The Senior, Intermediate and Junior football Championships are set to get underway on the first weekend of September. Earlier on today Mayo GAA released details of the three rounds of group matches in all three competitions.
Round 1 matches will take place on the weekend of 2nd/4th September, Round 2 is on the following weekend and then there’s a week’s break ahead of the decisive Round 3 ties the weekend after that.
Here’s what’s in store in each of the three Championships during the month of September.
SFC Round 1
SFC Round 2
SFC Round 3
IFC Round 1
IFC Round 2
IFC Round 3
JFC Round 1
JFC Round 2
JFC Round 3
Presume it’s 1 home 1 away and a neutral venue. Any word on streaming options. Best bloody thing about the lock down was the amount of games you could watch.
Great opening weekend in store. When will dates be fixed?
Oisin McConville confirmed as part of Dempseys ticket ( mayo news twitter)
@MyBall- It looks like a strong backroom team. Does anyone know what Declan O`Keefe`s role is with Clare ? Is he goalkeeping coach ?
Irish independent are saying James Burke and Keith HIggins will take the backs while McConville will take the forwards. Kevin O`Neill, Terry Kennedy and Daniel Kilgallon (Athletics Ireland’s National Sprints Coordinator and head relay coach) also to have involvement.
On paper it is a toss up between Dempsey and McStay for me. I would be happy with either.
Time for a poll now? Will be interesting to see views
JKEL88 – You’d have to imagine goalkeeping coach. Seems a good operator and well liked down in Clare.
The specialist coaching looks a shrewd inclusion. Kennedy is one of Ireland’s best basketball coaches and O’Neill knows where the posts are.
Really excited by that Kilgallon inclusion… Looks to be a top level sprint and speed coach. Can them lads get quicker???
That’s a serious team and shows a bit of proper thought from Dempsey. Declan O’Keefe is an All-Ireland winning goalkeeper and former all star. He would take on the goalkeeping coaching I presume which has been an issue. Burke and Higgins the defensive side with McConville and Dempsey looking after the forwards. Kevin O’Neill arguably Mayo’s most skillful forward along with McDonald, Terry Kennedy, Enda Gilvarry and Daniel Kilgannon are serious operators too. The addition of Daniel Kilgannon to work on speed is a fantastic get. Anyone in athletics will tell you that Irish sprinting has improved dramatically under his watch. Looks by far the most balanced and thought out team to me.
It is Paddy but I’m afraid work has to take priority right now. I’ll get a poll up tonight.
That’s a strong team Dempsey has put together.
Wouldn’t come cheap though with 5 of the backroom team living well outside the county.
Like other people I think we need more emphasis on power and speed over the first 3-5 meters. Not players that will win a 100 or 200 meter sprint.
Exactly Southmayo Exile, that’s why I am excited about Daniel Kilgannon being on the Dempsey ticket. Reaction times and speed over the first few meters are vital.
Agree @JKEL88… Toss up between Dempsey and McStay .. Any county would be delighted to have those options
South Mayo exile, with Ireland’s sprinters flying it the last few years or so Kilgallon could certainly help look after that side of it.
O’Keefe likely be goalkeeping coach.
Some those you’d think may not be there full time either, as more specialised, likes of Kennedy and Kilgallon. They probably do thinks in blocks.
By far most impressive team IMO, no real baggage of loss at senior IC by main members.
Lots of fresh and interesting new voices for the lads as well, psychologically that has to be big for the players rather than going back to me who they have lost with before.
As for cost, wouldn’t worry about that. Limerick and Dublin wouldn’t.
Also Bourke who was a player favourite coach for continuity is a great shout.
Very exciting team, will it work? Who knows, but it’s new, it’s fresh and it’s a lot winners in board. Very hard for CB look past that!
Still fancy the McStay ticket but the Dempsey ticket is very intriguing and brings a fresh approach. You would have to feel its a two horse race but nothing is straight forward in Mayo
Strong looking team to rival mcstay in the high profile league if high profile is an ingredient. On a side note I wonder is there a wager in the Sunday game office to see who can get a County gig with mcstay McConville o Rourke and o shea all running for office.
Sign me up for that dempsey ticket, ticks every box and has a nice fresh look to it.
If there’s a poll I’ll be voting for team dempsey all the way
I’d go for Dempsey too. Have said all along we need new voices and fresh ideas.
Its Dempsey for me thats a pretty impressive backroom team
I am now 50/50 between McStay and Dempsey both tickets are very strong.
Solan i would like to see stick with Leitrim for now and come in with Andy in a few years. No doubt he will be a good senior inter-county manager but i just feel this year might be too soon.
Declan Shaw if his ticket doesn’t get it this time i would like to see them take charge of the u20s when the position becomes available. I have great time for him after listening to the podcast and he is the kind of guy we need to have involved within Mayo GAA in some capacity.
There were a few saying that Dempsey wasn’t good enough for the role after Knockmores showing against Pearses last year. Thing about Dempsey is, he surrounds himself with people who he feels have a good/better knowledge than him as part of his team. Similar approach taken in Knockmore.
Justin Morgan – great point you make there. I remember I went to have a look at that Pearse’s game. Everything that could go wrong probably did for Knockmore that day. No Mchale or Rutdledge, their two most experienced forwards. Can’t help but feel it showed considering the wides they kicked that day. And that King lad going off too early on was a huge loss.
I really like the look of Dempsey’s ticket. Clearly a man who has thought about who he wants long and hard and bringing in men who know as much about football as he does. Shows no ego IMO. Dare I say it reminds me a bit of Jack O’Connor bringing Paddy Tally into the set up. Same with PJ bringing in Cian Oneill. I’d favour the Dempsey team myself.
WJ .. Will you do poll like player of the year , as in we could give a no1 to X , No2 to Y etc?
I’m finding it hard to pick between 2 tickets now !!
Good position for us and Co Board to be in
WJ, Are you able to restrict the voting to one vote per email user…
Very interesting now alright.. hard to call between Dempsey and McStay.. serious calibre of individuals throwing their hats into the ring.. we couldn’t have asked for much more in that sense
Very true toe to hand. The freshness and variety of Dempsey’s team will likely excite the players as well, that’s the drawback with McStays, great and all as Rochford and Buckley have been what new can they bring to the lads having already spent so many years with them?
Terry Kennedy looks like his basketball techniques have really paid dividends for a young Knockmore team that no one expected much of.
An international level sprints coach could help lads who have lost a bit of speed develop techniques to help pull a little bit back.
McConville not only has a plethora of club and county all Ireland’s has come through some dark days and is an inspirational speaker doing work with schools across country.
We know we haven’t been very far away, these minor gains they could possibly bring could be huge.
Two strong looking tickets, great to have those options to choose from. Wouldn’t envy someone trying to make the call on that – would love to be a fly on the wall to hear what style they want the team to play.
My Ball – the poll thingy doesn’t have that kind of functionality.
Tommytuck – multiple votes are prevented via IP address rather than email address. I do recall, by the way, back in 2010 when James Horan was appointed, there was an odd voting pattern (strongly in favour of one candidate, not JH) in the poll I ran here on the blog on that appointment.
Thanks WJ, looking forward to the discussions in the coming days and weeks, regular visitor to this excellent blog and patreon / podcast listener. We are lucky to have you and the team behind both.
Demphsey’s team looks pretty solid and I’m glad to see a recent ex top player involved, I had mentioned a few a while back that I thought would be good to bring in having the ‘life experience’ so a thumbs up there. I suppose its down to a fully refreshed team or a semi refreshed but somewhat been there experienced set up. I’m sticking to McStay’s team but very close 2nd best the D team..
Congratulations to the 4 Mayo lads on the electric Ireland minor team of the year.
Rio mortimer making it as an u16 player is a fair achievement.
Gilmore, Clarke and Duffy the other 3. It won’t do him any harm long term getting overlooked but I struggle to see how Niall Hurley wasn’t in the best 15 players in the minor championship this year.
Is there anywhere we can get the names on each ticket.
There are two things I would like to know about each ticket before voting.
1. Who is the S&C coach?
2. Who is the Sports Psychologist?
With the amount of injuries Mayo have had in the last year, we need someone who can make a difference with S&C.
Also, I am certain that some players had a psychological meltdown in the 2021 final. I felt it on the day, and I truly believe that was the reason we lost.
@ mikey3 because like a lot of senior mayo players in all-ireland finals he did not perform to his potential in the final against Galway. It should be a good and valuable lesson for the minor team because there are some great footballers on that minor team. I fully expect NIALL to be lining out for the mayo senior team in years to come. I would like to see TEAM DEMPSEY as the new management team for MAYO.
Dempsey for me.
Great backup team.
Very impressed by the inclusion of a speed coach. Ye have read me posting about the need to focus on speed.
So is Paul Galvin out of the frame now? The Indo had the news about Oisín on Dempseys team but no mention of the Kerryman.
Impressed by Dempsey’s back room team Fair play to him for that recruitment For me now it’s between Dempsey v McStay. I’d still go for the McStay ticket. Won’t be over disappointed if Dempsey gets it. Actually it may well come to pass that they are both overlooked. I’d say the Co Board are very wary of costings and I would say that those two teams would adopt a very professional approach that might not come cheaply
I think any outcome that is not McStay or Dempsey will go down like a lead baloon
That was only ever unfounded blather on social media, Joet1480.
Irishman has reached 100m final in European championship!!
He would presumably be under the wing of man on Dempsey’s ticket, Kilgallon as Irish sprints coordinator.
That’s some achievement. He could be serious asset.
JoeT, no Galvin not involved, that rumour from an online source was incorrect. Presumably based on Galvin having done some work with Knockmore. Kerry man on his ticket is O’Keefe their former AI winning goalkeeper.
To win just once, I see where your coming from. But most Dempsey’s team Mayo men Mayo so that wouldn’t be costly to board you’d imagine. If it’s like his club, Dempsey wont be looking for payment.
Its like this. Dempsy has a team who have no managed a succesful county senior team. So he to will be learning and have we to wait another 5 years before we reach an AI final. McStay has a seasoned team and knows about a senior team competing at the highest level. Also Rochford and Buckley brought Mayo to Ai finals. With McStay yhey can win us that elusive final. We need experianced men right now to bring us over the line and I beleive McStay and co have got that,
Daniel Kilgallon if that ticket is selected would have to have a major call on the SnC plan. I’ve been banging on here for ages that Mayo were behind the curve training with too many high volume and slower kilometers.
Speed work elements would be a lot of:
– flexibility and core
– bodyfat % strict
– lots of leg strength work
– plyometrics which is explosiveness
– speed technique drills and technique tidying up
– GPS monitoring and speed testing
– planned in deep recovery with long periods of low mileage in order for the body to recover
There won’t be any 10*100m for time tests. That runs contrary to developing speed.
The idea is to fight like hell to get 1-2% faster.
Long sessions of stretching. Technique sessions done properly.
Calling out those giving 90% in the drills and not 100%.
It’s hard very specific work. It would need to dominate the SnC plan for long stretches.
True grit you are right he might have to learn but he has surrounded himself with men who have had success and won the holy grail.
As experienced as McStays team is, they haven’t managed a succesful county senior team either if by success you mean winning Sam….
@TrueGrit It’s fine being experienced, sometimes you need something new and fresher.
I love the Daniel Kilgallon angle on Dempseys ticket. I think it’s brave and rows against a playing it safe “we’re close we just need fine tuning ‘
The results and scoreboard tells us we have not been close. That’s a nice comfort blanket that gets clinged to. Last number of years we are off the pace. So I think it needs fresh innovative thinking.
What a day for Daniel Kilgallon to be announced as part of the team. This is one of the biggest ever days for Irish sprinting and he is centre to it. He is current coach of Israel Olatunde who has just reached Euro 100m final and I am fairly sure he former coach of Rhasidat Adeleke (before she went to Texas Uni) who reached the 400m final.
Looking at J.P analysis all the players will have to be proffissional. There is not one mention about what type players we require. GAA is counted by how many times the ball goes over or under the bar. The only person I see missing from Dempsey’s team is a boxing coach. They have everything else, athletics coach., basketball coach. We are all hung up on fitness but fuck all about skills. At least with Mc Stay most of his team are homegrown. Mcconville, O Keene, Kilgallon are as usual jumping on the lucrative bandwagon of Mayo supporters. If those 3 men were that good why didn’t their own Counties use them..
True Grit – let’s do some fact checking here. No skills. Lovely comment to pay to Keith Higgins who has the tied most All Stars in Mayo history. McConville? No good I’m guessing. Just the 2 All Stars and 7 All Ireland Medals between club and county. Regarded as one of the top forwards of his generation. Okeffee with 2 All Ireland medals and 2 more All Stars. Oneill with an All Star too. There are 2 men on that backroom team that aren’t from Mayo. Everyone else is. Can you explain to me how well Donie Buckley is regarded in Kerry? From what I can remember Jack O’Connor got rid of him in 2011 and so did Peter Keane in 2020. And he was on the Stephen Stack management team that was rejected in Kerry last year. Kilgannon a ballina man who just trained an Irish athlete to become the fastest 100m runner in Irish history. But according to you he’s just jumping on the Mayo supporter bandwagon.
True Grit – James Burke is in Dempsey’s backroom team and he has experience of getting Mayo to 2 league finals and 2 All Ireland finals. That compares well with what Rochford and Buckley did.
Green and Red. Fact check, What County or Club did Dempsey, McConville, Higgins did those men manage in an Senior All Ireland be it Club or County. I know they won allirelands as players, but it’s managers now we are selecting.. Not many years ago we Brought a famous players who had won more Senior Celtic Crosses than All the AI Mayo have won, Did he bring us success. NO, Playing is one thing, Managing is totally different. I remember talking to Sean Boylan and I asked him what does it take to win an All Ireland. He said very simple but hard done “ Get 20 men thinking togeather for 70 minutes”
True Grit – you may not have noticed but Dempsey manager the mayo minors to 2 All Ireland finals in 2008 and 2009. Happens to have Gilavarry on his team that won the 2013 All Ireland minor as manager. I suppose your next argument is that it’s not senior. Rochford has had 3 years in Mayo trying to win one, 4 in Donegal. Buckley has been coaching teams for decades now and still hasn’t won one. You can dress it up any way you like bust between McStays ticket and Dempsey’s neither have any senior All Irelands as management teams. So I don’t know why you are putting so much emphasis on experience. At least Dempsey has men that have been in winning inter county dressing rooms.
Green & Red. Its Senior Football we are talking about be it either Club or County. I did not see Dempsey or any of his nominees managing a SENIOR TEAM that even reached an All Ireland. It’s a man’s game we are talking about now. Not minors 15 years ago. Winning inter in dressing rooms is still not managing a senior team.