It’s Monday, there’s work to be done so here’s a quick one with the usual slew of match reports from yesterday. In no particular order, here they are: RTÉ, BBC, Breaking News, Hogan Stand, Irish Times, Irish Independent and Irish Examiner. There’s not that much to chew on from any of the reports, to be honest, and it’s only the latter one that contains any post-match quotes, where James Horan makes the following pithy observation: “Did he a get a few calls wrong today? Of course he did. But we still had the chances to win the game.” That’s it in a nutshell, I guess.
Yesterday’s defeat means that we’re now down in fourth place in the Division One table, level on four points with both Dublin and Down but the Dubs are in third by virtue of their very positive points difference (in no small part due to their 16-point hammering of Armagh at Croke Park yesterday) while Down are below us because, unlike us, they’re in negative points difference territory. In fact, we’re significantly ahead of everyone below us on this metric – we’re currently on +7, Down are on -13, Armagh (who are on 3 points) are on -18 while Laois and Donegal (both on 2 points) are on -18 and -11 respectively.
It’s worth noting, though, that if it’s a two-way tie to decide table placings, then the direct results between counties takes precedence over points difference, which is why Donegal are below Laois at the minute. It’s also worth pointing out, I guess, that most of that points difference damage to the teams in the bottom half of the table has been inflicted by Cork, Dublin and Kerry, all of whom we still have to face over the coming few weeks.
But next Sunday it’s Donegal up in Ballyshannon where, incidentally, proceedings will be officiated by our old pal, Mother Superior Marty Duffy. The refereeing Gods really do seem to be out to try our patience at the minute, a fact further underlined by the revelation that the other Duffy lad will have the whistle for Wednesday night’s U21 championship clash with Galway at McHale Park.
Photo credit: Mayo Mick
Is the referee smiling??
He seems to be. I’m glad he appeared to enjoy his day out at least!
The ref was a joke alright, but I’m glad James Horan is looking at our own failings first.
I’m glad he’s not sounding like that serial whinger John Brennan up in Derry – all that fella ever does is blame the ref for everything. Between that clown of a ref Cassidy, Brennan and Brolly, I doubt I’ll be holidaying in Derry anytime soon.
There’s feck all we can do about dodgy refs, we’re almost getting used to them by now. How we perform ourselves is in our control though, so lets concentrate on that. 3 points from play is shocking. Hopefully O’Connor coming back will remedy our free-taking problems.
That’s true about the refs, Dan – it’s certainly a case that cards are dished out left, right and centre at this time of year in stark contrast to what happens in the championship and it’s up to the players themselves to make sure they don’t give refs the easy option in this regard. It was obviously frustrating for Aidan yesterday to have Hughes hanging out of him, preventing the quick free kick but I’m sure it was a whole load more frustrating for him to have to sit up in the stand for the full hour that followed knowing that if he was on the pitch we’d surely have gone on to win.
I wasn’t at the game, but from what I heard it was Hughes’ reaction that made the refs mind up.
It’s one of the things I hate seeing creeping in to our games, but then our players should be well aware that they’re leaving themselves open to this when they react. The cynicism and play acting from Down yesterday was sad to see.
What made the sending off even more frustating was that O’Shea has really been starting to find some form lately.
well from my angle i thought o shea deserving of red and i wasnt that far away from the linesman who ultimately made the call. Anyway you swing an elbow back, whether it connects or not, youre opening yourself up to red card. he got away with it against kerry last year when he clocked galvin…he should have known better
He didn’t get away with it last year after elbowing Galvin, he admitted in the Examiner before the Armagh game that he got a 4 week suspension for it
I was about 20 odd metres from the incident and thought it was very harsh. Players reactions often tell you a lot about whats happened on a pitch, and Aidan was absolutely furious with the linesman walking off. The actions of a guilty man??!
My take on it is this, Aidan was fouled roughly on the halfway line. He was attempting to take a quick free but was being held back and prevented from doing so by Danny Hughes. He squiggled and squirmed to get free and is alleged to have caught hughes with an elbow ( im not convinced he did, but Hughes made sure the refereee and linesman thought he did).
Funny thing is, these referees are so bloody inconsistant that another referee would bring the ball forward because Aidan was prevented from taking the quick free!!
Its certainly the decision that changed the outcome of the game. While a lot of what we did yesterday cant be blamed on only having 14 men, it is virtually impossible to win a Division 1 game playing with 14 men for its entirety.
Under big pressure now as we have 4 tough games remaining, any and all of which we could lose. I am confident though that we should pick up at least the one required win to stay in the division next year, which has to be the primary aim.
DAN that cynical fouling is part and parcel of some teams way of play and it will continue until the gaa heads come up with a way of dealing wit it.Regards ta yesterdays game.we can blame all the people we want but there is still alot of problems to be addressed and we had our chances even wit a man down to punished there well rehearsed tactics but we failed. We can’t blame the ref for tat.From our 3 completed league games and through in the aborted game we have scored 1 fecking point from the position of goalie to number 9.We depend to much on frees and if we don’t get a scoring return from all quarters we will struggle in the later stages of the league
PM90 technically you are correct but how many games did he miss for the county? None
At the start of the game its the smae ref for both sides. but if your going to mess with the ref you have to use your head.
If Danny Hughes held back AOS then a verbal complaint should have been made autiomatically and AOS should have attempted to take the kick and fallen over theatrically.
Nett result would have been a 10/15 metre advantage and possibly a yellow for Hughes.
Instead by lashing out, it only gave the ref (no matter how much Hughes made a meal of it) the excuse to issue a Red.
Smart players will use the ref to their advantage. Pissing off the ref only leads to him making calls against you and your team.
JPM you have hit the nail on the head. They are bred up north to be cynical….we even saw tyrone minors at it in the minor replay a few years ago. it was a sickening site to see 17/18 year olds at it but they won . Cynical play is a sickening site but if you cant beat em…..
Its Galway in the U21 Wednesday night. Home game for us v the winners.
You’re correct, of course, James – thanks for pointing this out. The reigning U21 All-Ireland champions have to be dispensed with first before we can even start to think about the Rossies!
I’d switched off Midwest before the end of the programme on Sunday, does anyone know if they have live coverage of the U21 game on Wednesday?
Listen the rules of the game state that a striking offence is a red card and an elbow is a striking offence so yes he probably deserved to go. Its just a shame that there has been inconsistencies among referees on this rule ( I can think of a number of cases, some involving Ciaran Whealen where red should have been given.
Anyway, its a reality check for some players…you dont see Kerry/Tyrone/Dublin players talking themselves up in March. There is still alot of work to be done on the pitch so do the talking there….and only 2 or 3 players did it yesterday so that is very worrying! Tough games coming up so Mayo fans would want to calm down on the hype, and just get behind the team each game at a time and less of these shite posts about Citywest in September etc.