Here’s a proper news story for the middle of December, in the form of an extensive interview given by Johnno to the Western. Because it is the Western, I can’t provide a link to the article itself and so you’ll have to make do with this article about the article. But the article about the article is quite a good article about what’s in the article. If you follow me, like.
(Note to Western – for the love of God and His Holy Mother, would you ever sort out your online content so it’s actually online. Look at what the excellent Mayo News have been doing for ages and just copy them. They won’t mind – imitation being the greatest form of flattery and all that). I know, I know, I could get up off my derrière and head into Easons or that shop in Talbot Street, the one that stocks all the provincial papers and buy the print version of the paper but, hey, this is the 21st century and one should be able to access this material without adding to one’s carbon footprint.
Having not seen the full in-depth interview, there’s not much point in attempting to parse The Deputy’s words to any great degree. What they’ve said he said is what you’d expect him to be saying at this time of year – solid progress made, like to have a more settled spine to the team etc. etc. – and there’s little in the teaser article that’d make you want to gallop out and gorge yourself on the full, unexpurgated version. I see that he says he’s planning to take a leaf from John Maughan’s book and take the lads up into the Catskills after the New York game next May and that he also talks about the possibility of some of this year’s minors stepping up to the senior ranks next year.
In the interview Johnnno also looks back to 1989 and makes the point that those lads were a hell of a lot bigger than the current crop of players are. The class of ’89 were a formidable bunch alright and their hairdos were something else as well.
That’s about all I can say on the matter without having seen the article so I guess if you want more, you know what you need to do.
The article about the “article” actually covers most of the “article”. The only thing that caught my eye was Johnno’s gripe about a 29 man panel. He mantained that too much was made of 29 and that he won All-Irelands with 27 and 28 man panels. He misses the point, firstly because we would have done as well with a 20 man panel last year anyway. A lot of Mayo supporters saw this magic number 29 and saw Ciaran McDonald idle. Ergo, why not slot Mac in because we actually needed him. O’Mahony in the interview stated that number 30 was kept for Barrett or Cafferky, both injured. I hope that this grant thing is not the cause of panels being set in stone in May or June.
Anyone see Morts interview in Indo yesterday…. ??? !!!!
http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-football/mayorsquos-winter-of-discontent-1570604.html
Thats the link… Look at the comment about not winning an all ireland without him
The issue I have with the Indo article is that it’s a complete non-story. That quote from Mort is months old – I think that interview was first published back in August so there’s no news there. The journo obviously tried to get Mort to rise to the comment made by Feeney about players shooting their mouths of in the press but, in this respect, he failed fairly miserably.
I think Mort’s interview reflects the complete lack of anything else happening GAA-wise at the moment rather than anything else. And that headline reflects a lack of sub-editorial judgement!…. did he even read the piece??
A winter of discontent? More like a winter of apathy.
On the issue you raised about the size of the Team in 1989 it is a valid point. In fairness to the current lads they are v. good footballers but in terms of mixing it …. well we don’t really have those sort of fellas. And in fairness every team worth its salt has had them and has them.. again at least one, two if not more.