It was an All-Ireland final, after all, so there are loads of match reports for anyone who has the heart or the inclination to read them. Honourable mention, once again, must go to Colm Gannon in the Mayo Advertiser who had his comprehensive account of the match out in the public domain well before midnight last night. Elsewhere you can take your pick from the print media (the Indo, the Times, the Examiner and the Belfast Telegraph), the broadcasters (RTE, BBC, UTV and Setanta) or the websites (Hogan Stand and Gaelic Rising). Later in the week, of course, the Mayo News and the Western will have their spake and, when they do, I’ll add the relevant links to the site here.
(By the way, the results archive here on the site now contains details of all of this year’s minor and U21 championship games as well as all the senior league and championship matches, with the usual plethora of links to third-party match reports. Part of my off-season agenda will be to backfill these underage results for previous years as well as to keep pushing further backwards in time on the senior results).
As you’d imagine, most of the above reports are much of a muchness, which is no surprise seeing as they all cover the same 60 minutes of action. The ones in the Times and the Indo are heartening, though, in that they both contain fairly stirring after-match comments from Ray Dempsey. He said this to the Indo:
Look, I’d still rather be here than anywhere else today. I’m very proud of all of our players and we must be doing something right to be here so that’s a positive. The real cynics will have their cut at it, but at the end of the day we’ve competed. We just need to develop more of a ruthless streak when we come up here and we’ll have to do whatever we need to develop that within the whole county.
Good man, Ray, that’s exactly the talk we need. We can all feel like crap sitting there after yet another final loss but we have to keep reminding ourselves that we were good enough to make the final and we competed when we got there. The fact that this latest defeat is one that’s piled on top of all the others adds to the hurt but those other ones are nothing to do with the lads who battled bravely for the county yesterday and it’s unfair (as I think I came too close to doing myself in last night’s report) to add stuff about those previous defeats to the burden they’re carrying today.
We’re on the floor today, for sure, but we’ve been here before and, on past evidence, we won’t stay down for long. With months of no football now stretching out ahead of us, we’ll be well ready for it all again early next year. We might not feel that way today but come the New Year we will. We always do. We’re Mayo, after all.
Was at the match yesterday WJ. Got a late ticket from a Kerryman. Anyway first things first. I heard so much talk about this Armagh side, huge, brilliant, great, odds on favourites etc. Well I have never seen a more ordinary side in my life. The problem was that we also were ordinary. After Armaghs 6th consecutive wide in the second half Mayo should have done a Tyrone on it and drove on and thieved it. That would have been sweet.
Sadly the experience gained last year did not manifest itself. Once more, just as in last years drawn final we kicked a simple free wide from in front of the posts. Maurice Sheridan is the frees coach. Christ can he not drill it into young lads to place the damn ball on the ground and kick from there. Only Peter the Great, PJ and to a lesser extent the Gooch are reliable from the free from the hand.
If I am correct, I see that one of the linesmen was the guy who reffed our match v Meath. He and his orchestra cost us two goals. One from a line ball that should have been for us resulting in a penalty that would not be given had it been a Tyrone or Kerry defender. His optical challenged umpire missed the Meath keeper going walkabout inside his own goal line with the ball in his hands for company. His reward? a seat at the top table for the top match. If Mayo officaldom want to know what the GAA think of us then we need only look at that appointment.
Of course we will come back. We have no choice but God it gets harder and harder and harder!!
P>S The linesman I refer to was of course running the line in the senior match. See I am still het up and thick over him. Apologies.
Gutted about the result. Had ample chances to win it, but did not take them. On a positive note, we will have a very competitive U21 team next year with a mixture of this team last years team.
Well done, ontheroad – you must be one of the very few Mayomen that is able to say that they got something off a Kerryman on All-Ireland day!
You’re absolutely correct about our friend from Cavan and the fact that he got the linesman’s job in the senior final makes it even worse. Given the pig’s ear he made of our match, he should have been put on a diet of U14 girls match but instead he gets a job at the All-Ireland final. I think that tells us all we need to know about the GAA’s willingness to do anything about refereeing standards.
That’s a good point about next year’s U21s, Nitram, and the fact that the U21 championship is played early in the year helps matters too. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an U21 All-Ireland in the bag before the seniors get going next year? That – plus a good showing in the NFL (a good league never hurts the Kerrymen: this year was yet another double year for them) – would be a good, solid target to set for the county in the first six months of 2010.
It was a very tactical game & we competed well for long periods.
When we were a point up we went for goal when point was for the taking–this cost us the match imo
Overall Armagh found it easier to get scores
I wonder what Ray means by a ruthless streak. [Rest of comment deleted: this isn’t the place to air issues of this kind – WJ]
Was at the match. 10 mins to go, 1 point up against an over hyped Armagh side, I wondered could this be the day finally. Alas, when number 10 missed a relatively easy chance to put us two up the sinking feeling set in. It was very hard to take and I hardly had the stomach to watch the Senior match which put me in an even wosre mood.
I thoughts our back line were absolutely magnificent. If young Walshe hit any kind of form, then the game was ours. Why oh why did he not take the first free from the ground ???????? He never recovered from that.
Seemingly a lot of that team are underage again next year and with young O’Shea from Breaffy to come along with a few more decent players, they won’t be far off again next year.
After looking at the senior match, I was hugely relieved that our seniors were nowhere near the place. We are so far behind Kerry.
Can’t help wondering what SAD wanted to discuss??!!! But I don’t think WJ that Ray’s comments are great at all, he’s saying that they were lucky to get to the final (all that punching above the weight mullarkey) and that nobody should really have expected them to win. If this is the way managers are talking it’s no wonder there’s no sign of Sam coming for a visit. Why didn’t he work on that ruthless streak before September if that’s what’s needed, and we all know that killer instinct is in short supply in Mayo teams which often results in leads being swallowed up and games lost. We need a Paul Galvin type player, that’s what a ruthless streak looks like in the flesh.
no secret that jack oconnor heaps praise on galvin and says he is the type of player you need.. the thing is i’m sure such a player exists in mayo..
Fair point about Ray’s comments – I didn’t watch the Sunday Game (couldn’t face all that Kerry with Sam stuff) so didn’t hear what Ray said then. I thought his comments in the papers were okay, about being proud of the lads and the fact that we competed on the day.
Re the deleted part of the comment – this was an allegation about something that went on in the camp in the lead-up to the final. I can’t and won’t allow the site to be used for mudraking in this way: the Hogan Stand message is a perfectly adequate forum for such activity!
Like your last comment Willie Joe, fair play , the site is for genuine comment not Hogan stand stuff although I suppose I have been a bit schizo myself on occasion.
Schizo is fine, ontheroad – Lord knows, I can hardly throw rocks in that direction myself. It’s unsubstantiated personal stuff I’m not particularly keen on.
Ruthless streak.
Taigh Kennelly takes the head off Nicolas Murphy at the start of the match. Murphy’s influence on the game is minimal. That is the cynical ruthless streak that Mayo are missing. How many mayo players would have done that, probably none, we are too nice. Question is do we want Mayo players behaving like thugs?
i have to say martin that there is a line which should not be crossed . Kennelly did not cross it , whelan for the dubs however..
Congrats to Kerry. Very few teams could have given Cork a 5 point lead and won without a goal.Cork are a good side but they were not able to kick their points under pressure. Walsh kicked 4 great scores and that was the difference . BY the way nitram it was Murphy ( who didnt play badly ) that put in the great pass to O neill after 10 mins which led to the goal. Cork are a tough team (just ask Tyrone) so the accusation of thuggery is just begrudgery. Bad luck in the minors could have won