Photo: Nigel Quinn (@MaigheoforSam via Twitter)
Hurling doesn’t get much of a look in on this site, I know, but today – on hurling’s big day (Up the Banner, by the way!) – it’s only right and proper salute the county’s minor hurling team who yesterday in Ballinamore captured the All-Ireland Minor C hurling title when they defeated Monaghan by 1-15 to 0-8.
Colm Gannon of the Mayo Advertiser was at yesterday’s final and his match report is here. The redoubtable Nigel Quinn was also there and kept the wider world aware of events via Twitter, including by posting the above photo of the victorious team claiming the spoils.
Hearty congrats to manager Brian Finn, captain Fergal Boland and all the lads on a great national win for the county. Here’s hoping it’s the first of three All-Ireland titles we’ll see coming our way before the month is out.
Well done to the Minor Hurlers, a great win, to start the winning run for Mayo teams,
Good luck to our Minor and Senior Footballers later on, hope we can make it, 3 in a row.
Congratulations to the lads. Well done. We are proud of tee!
Fair play to our young hurlers.
Well done lads, you have set the target.
Rarely do get a mention or a bit of credit from the hierarchy in county board but fair play to them and they’ve won plenty at different levels down through the years some of which got little or no mention! Well done Mayo hurlers great result!
Great stuff and congrats to all those fellas.
Congrats boys!!
Well done lads,
Every All Ireland is very welcome
Congratulations! Well done. Ye have set the goal for September. Could it be 3 All Irelands for the west? The West……. it is awake!
Maigo Eo Abu
Well done to the lads, they’ve set the marker! 1st of 3 All Irelands hopefully. Thanks to Nigel @maigheoforsam for the live updates from Ballinamore.
Congrats to all the squad and management on yesterdays wonderful success. I am sure they are as dedicated and committed to their cause as the senior football team. Fair play to ye and yet another success for the county.
Hon Mayo
Mighty stuff lads.hon Mayo
That is a great achievement. Well done to you all.
Well done lads, a credit to the county.
I am happy to see a good spread of clubs supplying the talent.
Well done
Again congratulations and well done to the Mayo lads on their great win in the Minor C Championship – standard now set for the footballers.
And what of that amazing All Ireland Hurling Final we had to-day? For sheer excitement, hurling is sure hard to beat. Hammer and tongues for seventy minutes and then after trailing Clare all day, Cork almost snatch it at the death – Cork are Champions, or so we thought, then up popes Domhnall O Donovan with that amazing equalizer. What ever criticism Clare folk have about Brian Gavin, and a lot of it seemed to be justified, full marks to him none the less for allowing that bit of additional time at the end. It would have been a travesty had Clare lost that match…..
Well done lads, agree with David, great to see a spread of clubs suppling to the county team. Huge work being carried out at underage level.
Mayo is a big county with a big population, plenty of room for both codes to flourish.
Anyone that has seen Keith Higgins or Cathal Freeman in full flow will agree there is great potential in Mayo hurling…
Was up at the hurling final yesterday with my young bucks (sobering thought, that my oldest fella who is just 11, almost witnessed his county win their 4th senior inter county all ireland in his lifetime, his owl fella hasnt seen 1 yet!)
I hope we dont have to witness as much drama and we have coasted over the line with 5 minutes to go. Some how I think it wont be that easy 😉
What odds on both finals finishing in a draw?
Well done to all the panel, management and back-up team, great result for ye all, and for the county.
Congratulations to our minor hurlers! ‘Mayo – All Ireland Champions 2013’ – has a ring to it!
Congrats to the Minor Hurlers, spare a thought for David Clarke and Kenneth O’Malley as both will probably miss the final due to injury while all of the focus has been on COC, we need to remember that we have other players out injured as well.
For Mayo to win this year’s AIF we need to have improved since last year but have we ?
Improvements:
-Full back line: Now has the pace required, Kevin Keane is a good footballer but lacks that extra yard of pace required in the open spaces in Croker.
-Mid-field: AOS much fitter than last year now definitely the fittest he has ever been or will be
-Forwards: Cathal Carolan has the look of a good forward about him, lively and has a high work-rate. We beat Tyrone will only 2 out of 6 forwards on song, surely we will have 4 out of 6 stepping up to the mark next time out.
-Management: Better tactical awareness with Donie Buckley a definite plus this year
-Tactics: We beat the tactics of the best tactician in the game over the last 7 – 10 years (Mickie Harte)
Problem Areas:
– Missing easy easy frees: KMC v Donegal and v Tyrone. NOT good enough this has to be sorted out for the final
– Kicking possession away: Kicking the ball into the goal keepers hands, unforgiveable and one of our old failings which re-surfaced in first 20 mins against Tyrone
– Composure: The most disappointing thing for me was the fact that the heads of some of our players visibly dropped when COC went off injured. This is basic stuff, the team has to be prepped to deal with major players going off injured, going a man up, having a man sent off etc.. this should have been planned for because our team lost it’s composure for most of the rest of the first half due in large part to COC’s injury.
-Forwards: back to my old hobby horse but I have said in numerous posts since the AIF last year that we are still short 2 killer forwards, we may now only be short one but we are definitely short. Up to now our backs in particular have redeemed us on the scoreboard this has to continue in the final.
-Turnover ball: Look at the number of times the ball was knocked from some of our players in first 25 mins against Tyrone, Tyrone made it look easy.
All can be sorted before the big day……….
Well done boys it could be just the start of something very special,maigheo Abu
Very accurate assessment Olive. I still feel, even though nobody else has commented, that a little complacency might have existed in the Mayo minds. Tyrone were fired up, Mayo weren’t. If that was Dublin or Kerry we were gone.
Great stuff from the hurlers.
Olive, when you play Tyrone it is easy to look bad. Their style of play is based on putting max pressure on the man in possession and they are excellent at it. Mistakes result from that. The encouraging thing is that we were able to cope and mange to impose ourselves. By the 25th min we were on top and had Freemans goal been allowed I think the flood gates would have opened yet again. As it was we won comfortably against a very sticky team.
I would have argued strongly over the years about having a couple of ‘marguee’ forwards in order to win an AI. I’m not as convinced anymore seeing how much mayo actually score in games and the spread of scores. What we have is different and very hard to cope with for the opposition. If you were Dublin who would you focus attention on in order to reduce scoring ? Having a good spread of scorers is usually a great sign of a team. Unfortunately, Dublin also have the same quality! We will need a display of defending from our lads that will mark us out as the best team in the land. Nothing less will be good enough and rightly so…….this is the all Ireland final. The more time passes I am beginning to think we are the best all round team. Now we need to prove it with our best display of 2013. Bring it on!
Joe Mc, I can’t agree with your assertion that Mayo players were in anyway complacent going into the Tyrone match and I would be pretty sure there’s no one in the Mayo camp would use complacency as an excuse for their slow start either. In fact I can imagine James and his Management team would have spent many hours trying to figure out how the hell his well drilled team, allowed themselves to get sucked into the Tyrone trap, that muzzled them so successfully for near on thirty minutes.
In earlier matches our forwards managed a lot of turnovers by applying pressure on the opposing defenders, this tactic resulted in some easy scores and gave us a good platform to build on. Tyrone on the other hand, completely reversed that roll, by sitting back, closing down our forwards and forcing turnovers, which immediately put us on the back foot and allowed them to do what they do best, build from the back. One can imagine how this reversal of roles might have scuppered our own tactics and would have taken the team some time to come to grips with a new situation. The fact that they managed this so successfully will I’m sure stand them in good stead in the final……
Well done to the hurlers. Delighted for them all. An All Ireland title at such a young age and careers to look forward to.
Dublin will try and ambush Mayo within the first fifteen to twenty minutes and build up an early lead, Mayo must be ready to counter act this. I also believe that Dublin will try and score goals, which means that Robert Hennelly or whoever is in in goal will have to be at the top of their game. I really admired Clare last Sunday, they were playing a county will thirty All Ireland titles, they played with out any fear and were able to rescue the game at the death. Mayo will have to have loads of self-belief and play out of their skins for the full seventy minutes. They will be playing a team with a number of All Ireland medals in their back pockets, who should be the hungrier team on the 22nd?
I’m trying to get a large format image of the Mayo GAA crest. I want it big enough to use on an A0-sized poster without distortion. I tried taking a small one and creating a vector image in Inkscape but, as I am of the wrong generation, the All Ireland will be well over by the time I have it done.
Is there a younger IT-savvy Mayo supporter out there that could assist?
You still had no luck with the Mayo crest? I’ll see what i can do.
mayo mchale – “I still FEEL that a little complacency MIGHT have existed in the Mayo minds” is not an “assertion”. I AM WONDERING, that is all. How can you be sure that I am wrong? Surely a person can wonder!!!
Hi Willie Joe,
are you going to start a blog on our miserly representation on the team of the 80s?
No McStay, no Martin Carney, no Liam McHale, no Dermot Flanagan (2 All Stars), no Gabriel Irwin. Outrageous.
Roscommon with 3? They really were a team (a good team, but not a great team) of the 70s and mathematically 1980 belongs to the 70s. Mayo had two bites at the semi in 85, were semi-finalists in ’88 to eventual winners Meath and finalists in ’89.
I rest my case.
I wasn’t planning to Catcol, but I think you’ve summed it up well enough yourself there. I think they’ve definitely confused the Seventies with the Eighties where it comes to Roscommon!
Brian Carty was on the deciding panel for that 80’s team which may explain the Roscommon men on the team. Also Mr.Brehony who never has anything good to say about Mayo football.
Joe Mc Quillean (Cavan) to ref our match, Conor Lane(Cork) to ref the minors.
I was beginning to wonder if I misread the criteria when I saw the players selected, too right catcol
Too right about that 80’s team, couldn’t believe Willie Joe was our only representative.
Still at least we’ll have someone to acclaim and show our appreciation to on final day.
Let’s hope this current bunch of players will be on the Croke Park pitch in 20 or 25 years time as past All Ireland winners.