count the amount of players from each team inside the Tyrone 45.

    It illustrates perfectly the point regarding support runners or lack of them.

    I feel sorry for Aidan O’Shea, he reminds me of Paul Pogba and the stick he gets at times, it’s surprising how poor Pogba looks if you don’t play him in a position which maximizes his potential.

    People need to realize at this stage Aidan O’Shea is not a scoring forward, he is not a Michael Murphy but it doesn’t mean he is not an effective weapon in at full forward but providing he has support runners.

    It’s common sense that if you task any player with a role that is only effective with support runners and he doesn’t have those runners that it’s going to look like the player isn’t playing well.

    He certainly still has a lot to offer but when he is in at full forward his role needs at be the assister to the runners and work needs to be done on delivering good diagonal ball into him.

    Horses for courses.

42. Paul Flynn in the second captains pod said Aidan now has had a number of “chronic injuries” in his career that may be catching up with him. It’s important to be mindful of this. I’m guessing this may be the reason he’s rarely deployed at midfield for long periods anymore.

43. I’m praying Oisin doesn’t go to Australia. He’s a player we need for the next couple of years. His potential knows no end. To my eyes he’s a midfielder. Or No.6 would be fine.

    I’d say Cillian will be raring to go next year. He just needs to stay injury free. Looking forward to seeing more of Orme and Hession. And please god young McLaughlin is ok and will be playing again next year.

44. Do we need an out and out left footed corner forward? Paul Walsh comes to mind and he’s a definite goal threat. The thing with him is he’s so quick over five yards and has such close control of the ball that he’s gone out of your reach by the time you react to him. He’d be bigger now and have a good 30 yard boot on him which he struggled with underage.
    Can’t think of too many other left footers with pace.

45. Jp , why didnt he make the under 20s team this year ?

    What is the craic with national league next year, is it going back to old format or is it staying like this year ie north and south ,three games ?

46. @Sean Burke, I know he’d put a lot into Castlebar Celtic and is rated quite well in soccer.
    That probably impacted.

47. The only role is see for AOS is impact sub, don’t see him starting if he is it will be more if the same, forwards have to be able to score

48. Agree with a lot of what Viper says over a number of posts – AOS only a full forward with proper tactics, but a FF who cannot score is problematic. You call for brains on the line and this is the critical success factor and as I have said over a number of posts, Mayo have not had a Rational Competence that brings with it analysis, planning, contingency, dynamic thinking, objectivity, etc., for decades – its all been Emotional Intelligence because that is the background culture in the setup, but I will know for sure that if there is no such input guaranteed in the management set up that it will be failure after failure into the future regardless of time-limit expectations re. the curse!!

49. If I had been told in 1997 that Mayo would be in 8 all Ireland finals in the coming 24 years I’d have bitten their hand off.

    Now not winning any isn’t what any of us want but someone, somewhere is doing something very right in keeping us “consistently competitive”.

50. Over the past decade Aidan has played in big games at FF on numerous occasions. Nkt only has he failed to score, but I’d imagine he hasn’t had many assists either. I don’t have the stats on that so I’m just going on memory. The set-up for Lee’s goal in ’16 was excellent.

    He’s now played under 3 different management teams, yet none have found the right formula, ie honing a type of play where other forwards play off him. It’s time to give it up. It’s not suddenly gonna work now. Big strong full backs can not only manage him, but they are doing so at their ease. This is not a swipe at Aidan, it’s just fact.

51. Liberal role, You only have to cast your mind back to the Galway game and Aidan’s lay off which earned us the penalty . Also in the first half of the AIF he was involved in half our scores between direct assists, winning frees or giving the assist before a foul.

52. @Ahh not again, Aiden has a lot of mileage on the clock so his game time is going to have to be managed anyway.

    I feel we totally missed a great opportunity to tweak the system and mix it up for the final and I’m not saying this with the benefit of hindsight.

    I don’t think we are doing enough work on actually creating good goal scoring opportunities at all, are we working on this or are we just hoping an opportunity will come our way and hope we can finish it, because there is a big difference in the two.

    It’s an area of our game that needs urgent work and if we do not adapt to being able to being able to play a multi system game very quickly then it doesn’t matter what players we unearth, the outcome will always be the same.

    A pony that can do a number of tricks and switch in game depending on how the opposition are set up and what the scoreboard and time clock is telling you can be an unbeatable animal once the players are accustomed to it but this is all work that needs to be done on the training ground and worked on in the league, because if we do not do that we will quickly be left behind.

    If any team does not have a manager and a backroom team who are willing to accept that this is the way forward then the whole management team needs to be changed until a management team buys into this.

    I don’t mean to sound ageist when I say this, but I often wonder does age have an impact on the willingness to adapt, change or can it stall innovation, do managers become dated ?

    Just as a little experiment, what age do you think I am ?, the answers could disprove or prove my theory or they could just confirm that we are all just different regardless of age.

    We need to start getting ahead of the curve on this and start to understand very quickly that tactics and multi functional systems are going to become the number one attribute in deciding the outcome of any game in the future.

    But you need people at the top who are pragmatic and who are able to envisage how the game will be played in the future.

    As an example if a “horanball” Mayo team with all it’s speed, strength and conditioning and flying wingbacks could go back in time to 1989, 96 and 97, what do you think the outcome of those games would be ?

    Undoubtedly three comprehensive Mayo victories because Cork, Meath and Kerry would simply not have been able to live with such a game, it would have been something totally alien to them and that’s the sort of foresight and mindset we need to have in Mayo.

    And it can be done, the question is, have we the visionary to drive it ?

53. @Louisburgh exile, but if that someone had told you in 1997 that we wouldn’t have won any of them then I think it’s their head you would have bitten off.

    To hell with being competitive, we are sick to our teeth of being competitive, it’s wins we want.

    I have seen enough in the will and the never say die attitudes of our players over the last decade to tell me that even with the weight of history that at the end of the day it’s other controllable factors that are contributing to our losses.

    So it’s not our players who have let us down it’s “us” who have failed them to a certain degree.

54. I’m looking forward to the club championship. 1st week they’re showing Knockmore Aughamore and Westport Ballaghadereen and TG4 are showing Breaffy The Neale. Will be interesting to see how Andy does. I thought last year Ballaghdereen were going very well until Drake got injured and Cian Hanley got sent off

55. Would it be a sign of our problems, our faulty psyche, the way this subject was turned from a club discussion into a county discussion? Is this proof that we care too much? Is it proof that we don’t really care about club football, our building blocks?

56. I thought AOS was at his best with Séamus in the middle, it looks like we are just looking for a place to put him, Colm Boyle can’t make the team but we have to start Aiden, as you said viper he has alot of miles on the clock, unless he play in goals I don’t know what to do because he doesn’t suit Horanball that’s for sure

57. Don’t get me wrong Aiden has done trojan work for Mayo, just no place in current style of play

58. @Sinabhuil, one of the great things about the human mind is that it can process several things simultaneously.

    There’s not much point in gathering building blocks if you are laying them on inadequate foundations, the structure will fail regardless of the quality of your blocks.

    If there are terms of reference for each thread, I’m sorry I didn’t realize that because I’m new here, so I should abscond gracefully.

    I don’t think there’s anything faulty about my psyche either, but I’ll get it checked out, just in case.

59. @Viper, You asked the question. I’d be surprised if you’re under 35 or over 45. So I’ll go for 37-42.
    Interpolating as 39. Would also think you grew up on a farm and your current job requires particular attention to detail.

60. Really looking forward to club championship. Was at the Louisburgh Ballaghaderreen league game last Saturday. I never seen anything like the way Ballgh pushed up on Louisburghs kick out. The Ballagh keeper was way further out the field than the two inside Louisburgh forwards who were standing on their own.. completely unmarked.. bananas stuff. Woeful frontal charge (similar to Eoghan MacLoughlin) on a young Louisburgh lad that had just come on and was stretchered off. No free, nothing. I think it just made Louisburgh mad though as they went on to score the last two score and get promotion up to division 1 league. Would love it if they could achieve the same feat in championship

61. @toe to hand, Was Alfie Morrison playing?

62. Was Dylan Prendergast playing for Louisburgh? I think he has county potential.

63. @JP if I’m not mistaken I think it was him that came on near the end and he a peach of a score off his left boot. I’m not up to speed on the younger lads coming through but hopefully over the next few weeks I know them all

64. @JP there was a left footed forward in the u17 team this year – Cian McHale from moy davitts I think.
    What are your thoughts on him? Been a while since moy Davitts produced an established Mayo senior player.
    Incidentally I heard on ah ref podcast that Brian Reape did his ACL which is terrible luck for the lad

65. “End of year position statement” from Mayo GAA, condemns the personal attacks on both players and management. Bit unusual to have to issue such a statement but sign of the times with social media.

    https://mayogaa.com/news-detail/10073844/

    If my memory serves me right Ciaran McDonald as a player took a short period off following an inordinate amount of abuse he received from the stands. No social media back then but ignorance finds a way to prevail down the decades.

66. Viper I’d say you’re 47 years old? You have to tell us now!!

67. Thanks for the update Willie Joe, Its time to turn the focus to the club game now and unearth potential players to add to the current county panel. However, I believe the people who have abused certain players will be proved wrong this weekend and over the next few weeks.

68. @Larry Duff, Cian McHale was on the u20 panel. Defintely a good striker of the ball. Half the battle in soccer, Gaelic or rugby.

69. Viper and others my question respectfully asked if this fanatical emphasis on the Mayo team and winning the AIF was repeated by turning a completely different subject into a further discussion of the AIF. Surely we can pursue other interests. What has the club games got to to with what happened last Saturday week. Surely the opening post sets the term of reference of the ensuing discussion. I am fed up listening to stuff about the AIF. I am very interested in listening to people’s opinion about the club championships. There are other threads about the AIF.

70. Aos ad we know is not and never will be a scoring forward. Not mobile enough for midfield. A lot of miles on the clock. Super ball in from o Donohoe to him….was it better going to carr or any more natural forward. Time to look at this seriously. Aos is now a bit part player I believe. Another man we really need to examine a role for is diarmuid o Connor. This may be as big an issue as aos. Personally I believe mullin to midfield to partner ruane. Keegan released as well to the half back line. Harrison will come in and maybe mcbrien. We also know that conroy and o Donohoe can play in the half forward line if required but I would not bring both out.