Reports in the national media on FBD matches tend to be on the pithy side but Danny Kirby’s goal haul at Ballinrobe yesterday earned him headline treatment in all three of the main dailies today. Here they are: Times, Indo, Examiner.
As usual, though, if it’s a proper match report you want the day after (or, indeed, the evening of) a game, Colm Gannon in the Mayo Advertiser is your man. Here’s his take on the action at Ballinrobe, along with a ‘five things we learned’ piece on the game. He also grabbed some post-match audio with James Horan, where the boss did his best to sound unhappy about the lads’ flat second half performance. No, he doesn’t sound all that convincing to me either.
Are we already in the FBD final, by the way? If placings in the table are decided (like they are for World Cup qualification and so forth) by head-to-head records, then Leitrim can’t catch us and so we are in the decider. I doubt that’s the case but assuming that placings go on old-fashioned points difference (which I assume they still do) we’ll go into next Sunday’s final round of matches with a 17-point advantage over the Ridge County. For us to fail to make the final, then, we’ll need to lose heavily to Roscommon and Leitrim will need to give GMIT a good thumping as well with the respective margins needing to be big enough to wipe out that massive points difference. Better start making plans for the decider on January 29th, in other words.
Finally, thanks to PJ (again) for the above photo of Danny Kirby which, like yesterday’s one, was snapped at Flanagan Park. @MayoGAA have also tweeted a photo of the full team (courtesy of Michael Donnelly Photography) that lined out yesterday – see it here.
I think but am open to correction, didn’t Marty McNicholas score four against Kildare some years ago when Micko was there. Micko gave a tart reply when asked about Mayo scoring four goals. “They didn’t get many points” he hissed.
Wrong…just looked up WJs archive, he only !scored 3-1 .See below
Kildare 0-7 Mayo 4-5 (Newbridge, 10/3/2002). MAYO: D Clarke; P Coyne, T Nallen, G Ruane; A Roche, J Nallen, N Connelly; S Fitzmaurice, M Moyles (0-1); J Gill (1-0), T Mortimer (0-1), S Carolan; M Mullins (0-2, frees), J Horan, M McNicholas (3-1, one goal from a pen). Subs: D Heaney for A Roche (half-time), D Brady for J Horan (59 mins), R Loftus for M Mullins (67 mins).
Ah, ConMort with the green socks again. Ha!
Actually it looked like Conor had the proper socks on yesterday, just he has his ankles taped up. As you can see in the team picture, Kevin McLoughlin’s socks are red with a green top with white hoops on the green tops. Mort just has the red covered over by tape on his ankles.
On a completely different topic, I see Dublin have another Spring Series at Croke Park, which I am firmly against. Some of the more experienced heads might be able to tell me what the story is.
I was under the impression that Croke Park was a neutral venue and not the home ground of any county, correct? Did Dublin GAA contribute anything to the reconstruction of the stadium over the last 20 years?
Well done to Danny Kirby on getting 4 goals. He is one hell of a big strong lad and I hope he develops into a senior player. He could develop into a real handful at FF.
But as was said before – dont lets get carried away – it is only FBD and this was a poor GMIT team and the full back wasn’t great.
Glad to see Barry Moran back. If he stays fit he could add a lot around the middle third of the field. He seems to be far more physical than he used to be which is brilliant. Nothing like a big bruiser around the middle.
I have a feeling this could be a very interesting year in Mayo! With a bit of luck here and there you’d never know what might happen. We certainly seem to be going in the right direction at last.
Digits, you are not the only one (regarding the Dubs Spring series). While yes the ‘pull’ of Croke Park is certainly a large factor in bringing the crowds, I do think that it aided their cause in the winning of Sam Maguire last year. However, I feel teams should have to earn days in Croke Park. Kildare and Tyrone also are playing in a double header on the opening night I believe. That’s right, Division 2 teams before Division 1. I also think there are too much Leinster championship games in Croke Park as well. What’s wrong with the county grounds up there??
The media are lazy and have put an awful amount of faith in Kldare. Ergo Kildare are seen as blue chip and Tyrone, getting older and like a great champion boxer awaiting the big punch. If Kildare could beat them in Croker it would legitimize this lazy punditry.
Pundits rank Kildare as the best team around that should have won the 2009 All Ireland only Kerry spoiled it, the 2010 All Ireland only for the Down shaggers to put a spanner in the works and then in 2011 only for Donegal to have the cheek to silence them and make their managerial comments even more monosyllabic.
Kildare , a division 2 outfit for as along as I can recall with the odd foray into the top tier are seen as cool and worth bigging up. Maybe its because of Micko and because the present manager seems to treat the hacks as if they were a bad dose of the flu.
The eternal white hopes will always fill the pages. Can you imagine if Mayo brought out Alan Dillon to midfield, they would be sneered at. John Doyle comes out to mid for them and its hailed as a master stroke.
The imminent signing of Seanie Johnstone screams how poor this team are up front, Seanie is excellent but the fact that they have to go to Cavan for a forward shows how barren the Curragh of Kildare is.
In fact apart from beating a dispirited Meath I cannot recall a single team of note that Kildare has beaten over the last four years but the media still hang on every fart they leak. So whilst they are lording them up, they might leave us alone.
Ever since they imported Murphy, Lacey, O Dwyer and Meaths Sheridan back in the late 1990s I always watched them with a twitching eye.
well said John. Would be quite happy to run into them in HQ on all ireland final day.
I’ve always felt that too, Ted – they’d certainly make a welcome change from Kerry in a final! As I’ve said before, though, I don’t expect to see them in a final anytime soon (whatever about us). John is absolutely correct about how they’ve been overhyped and it’s hard to know why they’re being indulged in this way. To their credit, under McGeeney they’ve always been able to get to the All-Ireland series via the qualifiers (something that has repeatedly proved beyond us down the years) but since he took over they’ve failed to beat anyone from outside Leinster once they’ve got that far. They were probably a bit unlucky in 2010 – that dreadful square ball decision for the Coulter goal altered the whole course of the game but then again later in that game there was one of the most blatant examples of overcarrying leading up to the Kildare goal that was allowed to stand – but even then I doubt if they’d have done any better against Cork in the final than Down did. I can’t see them taking Dublin in Leinster this year either so you’d really have to wonder why they’re fourth favourites for Sam at 4/1. I sure won’t be putting anything on them.