Well, the new pitch looked bloody gorgeous.
Setting eyes on the carpet-like playing surface for the first time today, the one thought that came into my mind was that we needed to put on a display to grace the new underfoot conditions. What we got, sadly, was a performance several levels below this.
I argued on the Final Whistle podcast after the game that this was quite possibly our worst Championship performance since Longford in 2010. It was certainly up there with the relatively few ineffective displays we’ve given over the last decade and more.
We lost today to, let’s face it, an average Galway team who, on today’s showing, aren’t going to light up this summer. In fact, Roscommon will most likely beat them in the Connacht final.
We should have beaten them too but when it came to the point where we needed to take the game to them after the break, we stalled completely. Once Galway started to tack on scores we attacked in the most pedestrian manner possible, running into the Galway shawl beyond the scoring zone and then getting caught on the break.
It was all so predictable. Everyone knew they’d come with a blanket approach – as this is what won them those matches under Kevin Walsh – yet we played as if it was the first time we’d ever encountered such a novel tactic. We wasted most of the second period, going scoreless for most of it before a late, late scoring burst turned a fairly comprehensive defeat into, on the scoreboard at least, a loss by the minimum margin.
Galway got the start they would have been dreaming about, in light of the tactics they’d decided to deploy. Shane Walsh opened their account with a move initiated on the throw-in and although we equalised soon after with a Cillian O’Connor free, they then hit us with 1-2 without reply to seize the upper hand in this contest early on.
Points from Rob Finnerty and Niall Daly were followed with a goal from Johnny Heaney. Rory Byrne’s kickout beforehand had gone out over the sideline and Aidan O’Shea should definitely have cut out the ball to Heaney but the Galway player grabbed it and poked it to the net.
That did, though, stir us into action. Ryan O’Donoghue opened his account from a mark and after Comer responded for them two more Cillian frees cut the gap to three.
A full 21 minutes passed, though, before we scored our first point from play, a super effort from out on the left wing by Eoghan McLaughlin. O’Laoi was ordered to the bin in the score’s aftermath, having dragged down Cillian as we strove to counter fast having turned the ball over.
From then to half-time, we had the better of the exchanges. Diarmuid O’Connor – who started the game instead of Kevin McLoughlin – blasted over a cracker off his left to cut the gap to one but 14-man Galway were now looking to waste as much time as possible. Walsh got a charitable enough free award but spent two or three minutes getting ‘treated’ before wasting more time shaping to take the free, which he duly scored.
Ryan then made his presence felt at the other end. He bagged a screamer from out on the right wing then added a fisted effort from close in. James Carr, showing well for the ball inside, took on his man, shrugging him off as he broke clear and firing over to level the game.
We would have been the happier of the two teams at the break. We’d reeled Galway back in and with a deceptively strong wind blowing diagonally towards the Albany end, the conditions were in our favour too. I fancied us to do it from there.
We got the first score after the break too, Aidan winning a restart and feeding James Carr who fired a beauty over.
But that was the last score we’d get for a good while. By the time we notched our eleventh point, from a Cillian free, they’d added six points at the bacon factory end and were by then on the road to a well-merited win.
By now, we’d all but stalled. Galway sat back and invited us on. We made our way with glacial slowness up the lovely new pitch, where we met almost their entire team camped inside the ’45 and sought in vain to punch a way through.
Losing the battle heavily around the middle, we also enabled Galway – on the occasions they broke out – to get scores with relative ease. It must be conceded, though, that Walsh’s three placed ball efforts – two of them ‘45s – were the kind of shots we simply didn’t have in our locker today.
After Cillian’s point Galway responded with two more, blasted over gleefully by Conroy and Heaney, as they surged six clear. It was obvious now that our goose was well and truly cooked.
To the lads’ credit, they then, finally, attacked the Tribesmen with intent, but, such was the way the visitors imploded in the face of these attacks, you’d really have to wonder why we didn’t have a proper go at them sooner.
Points from Lee Keegan, Ryan, Cillian (two frees) and Kevin McLoughlin (off his right!) hauled us back to within a point. Deep in stoppage time now, it would have been a tad outrageous if we’d forced extra-time but Aiden Orme’s effort from the left tailed wide. He would have been faulted by many for taking on the shot but, six minutes into injury time, I think it was the right option and he only missed narrowly.
That was, though, our final chance and within seconds Galway were celebrating a narrow but still thoroughly deserved win. It’s their third Championship win on the spin over us at MacHale Park, a venue that, new pitch notwithstanding, is still a place where we rarely perform at our best.
And, as we all know, we were far from our best today. Now, out of Connacht and with a six-week wait for the qualifiers, we’ve plenty of time to brood and, one hopes, to plan for a second coming in this Championship.
If we look on the bright side, our injury situation should be much improved by then but unless we can perform some kind of open heart surgery on our tactics it’s hard to see us improving to any great degree. And if we don’t improve, we won’t go much further. It could well prove to be, in an already condensed Championship, a short summer’s football for us.
Mayo: Rory Byrne; Lee Keegan (0-1), Oisín Mullin, Padraig O’Hora; Stephen Coen, Michael Plunkett, Eoghan McLaughlin (0-1); Aidan O’Shea, Matthew Ruane; Diarmuid O’Connor (0-1); Ryan O’Donoghue (0-4, one a mark), Conor Loftus; James Carr (0-2), Jason Doherty, Cillian O’Connor (0-6, frees). Subs: Enda Hession for Mullin, Aiden Orme for Doherty, Jack Carney for Loftus, Kevin McLoughlin (0-1) for Coen, Darren McHale for Carr.
Who was our MOTM against Galway? Pick your top three performers
- Ryan O'Donoghue (18%, 489 Votes)
- James Carr (14%, 391 Votes)
- Lee Keegan (14%, 385 Votes)
- Eoghan McLaughlin (10%, 270 Votes)
- Diarmuid O'Connor (9%, 258 Votes)
- Cillian O'Connor (9%, 255 Votes)
- Aidan O'Shea (9%, 253 Votes)
- Padraig O'Hora (4%, 99 Votes)
- Rory Byrne (3%, 75 Votes)
- Conor Loftus (1%, 37 Votes)
- Darren McHale (1%, 37 Votes)
- Aiden Orme (1%, 37 Votes)
- Matthew Ruane (1%, 34 Votes)
- Michael Plunkett (1%, 31 Votes)
- Stephen Coen (1%, 29 Votes)
- Oisín Mullin (1%, 21 Votes)
- Kevin McLoughlin (1%, 20 Votes)
- Jason Doherty (1%, 16 Votes)
- Jack Carney (0%, 12 Votes)
- Enda Hession (0%, 10 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,400
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You cannot win anything conceeding goals like we do.
Once again, that was lost on the sideline. Needing points from distance – considering how Galway were set up the whole game – and he brings on a forward who has unfortunately shown little this year.
Yet Darren Coen is twiddling his thumbs on the bench.
Management lost that.
COMING UP: 3 days of avoiding all media.
Better team won, Galway are still going nowhere, we mightn’t be either but could do with the break to let injuries clear up. Always gutted to lose to them, because they get such big fecken heads of there’s a sniff of any goodness and they immediately forget all the shite years.
20 minute period without a score was a killer. I’d give Galway a bit more credit than above, i didn’t think Joyce had it in him to have Galway so well set up defensively it was almost like they were managed by Kevin Walsh today.
The telling stat today was Galway 15 scores from 22 shots. Mayo 16 scores from 31 shots.
Too many wides again and the injuries are killing us.
If James had sprung the bench 10 minutes earlier we might have pulled it off but in all truth we wouldn’t have deserved it.
The tactics were abysmal. Horan needs to be questioned on it. Hand passing, lateral play against a mediocre defence. What was the point of any of it when it became abundantly clear in the last 5 minutes that if we had just gone at them properly, we would have beaten them? It was pedestrian, cowardly play against a team that te no great shakes. At this stage, we ate a division 2 team at best. We couldn’t even beat the second best team in division 2. We’ll do nothing this summer with these tactics.
And I don’t like to criticise players too much qd I think management is mostly to blame, but our forwards are very poor. Afraid to take the shot on, un-creative. No ideas up front. Can’t be relying on Cillian and Jason Doherty – neither are what they used to be. Ryan O’Donoghue is fabulous player but he can only do so much. The rest are either too inexperienced, out of form.or simply arent county level.
It’s going to be a short summer.
Not a great performance,
The older lads have not got the pace any more,
James continue to play Loftus who hasn’t done much in any game iv watched,
He doesn’t make changes soon enough,
Cant kick points over blanket defence carry ball into defence all time, and I’ve heard James say many times in media were learning ,
Cant see any learnings,
I think its gone stale with management there seems to be a lack of interest all round,
Bad day at the office but look, we have been here before!!
The 6 weeks is defo needed in the Mayo camp.
Can someone please explain how the qualifiers will work this year?
Thanks & Keep the Faith!!
anyone know why R O D was taken off the frees today, he hardly missed any for the last year. One easy one missed today would have given us a draw maybe.
I think JH needs to refresh his coaching team to bring in some new ideas. Otherwise I fear the players & supporters will lose faith in him. Galway seemed a better coached team.
Despite the injuries and the lethargic performance, Galway were still there for the taking. That’s what makes me frustrated.
What’s Loftus doing in training to keep getting picked ahead of Boland?
6 weeks of intense finger pointing before we get pulled into the roulette that awaits us.
I always wonder about the mentality people have to decide having lost a game have to knock the standard of the team they lost well too and then dismiss any chance they have going forward..
In second half we scored 2 points in 32 minutes of play, against an average team not good enough
Thought Galway were full value for the win today and as a Galway man I don’t particularly rate them. Regardless of the result today I don’t think Ros will be a pushover in Connacht for either Galway or Mayo. Lot of talk on here about shawls etc but Galway had the better kick passers(Conroy) and footballers(Comer) on the pitch today. They also had the likes of McHugh(5), Daly(6) and Molloy(7) who won’t get the headlines but worked, tracked, and blocked the space where in the past Mayo blew us away in this sector with powerful runners.
Mayo today showed me how good Higgins, Boyle, Barrett etc were at 1v1 defending. Horan is playing the same game but those guys are no longer there. Some of those Galway scores today would not have been got 5 years ago. Best of luck in the qualifiers. Mayo have proven they can rebuild down that avenue many times
@keeper Sweeper its too late for that now the jigs up Horan is in his eight season ill be kind and leave it that other than say well done Galway
Yeah WJ it gas a 2010 feel about it alright…..I would be more worried that we are in a Galway 1983 frame of mind now though.
Look 6 weeks to get injury list sorted….and 2 wins gets us to a quarter final….let’s just go for that.
Give Horan the space and time to see what he can muster.We all wanted him in the job and we knew what he would deliver….
agree with the headline wj, late surge masks flat display alright, tbh galway were 5 or 6 points a better team and their nerves and panic nearly done for them though it would have been robbery if we nicked a draw
frustrating how 1 dimensional our playing style has become, keep running in waves into traps, no variety in our play, given our ff line scraps to live off, struggling on the motm poll, some decent shifts put in but cant think of anyone id give more than a 7/10
@MadMayoRob 2 rounds of qualifiers this year as opposed to the 4 pre-2018. A 3rd preliminary round is possible if any Division 3 or 4 team makes a provincial final, their place in the Tailteann cup is then forfeited.
I have to say I agree with Mayomagic. I think many are being a bit disrespectful to Galway and their win and the manner in which they comfortably beat us. Extra time would have been robbery and we didn’t deserve anything from this game.
Truth is Joyce gave Horan a lesson. Joyce read him like a book, employed tactics to make us play a game they wanted us to play, and rightly took the spoils. We’re clueless at both ends of the field and can play only 1 way, and in my opinion, that is down to Horkans instructions. The world and his dog know how we play and they know how to negate it. It’s old school now, the game has moved on and we’re still at the same game that Horan had us playing back in 2011. For all the BS from Horan about taking “learnings” he’d want to prepare for repeats because he has learned ziltch since September.
20 secs into the 1st half, we were wide open in our central defensive channel and Galway scored from play. All day long we left a massive hole in our centre back position and never once dropped a sweeper, or a +1, to close off the very effective and simple balls that Galway were bouncing into their full forward line. And before I hear any nonsense about Mullin being a loss, in the 1st half alone, Galway got inside our 45m line 11 times, got 9 shots off and scored 7 times (1-6). Compare that to our 26 sorties inside their 45m line, 14 shots but only 9 points scored. We didn’t score from play until the 20th minute! At home! On a beautiful day. On a brand new carpet like pitch! The facts back up what the eye saw and it didn’t change in the 2nd half. We really only built up a head of steam when Galway were reduced to 14 players.
Same old tactic of throwing on subs with 3 and 6 mins to go and us 6 points down. I give up, I really do.
Conroy outstanding all day and he drove his team for home in the second half, opening up a 6 point gap and hammering over his long range frees from the deck.
Galway defence was better than ours. I still think Aidan is too slow. James Horan was beaten by Joyce today. You can’t blame the backroom team. The book stops with the manager. He has to accept responsibility. But I do think we can improve and hopefully injured players will be available going forward. I thought Cillian was superb.
I agree Tuamstar we have lost a few to this team “who are no great shakes”…..I wish to fuck we could figure out how to play against them because they are a right pain in my hole!
Culmore.. we all do but can’t say it
Another tactical masterclass from horan
Same Old Mayo Willie Joe. I can’t understand why we played 65 minutes of tortoise like headless chicken type football and then 10 minutes of fast direct scoring football. We never kicked on after half time, went back into our shell lateral handpassing across their 45 going backwards running into tackles and coughing up turnovers. Too many rushed shots, too many costly turnovers. Substitutions not made early enough. No Fergal Boland. No Darren Coen. Are the management Team not talking to each other there seems to be no communication or advice given to JH to change things. It’s almost like there are no tactics just get hold of the ball and run. That’s it. Do we never learn from playing blanket defences? What did we learn from playing Tyrone in last years AIF? Nothing. Mayo were so slow Today in build up play much like the League Final. Too many wides again.
On the bright side the last 10 minutes from the 65th minute Mayo suddenly came alive. Why we could not have torn into Galway like that for the first 60 minutes we would have won the game.
Dissapointed Today I thought We were going to have a real go at Galway and set ourselves up for a run. The qualifiers will be difficult with Kerry, Dublin, Tyrone and Armagh all lurking.
Injuries did not help us but surely Today we had enough Caliber Payers on the Team/ bench to beat Galway. Congratulations to Galway. They deserved it on the day. Mayo did not. Best of luck to the lads in the Qualifiers.
Point missing in your scores Willie Joe. Think it can be attributed to Kevin Mcloughlin.
More Green play keep recycling and going nowhere until the last 5 minutes. Most posters here mentioned picking players out of form namely Stephen Coen and Conor Loftus and they were proved right. Its time to shake up the panel.I don’t think Michael Plunkett is a defender and maybe should be tried in the forwards as he got a few nice scores in the League.
Can anyone tell me why James Carr was taken off as he was a threat.
Anyway roll on the qualifiers.
Did horan speak to the media after the match?
Every time Byrne got his kick out off, O’Laoi just turned, head down, busted his ass and got back into the Galway half back line, that allowed the Galway wing back (McHugh??) to tuck inside 20m and that closed shut the central channel, right in front of the scoring zone, on us. Simple, good honest, hard running and hard work. Nothing over complicated just putting a shift in for your team, closing channels, blocking passing lanes, unheralded and unsexy defensive work. But it works. To be honest, I think the scoreline is soft on us, I feel Galway were 6 or 7 points better than us today.
As said above, the buck stops with Horan. We play the way he wants us playing. He has in his management team those who he wants. Todays performance and result is on him.
Puts a very different shade on our performance in the league final now, doesn’t it.
I don’t often agree with Pat Spillane but he was right today when he likened Mayo to Albert Einstein’s definition of madness where you keep on doing the same things over and over again yet expect different results.
The positives today were Cillian got 70 minutes and Diarmuid and Ryan showed well and at least we’re still in the competition.
Too many negatives to mention. Teams have worked us out. Get back behind the ball, block the runners and wait for us to lose possession.
Many of the injuries in my opinion are as a result of the amount if running we do linked to the running game. We need to let the ball do more of the work.
Can ye all simply not see that things have changed and moved on since 2011, over 10 years ago now, I mean style of play etc.
It’s impossible for one to keep up the hunger and drive after so many setbacks.
A new approach is needed now.
AOS getting criticism but how many more
Possessions and tackles did he have compared to his Midfield partner who barely featured once
Again.
I never like losing. But what hurt today was the utter lack of belief/confidence in our team. Little courage, throwing everything at Galway when it was too late and it hurts me to see good men exposed by poor decisions on the line.
I have always loved and admired JH. But I get a feeling his heart isn’t in it anymore.
Thanks to the lads and to James and his team. I genuinely do appreciate the blood sweat and effort you guys give. I am proud of what you have achieved through the years.
Well done to Galway. You outfoxed us today and we had no answers.
I’m looking forward to six weeks to try and just enjoy the lack of limelight.
I hope Oisín is ok and that a lot of our injuries clear up.
Let’s see what tomorrow holds….in 6 weeks time.
Maigheo go deo.
As I referenced prior to game ye can’t do with Tommy Conroy out when ye have a number of non scoring forwards. Galway should have won by more but it’s a learning exercise for an inexperienced team. Division 1 status and Mayo beaten must please PJ, he will need a Connaught title though and after that its bonus territory. A strong Galway greatly reduces Mayo’s chances of further tilts at Sam so I can understand the tone of the article as the writer knows this is a crucial loss.
Horan interview can be got on twitter OTB
Yea – – – we seem to have the flattest learnings curve around. Poor as it gets.
Poor display, quite demoralised with it. Feels like we don’t have much to offer if teams choose to sit back and absorb the hard running style we implement.
There were many frustrations today, most of which have been highlighted by other posters. I have two particular gripes:
1: struggling to get scores, it was likely we needed our best long range shooters on. In my opinion that is Darren Coen, but Boland is also accurate and both have done it in big games. But they decide to bring Orme and McHale in. In the league, Orme has been okay during the league but far from shooting the blights out. And to the best of my knowledge today was McHale’s first day back after a long lay off.
2. A possibly petty gripe on time keeping. In the second minute of the five minutes allocated to injury time a Galway player (Conroy, I think) receives treatment for one minute. This isn’t considered by the ref, who blows up on the restart following Orme’s missed effort to equalise. There was at least one last play. I know this is grasping, but the way things were going who is to say Mayo wouldn’t have been able to engineer one last effort (and still blow it..!).
Basic errors, we go again Tuesday night trying to get better.
A lot of supporters are getting rightly tired of our myopic tactics.
Andy Moran won footballer of the year at full forward under Rochford.
It would be impossible under James Horan.
We are the worst coached in the attacking plays asked of the game in division one each year under Horan.
Horanball is found out now for fully 9 years, 2013 final.
The most galling thing for me was just how easily Joyce outwitted horan tactically, I really wouldn’t have rated Joyce at all tactically up to this point, always found his style simplistic and naive and yet he totally outfoxed JH today, in just 2 weeks he was able to knock up a rudimentary basic defensive line on the 40 with wing forwards working back and we were completely incapable of adapting to it.
Mayo lads making braindead runs into traffic and clogging up space, same old same old.
What was it,5 scores from play, on a carpet of a pitch on a perfect summers day. No attacking flair whatsoever
All 3 of galways star men, conroy/comer/walsh stood up and were the 3 best players on the pitch by a country mile
Referee missed James Carr two hops in first half two for his point from play..
Our lads (particularly the more experienced ones) no longer have the appetite or energy to play the high intensity stuff required by Horans approach. And certainly not for an entire game. Thats one good reason why Mayo are flat for long periods and then have a burst of play for a while before going flat again. In the past we could sustain that type of play for long periods and exhaust the opposition but now we end up exhausted ourselves .
I read an article in the Irish Examiner about Cien ONiell,and working with Mayo in 2012,he wanted a different defence against Donegal,James Horan would not change does anyone really believe that he will change now,that been said I believe that he changed the culture of Mayo football I don’t believe that he had the tactical boys of Stephen Rochford but he has been an excellent manager who got our fitness levels up but I am afraid that the reality is he won’t change
I have no interest in Horan’s interview. It will be the usual sound-bites.
He was out-thought by Joyce, but it didn’t take much really considering how he has learnt little since last years All-Ireland. Kudos to Galway but that was a shocking 65 minutes of football from the Mayo management.
Way to predictable. Reliance on slow build up only plays into hands of opponents.
A lot of good tackling, turnovers etc. Very frustrating for AOS when he went into ff, he needed to be hit with long direct ball but slow built up is engrained in the way we play
Tuamstar. the referee also missed your goalkeeper continuously wating time on kick outs trying to slow the tempo of the match down
Firstly commiserations,
Nearly pulled it out of the fire but an inexperienced lad took on a hail mary shot.
Looking back at the league final now I think you cant take today’s game in isolation.
Poor v Tyrone, Poor v Kerry and Poor today.
The loss of Conroy is very evident now but 1 player isint the answer either.
Delighted for Commer who was plagued with injuries and was motm today
Kerry Mayo quarter final anyone ?
Cant kick ball straight. Missed scorable frees while Galway kicked them over from all over the field. Inside forwards did not make runs to attract a long pass or the defenders were too good. We tried many players in the league and I accept the players that lined out (barring injuries) are the best available – but just not good enough. The style of our play is not entertaining. Get to the 45 and then look back. So boring. Dont know why RO’D was taken off free taking duties. Pity James Carr didnt get on more ball showed real promise with what he got.
Looking ahead I would go with a front 3 of Cillian,Ryan and James Carr with Diarmuid at 11. Hopefully a few injuries clear up in time for the qualifiers. Robbie will be back. Paddy Durcan is back in training next week.
The high octane running game is great when it works but we have to move the ball quicker when teams shut our runners down. Nothing we dont already know. More kick passing more kick passing and more kick passing.
Tuamstar, yee won and your complaining about James Carrs two hops. Your a regular poster over the years and god forbid a newbie would question your remark maybe you should enjoy the victory than being concerned about Carrs 2 hops.
I thought Cillian O’Connor had an excellent game today. Great to have a player back bringing this form. Eoghan McLaughlin good. Diarmuid good too.
James Carr caused alarm with his surges.
I won’t lie – I feel deflated but will recover.
And when you think about it, we only lost by one point.
Amazing.
If we had one player back, for example, Robbie Hennelly, we could have won that match.
I mean:
Rory put a kickout over the sideline that led to the Galway goal. Not at all blaming Rory but not sure Robbie would send one out like that, just due to his kickout ability and experience. (Rory very competent though).
And we had a long range free that Cillian missed – Robbie might have been putting that over.
That’s a four point adjustment on the scoreboard!
But that’s just ruminating for fun though.
We still cannot deal with a blanket defence.
We seem to do too much recycling.
After the last few games, I hope we can adjust and add a different dimension, or even get around a packed defence. That’d be enormous.
Galway were jubilant at the end. Fair play to them.
Their defence were very well organised. And we left too much room for their shooters at the other end,
Cora had enormous patience with her aggravating fellow studio guest at the end of the RTE broadcast.
100% agree culmore…ROD should have been left on frees, solidifying records are a priority for some
How long can JH live off past success to excuse repeated failings. Yes he has transformed the culture of mayo football for the better and has mayo consistently competing at the top table and we all acknowledge and thank him for that. BUT we cant keep saying second best will do. We have to go the final step, be ruthless. Can horan do that? Can he deliver the big one after 4 failed attempts? Would kerry accept that?
People will say we’re overreacting and give the team 6 weeks to recoup. JH has had 6 years to get it right
The game changed completely when Oisin got injured. Mayo had just gone in dront and had momentum but it seemed like the whole team looking at another big injury(maybe feeling sorry for themselves) just imploded and took an age to get going again. They are better than Galway and anything else in Connacht but with this unprecedented injury pile-up maybe we should use the rest if wharever is left of the championship and the forthcoming league to prepare for championship 2023. The injuries this season have made a big challenge unrealistic.
Do what we can this year but mainly giving time to future lads.
Next year hopefully we have back fully fit Hennelly, McBrien, Harrison, Durcan, Mullin, Flynn, Conroy, McDonagh, Moran,Walsh and maybe bring in the likes of Callinan, McHugh, Keane, Irwin and young O’Flaherty.
Still good days ahead!
Some serious fair weather comments on here tonight and although I have the up most respect for this forum but to compare this to Longford in 2010 is a complete joke. If anyone thought we would win this game handy they were in dream land. We have key players either injured or just back from injury so todays result was always a high possibility. Yes we were poor but could have drawn at the end,even though undeserved, so please can we have a little perspective. If we win one qualifier all those slating JH and the team tonight will be on the old “Mayo 4 Sam” bandwagon. This isn’t over yet
No big surprise that Galway won today.
And division 1 vis a vis division 2 don’t matter a jot come Championship time.
And where is the so-called Ciaran McDonald influence on the forwards, that was supposed to turn us around.
As for Horan, his tactics might have worked when he had some of the best running backs ever to have played the game.
Sadly this is not the case anymore, and it should be obvious to the man in the street he knows no other way.
So for this year anyway, the game is up!!
Am puzzled as to how, all of a sudden, Hennelly is our saviour and would have won us that game? Have we forgotten his performances that cost us TWO All Irelands? I seem to remember him sidelining one also that cost us v Dublin. We desperately needed a back up keeper BEFORE Clarke left, never mind now.
Also, and I predicted this, let’s not pretend that the game hinged on Mullins’ injury. That was 3 mins into the second half and we had already conceded the 1st point of the half by then. They had scored 1-6 from 8 efforts while Mullins was there in the 1st half.
This is ALL on Horans game plan and selection. Players play and managers manage. In all honesty 15 mins into the second half I felt the game drifting away from us. The last few, helter skelter efforts will hide alot of the truly naive, stubborn minded, defensive frailties that were evident in our shape at the back.
Why did Cillian take that missed free in first half with his left foot? I’ve never seen him kick one off the left boot before
@ West Kerry. I would tread carefully if meeting Mayo in a quarter final. We are down Today but not out. Mayo will regroup and will be a stronger Team in 6 weeks. More often than not Mayo have got to the All Ireland Final through the Qualifiers.
There’s no tactics to Horanball, its simply run like a dog all day til the other team wilts. We’ve seen it win many games for us. And once a team sets up defensively to shut down our runners, we’re goosed.
Anyway, nice playing surface as it was today in McHale park, its a graveyard for Horanball – too narrow,no space for running game and easy to pressure our shooting forwards.
We’ve lost important games recently to Tyrone, kerry and now Galway, these are not worldbeaters but they’re well ahead of us, yes even Galway, so we’re well of the levels required to hope for a long summer.
But being Mayo, sure this is a good place to be in, in the backdoor with no good form, how many times have we been here.
The question is, can this team recover the magic like in some previous qualifier runs?
We did not move the ball fast enough. Your right Mind the House. Feck this crack of passing the ball back and over. Direct, fast and accurate foot passing forward is the only way to beat a blanket defence. Don’t give them time to get 13 men behind the ball. We were able to do that but we seem to have lost our way. You need quick moving and fast thinking players to do that. It also strikes me that we don’t seem to know where the posts are. The greatest forward players knew where the posts were without even looking up. They knew where they were positioned on the field and had the talent to land a point even from 40 to 50 yards out. And where is one of our great forwards Ciaran McDonald. Has he any say what should happen in regard to the forward play. Forgive my naivety but is it the case we have a forward coach and a defense coach. If a forward is not scoring then he should not be playing. Defense was always about anticipation. If your ball watching you will be caught out. If you wait for the ball to come to you rather than going to meet it you will be beaten to it. How many scores were achieved by Galway through the lack of these basic principles. But Horan is the MANAGER. He is not managing. He is all over the place and it strikes me that the players are no longer inspired by him.
I felt Mayo didn’t want to win today. I always feel that if there is another chance to qualify,
they will take it and take the long way round. Much like their play today, instead of shooting at goal like
Galway did at every opportunity, we played pass the parcel and sometimes were successful at working it in.
I don’t accept the injury argument anymore. We have had injury problems for years and use it as our defense, as if we only had 15 players in total. How come of all the teams we have this problem every year. How come we survived without COC.
ROD is a magic player and really got most scores from play throughout the league. He picked up the mantle from COC. So why was he displaced today. Surely it was up to COC to earn his place back. He wasn’t his usual self today and I felt that from many other payers performances.
Galway deserved their win and lets not begrudge them. When I watch Mayo’s body language, i feel they don’t always give their opponents the respect they deserve and play like we will catch up when we are ready, rather than
dealing with the problem immediately.
I really believe there is something wrong at a higher level, that is causing this demotivation of the players. Small managerial decisions matter.
Mayo looked like a tired team that were out of ideas. Could even say the same about the supporters. McHale park was like a funeral at times. I could hear the players shouting at each other on the pitch. Cillian O’Connor was trying to gee-up the crowd but the flatness of the second-half performance had people walking out with ten minutes to go. For a championship game in summer-like conditions the atmosphere was as lifeless as I can remember. Galway did the simple things well, they nullified Mayo’s running game by blocking all channels and tackling hard, and took their chances when presented. I thought our midfield did ok in the first half. The scoreline would have been worse at half-time had Aidan O’Shea not won as much ball as he did. That relieved some of the pressure on the defence which was ragged throughout. Bar the last few minutes the second half was Mayo’s worst championship performance in a long time. Time and time again we ran into traffic before inevitably getting dispossessed. Perhaps tiredness took away the patience and concentration needed to unlock these kinds of defences. We managed it against Armagh but were out of sorts today. One of the few positives I took from today was that at least James Carr has established himself in the forwards and can give us an option there. Otherwise it was looking stale at times.
I don’t think the condensed season will suit Mayo, given our style of play and propensity for picking up injuries. Perhaps the five weeks is needed after all. We’re not out of this yet but it’s hard to be optimistic about the months ahead.
Not trolling at all,
Why would I ? We have nothing to brag about at the minute.
Kerry certainly would be very wary if a QF with Mayo particularly as we would be undercooked.
I was merely point out what a big game that would be.
It panned out exactly as I thought it would, we would struggle to score. Galway let us back by not going for it. The flatness of the players and the crowd is due to one reason, that management should have been let go after the IA final.
This year is done, James has been unlucky with injuries but has to go.
I would disagree that this was worst since Longford in 2010. Kerry hammered us in 2011 and later we had bad loss to Donegal in final . We lost today by 1 point. This is not similar to Longford 2010. We lost to a much better galway team. If Roscommon beat galway , we are effectively 3rd best team in Connaught. This is where we are at. We are miles away from talking about an ALL IRELAND win. None of this should be surprise, our form has been poor. I expected galway to win . There is an awful lot of emotional posting on this blog especially before a big game.
Wing forwards for galway drop.
That allows wing backs to drop and both play as sweepers covering on front of full forward line. So no, no matter how fast you run, and no matter how far you kick the ball, you wont get it there before the sweeper.
There are teams that study beating the blanket. Some Mayo people think it’s as simple as run fast and kick the ball in.
If it was that simple no team would be playing a blanket
Hi Willie Joe, let’s all be a bit more positive. The OConnors are back and will be better in the qualifiers. Hopefully we’ll also have Rob, Jordan and Oisin fit for the qualifiers. The TV coverage today was ruined , for me anyway, by the contrabutions of those dreadful Kerrymen Pat and Eamon . At least Cora was eloquent and very knowledgeable and not so critical in her analysis.Keep the faith !!
Just enjoy the very measured views from outside posters,people !like Martin the Dub,Gamechanger, West Kerry,and many more ,they only want us to be the best until we meet them,we need to sort out our own problems
Pebblesmeller, in my post I did not say Hennelly is our saviour or would be our saviour today, if there. That is to misread me. I’m not sure why you take that line.
I gave a simple example to put our one point loss in context.
To me it FELT like an awful loss and it seemed like an awesome Galway victory.
Yet someone it was a one point win/loss that could have been otherwise.
I happen to agree with you that our gameplan lacked imagination and was ineffective.
To be honest, I find your statement about Robbie off putting.
last 3 championship matches.
6 goals conceded no goals scored
Mayo are rarely ruthless. Every game goes one point either way. Yall never win an All Ireland like that. No forwards good enough to hammer teams. Pat Spillane is right.
James Horans time is up once we lose a qualifier to Armagh by 1point with 11 wides.
Mayo are down but they are not out, for sure the game plan for 60mins was rubbish. They played great football for the last 7 minutes but that’s not good enough against a good Galway team. Mayo got bottled up every time they decided eventually to have a go but the whole of Galway was waiting for them, it’s time to go hard at opposition in the third quarter instead of blood & thunder in the last few minutes hoping for miracle
Positives
O’Connors back . Both are huge .
Eoghan mc back – huge player for us .
We only lost by point!!!
Michaelincork – Fitzmaurice is an excellent commentator who actually knows the game would you prefer Dessie Dolan ??
While Pat got a bit excited you couldn’t argue with his points.
We are back in the bad old days. Anyone who thinks this team and management can win an all Ireland are living in cloud cuckoo land. We are finished.
I disagree yew-tree that we are back in the bad old days but I do agree that we are finished as All Ireland contenders for this year at least and probably longer.
“If we had one player back, for example, Robbie Hennelly, we could have won that match.
I mean:
Rory put a kickout over the sideline that led to the Galway goal. Not at all blaming Rory but not sure Robbie would send one out like that, just due to his kickout ability and experience. (Rory very competent though).
And we had a long range free that Cillian missed – Robbie might have been putting that over.
That’s a four point adjustment on the scoreboard!”
Swallow Scoops, that reads to me that you are making the argument that Robbie could have been our saviour today? To paraphrase you, Robbie wouldn’t have put the kickout over the sideline, which led to the Galway goal. And, he’d have put the long range free over.
Maybe I am misreading it though.
Nothing wrong with fitzmaurice on commentary, he’s good.
I generally don’t like spillane but hard to disagree with him today.
As a previous poster the third quarter is where Mayo lose the big games, look back at all finals bar one, I think it was drawn 2016 final where Mayo put up a few scores right after halftime.
If we are really honest with ourselves, I believe we all need a break or time out for a year or two, the 2021 final did it for me.
I am a Mayo man living in galway for nearly 17 years. Was at match today with my two daughters, both proudly wearing the Green and Red. While not the result we all wanted, but think comparing today to as bad of a championship loss to longford in 2010. Is a stretch. Thinking back at scrapping by London in Horan first game, Derry in qualifiers, but a outrageous goal to save our bacon. Losing to Dublin heavily in semi final. Do think McHale park seem to be a noose around our neck. Today it looked perfect, soaked in sun shine. But for whatever reason we never play well there. Another thing annoying me , for a while. If JFT was shot in morning, half the country would blame Aiden O’Shea. While he has limitations, I thought he lay off some serious hand passes that we should have converted in first half, to goals and points. Another annoyance today, was amount of time wasting by Galway. For a minute I thought they have to call Red Cross for them. Especially once they got black card, and entire second half. 5 minute extra time, look small to me.
Sean Cavanagh reckons Galway will improve when they start bringing on Michael Daly…the same Michael Daly who left the panel last year.
We were second best today in fairness. Well done Galway. Both teams are a million miles off winning an All Ireland. Really poor.
Hope the Rossies win connaught.
Yes, Pebblesmeller, you are misreading me.
Your view doesn’t put across my context.
I said that Robbie, as an example of one player, could have helped us get a different result.
MY POINT was that SMALL THINGS could have changed the game although we feel right now it is a big loss. This is a small thing, in my view, because Robbie is our regular goalkeeper that we’d normally expect to be there.
It’s NOT a BIG statement about Robbie as our saviour.
I feel taken aback by your reading of my post because your reading doesn’t represent the point I was trying to make.
The point was about SMALL THINGS that might have been different on another day.
And that although Galway worked skilfully and hard, they still only won by one point.
(As I said, I agree with the main part of your post just not what you’re choosing to say about Robbie being the missing KEY PERSON).
I thought Eamon Fitzmaurice was excellent and fair.
He made a very good point that Kerry wouldn’t allow the opposition to practice on their pitch during the week like the Mayo County Board. This of course is the same County Board that did not want Mick O Dwyer as manager. If only.
Disappointing day at the office, driving back the road to Galway this eve felt a bit like the aftermath of last years all Ireland – that feeling of not knowing where we go from here.
Galway fully deserved the win.
it’s time for management to come in from outside of mayo. Love to see cillian back but it’s a disgrace the free taking was not left with ROD who has been outstanding the last 12 months for us.
We are riddled with injuries and although we have a record of defying all odds I just can’t see us going too far in 2022
Injuries are a major factor in this game.Sure you can lose 1 or 2 but we are up to 10 or 12.
That’s going to have an effect.
Anyway time for a break!.
Leave it till June.We won’t sort it out on here.
Even Willie Joe seems jaded
Im really starting to think James Horan must have refused to sign Pebblesmeller’s jersey back in 1996!!!… Give it a rest lad, your at it all week we got your point the first time.
Whoever let Galway train in Castlebar this week should be kicked out of whatever position he’s in.
Looking forward to a 5-6 week break not having to think about football haha.
Credit to Galway, they came to town with a game plan, executed it and left with the win.
We were very poor and clueless up front at times. Lots to work on for James and the Team. I would like see Ryan and James Carr as our target men inside. I would also like to see Lee Keegan in the half back line.
@West Kerry
Your some what right, if we win our two qualifiers then we play the Munster or Leinster champs.
So a Kerry v Mayo quarter perhaps. Or maybe a semi jf we beat the Leinster crowd.
Your fully right on Spillane’s comments and Fitz he’s an excellent analyst. He certainly didt lose the game for Mayo.
But no I think we will be beaten in the qualifiers. We are not good enough and the last few games have proved that.
To say anything else is only making excuses. This talk about previous efforts in the qualifiers is wishful thinking. Too many wides and to open at the back.
And where was Mc Donald or Burke not to be seen on the side line. I’m not conjuring a conspiracy but it is
objectively true to say in the last few games the Mayo selectors are no where to be seen.
West Kerry, Yes of course you couldn’t argue against Pat, I bow my knee to you good Sir, let’s brush any vail of analysis under the carpet shur who cares about that. Enjoying your insightful comments on the blog. Really really insightful
everyone keeps talking about the injuries…when are we going to talk about strength and conditioning??? whatever about freak injuries – we are losing a lot of players to routine injuries like hammers etc. it isn’t normal. we haven’t had a fully fit squad since 2017.
Jh may have changed the culture of Mayo football but surely even his biggest supporters can see that his 2nd coming is damaging the culture of Mayo football. We have a losing mentality now especially in big gaes and when was the last time a Horan team played well for 70 + mins. All last year we played well is short spurts and these blood and guts comebacks are down to being passive until we are way behind, it’s no accident anymore we do this all the time now and JH comments on it and then ot happwns again so obviously we can only do the high intensity stuff when all hope is lost so mixing up the style of play would alleviate this but no chance. Our best display in attack in the league came when JH was otherwise engaged against Kildare and believe me there is no way McDonald wants our attack to play this way, i have been told numerous times by people in the know that he is an excellent innovative coach so why would he want to try the same old same old when it doesn’t work. James Horan has had his best days and best team in 2014 time now for a change and new ideas before it’s too late and we have to start from scratch again.
We have a new cure for insomnia. It’s called Snoran ball. If we ever erect a statue of Aiden it will be placed on the edge of the square to gather dust like the man himself today. What is the point of it if no ball is kicked in to him. No ball is kicked in because we are incapable of kicking a decent ball in as it is not a part of our game plan. With 15 minutes to go I said we would make a mad burst in the last 5 minutes and still lose by a point. James is a fantastic trainer and mentor but not a tactician. We are too predictable and have never figured out how to beat the blanket. What an occasion today should have been with a fantastic new surface, a bumper crowd and sunshine. League final was an accurate reflection of where we are at in the pecking order and today confirmed it. A one point hammering. The worst sort. Galway were deserving winners but a bit ott with the celebrations. Hopefully my enthusiasm will have returned in 6 weeks time but it will be a struggle.
Theteamwontstart : Pat stated Mayo haven’t won the all ireland because of their lack of forwards and 16 scores at home supports that assertion.
James game plan can be countered very easily as Galway copied Kerry by crowding the D and Mayo couldn’t score as they don’t kick many long range scores.
Galway are not as good as Kerry so eventually that defence broke.
Mathew Ruane had arguably his poorest game in a Mayo shirt and not helped by Aidan in the middle who tried hard, tackled well but again can’t take a score.
Finally Mayo 2013 – 2017 could all their backs to go 1 on 1 because they were hard tough no messing backs. This current crop aren’t the same yet Horan seems to not recognise that and leaves lads like OHora on Clifford with no cover.
A running game won’t win the all ireland.
The Longford comment is daft – so many worse performances since then than today. Also, that piece is disrespectful to Galway, they have every chance of getting to a semi final and sure who knows what will happen then? Galway played very well in the second half but just panicked at the end, which is understandable for a team on the cusp of their first big win in 4 years.
I’d trust Joyce to manage this Mayo team better than Horan. At least Joyce can learn from his mistakes.
Eamon Fitzmaurice is a top class commentator and analyst of the game.I did not care for the way he used to set up his team but that’s a different thing but he was born to do this.A natural. A gentleman. Wise.
Like most people watching the game at the end of the first half he thought it was an excellent championship game and there was zero talk about Mayo being flat.
There were alternating periods of dominance from two equally matched teams.
Eamon did note that letting Galway in to see the new pitch probably contributed to Walsh being able to nail those frees in swirly conditions. He was suggesting that would be unlikely to happen down Munster way. Small point. Note taken.
I don’t know why Mayo have been slow to get moving in the second half of games lately but that is a consistent pattern to me. Something is either being done or not done at half time because for the first twenty minutes of the second half of games we are not our usual selves. For a year!
The most worrying thing to me is that the fight around the middle eight is not the same as it was. We would usually win lots of breaking ball and fight like dogs to get it. Everyone in Ireland was inferior to us in that department but not recently. To that point we are missing Jason at half forward ,Jordan&Paddy Durcan in that area. I think Plunkett and Loftus ( as much as I appreciate both )are not really dogs of war.
For me ( whatever the limitations of our style of play are)the reason we don’t look like ourselves is because of this. We need eight dogs of war around the middle who will put their bodies on the line.When we used to win the raggedy ball and turnovers around the middle with runners coming hard we were fierce. Unstoppable.
Of course we miss Boyler and Donie etc but we have new players who can play like that. I believe Carney is one and also Fionn McDonough. Ryan of course And Cillian and Diarmuid.
The launch pad of our prior successes was based on being this middle eight “kings of the dogfight “ with personal safety an afterthought. I believe the decline in our ( total )performance is stemming from there. Maybe if we look” flat” it’s because of that.
Of course, in the context of the number of injuries we have recently, it’s possible that James Horan is taking the wrong learnings from all these injuries. In other words it’s possible that practice has been trimmed back to reduce injuries. I’m speculating here but it’s only natural that he’d come under a lot of pressure from all these players being injured. But maybe it’s the S&C and not the in house games that is the problem.If they are not training every night now like it’s a dog fight then they won’t be able to do it come game time.
We have the players to do this. We just need them fit. All this assumes that there is no other “ trouble” going on. I have zero reason to believe that.
We have six weeks to get it together. With a little luck on the injury front I expect we will resemble our old selves next time out.
Mayo support was very quiet this afternoon but what can you expect when the performance was so flat for 55mins of the 70!
AOS played well today. Unfortunately his partner had a stinker at MF including 4 poor wides. He’ll never play as badly again.
I feel sorry for the inside forwards – the supply into them is either too slow or too late (sent in after recycling the ball laterally for 3/4 phases of play).
Sorry WJ but I don’t agree with your comment about the Orme effort at the end. He’s left footed and took on a very low percentage shot on the left side at the closing stages of a champ match. Where was the self awareness and cuteness to dip the shoulder and win a free? Would have been an easy one for COC on his good side.
It certainly appears that these in-game situations are not practiced. Meanwhile Galway we’re excellent at slowing the game down today and playing at their tempo. I don’t agree that they are going nowhere – they’ll have no problem competing in Div 1 and owe Ros for previous CF defeats.
Oisin clearly wasn’t fit today and doesn’t appear to be running at full tilt. In fact, look back, he appears to have adjusted his running style to compensate for an injury. No explosive running from him since the Dubs match in Croker when he limped off.
The team need 6 weeks to regroup and go again. Not a bad thing as too many first teamers are carrying injuries. Supporters prob need a break too!
We’ll go again in June. Mayo are not a good draw for any team in the qualifiers.
Even if we had used Eoghan McLaughlin properly, we would have won that game.
He was was able to beat all and any of the Galway players for pace, and even if a little work had been done on give and goes, for when Galway tried to block his path, I think he would have got in on the Galway goal every time.
He left all the Galway lads in his wake, but when they stationed themselves in his path, he didn’t have a teammate to dish off to and get it back from when he had rounded his marker.
With even a little bit of support for Eoghans runs I feel we would have won that game.
The manager never learns and never will .
We have the players but the system is broken and the sideline under this manager will not progress much further.
Time for a change and not just the style of play 1 man has to go simple as.
@ Mayotillidie I agree with you regarding the amount of time wasting by Galway. Every time they went down the lad was clutching his head. The Ref certainly blew his whistle right on the 5 minute mark of extra time never taking the Galway time wasting into account.
Fair play to Galway they deserved their win Today. There will definitely be some Galway players at next year’s Oscars Awards.
Bad result for Mayo but great for Horans detractors who are growing in number. Obviously has not been forgiven for having the cheek to lose to Tyrone last year. Its amazing every time we lose a game the chorus is we lost it on the line. John Maughan lost it on the line for us, as did Micky Moran and Rochford and Horan. Last Wednesday night Maurice Sheridan lost it. Does anyone actually think we might not just be good enough at the moment. We have lost seriously good players to retirement and in the last year to injury. Very few of the players are playing well at the moment. Coen, Ruane and Loftus sre going through a serious dip in form. The lads who dont play are made out to be great. We have always struggled against blanket defences. Rochford couldn’t get the better of Galway under K Walsh and P Joyce used the same tactics today. There are some on here (almost gleefully) proclaiming Joyce out thought Horan. If Galway did not beat us today it would have been a disaster for him. Our team are in transition since 2019 and the amazing thing is we got to 2 Ai Finals in that time. I think we overachieved in those years because in truth the last good game we played was v Donegal in Super 8s in 2019. At the moment we are not good enough. We dont have anything like the calibre of players we had from 2011 to 2019. Depending on the draw we might limp into a quarter final where Kerry could be waiting. That is not a joyful prospect. Well done to Galway and P Joyce to day. It’s sour grapes to say they’re not much good. They did a job today. They obviously love the new pitch in Castlebar because some of them spent a huge amount of time lying on it. Their tactics totally frustrated us and killed any momentum we tried to build. Bad and all as we were when you think of the chances missed and the poor goal conceded and the penalty we should have got we could have sneaked it but I honestly thought Galway were the better team and Conroy was immense for them.
I think there’s a lack of respect and credit being shown to Galway here tbh. Let’s face it – if they had any semblance of a strategy to retain their own kick out they’d have won pulling up.
That’s the only reason we got back into the game when 6 down and nearly stole it.
Durcan is one week away from resuming full training.
Pebblesmeller I normally like your posts but not sure why you are arguing that the loss of Hennelly wasn’t important for Mayo? All of Byrnes kick outs were either safe and unthreatening to the corner backs, or 50:50 kicks boomed out the middle.
Hennelly kick outs are far superior to Byrne. He’s a better shot stopper and generally kicks a couple of long range frees a game, which is important when me literally haven’t another man to even kick a bloody 45.
His absence was worth a few points, of course it was. It’s ok to accept that whilst also going the view that JH was caught out tactically again against a blanket defence.
Bringing on Kevin Mc with 6 min to go was infuriating too.
Just home and reluctantly peeling through the post match comments. Sounds like many of us could do with a few weeks break from football.
Huge disappointment with the result, but anger with the performance. But perspective is always difficult so close to the game. May need to take a few days and settle before writing epitaphs.
Boland should have been given a run in the last 15. He is accurate and has proven so. I would question our methods after all the injuries. It can’t all be down to bad luck. Galway always manage to beat us in the first round after a double All Ireland loss.
The game today should have been easily
90+ minutes long. Such was the time wasting by Galway in general allowed by Ref David Coldrick. Donal Gleeson alone probably wasted 7 or 8 minutes at least over the 77 minutes allowed by David Coldrick… First half +2 minutes, and second half +5 minutes. You could have made a cup of tea in the time their Goalkeeper took to get his kick off, time after time, and I think he had 31 Kickouts in all. .. But best team won, congratulations to Galway … But Mayo contributed greatly to their own downfall.. I can’t say that I ever heard of the Protocol where you allow your opponent practice on your own home ground a few days before a big Championship game, but according to RTE, Eamonn Fitzmorris that’s exactly what happened.. I know Dublin were given the unfair advantage of practice in Croke Park prior to playing Mayo in All Ireland finals, and indeed prior to playing everyone else as well… And Croke Park is NOT Dublin’s home ground, it’s the Nations ground, and many neutrals were rightly up in arms about the unfairness of it..Today early in the second, it was pretty obvious that Mayo needed to make a number of substitutions, I would suggest that Connor Louftus was particularly ineffective, and AOS, who had made a considerable number of positive interventions earlier in the game had ran out of steam. Kevin McLoughlin came on around the 67 minutes mark, I taught he should have been brought on at the beginning of the second half . I also taught that James Carr should have been left on, and Fergal Boland and Darren Coen brought on. We whittled the score difference down to a point at the end, but we 15 minutes before that, the writing was on the wall, with as I predicted Padraig Joyce implementing the, much derided Galway Shawl (during the Kevin Walsh tenure) defense, what Mayo needed was was player’s who have some ability to score from range.. But unfortunately we left them on the bench!
Line ball, I didn’t ask him.
As for you telling me to give it a rest? Who are you to tell me what to say, or what opinion to have. Should I get you to proof read my posts, in case they don’t meet with your approval? Is it red and green tinted opinions only, lad? Am I not allowed a “non Horan ass kissing” opinion, lad?
Last time I checked there was a moderator on this blog, and he runs it excellently. If I’m out of line WJ will caution/discipline as needed. Any points I have made about Horans tactics are non personal and fact based. They may not be commonly liked or popular, that’s one thing. However, if you lack the ability to argue me on any of the points I’ve made, then don’t resort to trying to shut me up. Just scroll on. Lad.
Galway wanted it more today and I feel they needed the win more than us today if that makes sense. They got their tactics spot on today- from flooding their defence to game management of staying down for every tackle. Absolutely frustrating for us but it worked and we would do the same.
Comparing this game or the aftermath of this game to longford is a knee jerk reaction I think. Considering missing 5 possible starters, not scoring for 20+ mins and playing decent football for 10 to 15 mins and still only losing by a point – speaks volumes. Mayo will have 6 weeks to regroup, rehab and work on their own individual mindset for the qualifiers which they have navigated through on many occasions. With a favourable draw in round 1 and injured players back I’d fancy us to make a decent run.
It is very disappointing and so deflating when we have built up to it yet again for months – but to be overly critical of players and horan is not helpful – no doub they will learn from this game – it will have done coc, doc a world of good getting back to the heat of championship. Is there any info any the below players and time to return
Paddy durcan
Hennelly
Flynn
Hopefully mullens was a tweak but was worrying to see no doubt. Hopefully they can all get the heads right and be ready for 4 June. They are better than today’s performance.
Must correct myself in an earlier post, I said that Donal Gleeson was the Galway goalkeeper, I was wrong Donal Gleeson is an excellent actor and was not playing for Galway today at all. Connor Gleeson is the Galway goalkeeper. But there was some other actor’s on the pristine sod in McHale Park today as well, mostly acting like they were injured!
I’d say it will take the new grass in McHale Park about six weeks to recover, after the amount of time the Galway lads spent lying on it.
West Kerry, on Pat’s comments, I can’t say there was a lot of balance to them.
We have lost three matches recently that are disappointing – Tyrone, Kerry and Galway.
The key in all three is a tightly organised solid defence.
Miraculously our forwards could score versus Kildare. Perhaps Kildare played a more open game.
Pat swears that we have a forwards problem.
I definitely think we need to improve a LOT in that department.
But it’s lazy, disrespectful and more wrong than right to say, as he did today, with great authority that “Mayo will never win an Ireland”.
The same sorry strange line stated by all but one pundit at the Sunday Game final broadcast of the season after the AIF in 2017.
I have a hard time warming to these kinds of statements.
Horan said after the game Durcan was one week away. That’s one positive at least. One of our top end players will have a month of training before the next match and should be in good nick to come in and add strength to the team.
Hennelly was reportedly a 4-6 week injury about 4 weeks ago, so he should return too.
Flynn was out for 8-10 weeks from the Kerry game, that was the word on the street. Puts him right in the brink of the qualifiers. His match fitness will be questionable though.
Mullin looked like a textbook hamstring today. As long as it’s not a severe hamstring tear, he should be back training fully in 4 or 5 weeks.
Conroy is obviously long term, and apparently Harrison is too.
The spate of continuous soft tissue injuries suffered by certain players is seriously worrying, how many is that now for Oisin Mullin since last July?
Conor Finn & Horan should be getting some serious heat from the local media on this issue to be honest but I haven’t heard anyone asking the tough questions yet. (Then again I think it’s difficult to ask any question of Horan these days, even a nice soft cuddly one).
Unfortunately we have a long way to go in the gaa as regards flogging players physically. Mayo appears to be one of the worst culprits, at underage level especially.
Previous Mayo minor and u20 managers have turned talented players into total injury crocks later in their careers, just to meet their own selfish ends. When you hear of 20 year olds having hip surgeries the red lights should be flashing. This is the first time in his career that James Carrs body has held up for a decent period of time, and lo and behind, he’s playing some decent football.
I believe there are currently some very talented players in Mayo between the ages of 15 and 17, and it would be nice to think that some of these guys that get the privilege of managing our top end talent over the next few years doesn’t turn them into injury prone wrecks by the time they are 22. Maybe take a longer term view to developing these guys with the aim that they are at their peak physically from ages 21-30.
It was interesting to listen to Conor McKenna that time on the paddy and Andy podcast. He said he landed down in Essendon as an 18 year old and they held him back repeatedly for the first year from full training, in order to build his body to be able to train properly at that level. He said he couldnt understand why he was prevented from running for full training sessions when he felt himself he was well able to do it properly from day 1. He would go to the coaches and say “WTF am I sitting on the sidelines here watching these guys run like this for, I can easily do all this work too”
The approach worked though. He played 80 games by the age of 24 in one of the most attritional sports on the planet and was one of the most durable players on the team.
I seriously wonder if that kind of thinking goes on in GAA.
sadly I think it’s much more likely that a talent like Ronan Clarke from the Mayo u17 team will be playing ball every single day of the week for the next 4 years until he inevitably breaks down with injury, and it’s a bit demoralising to think that.
We had 31 attacks to Galways 21 I believe. So the problem there is not with tactics, it’s with execution. James can’t go on and kick the actual thing over the bar from our 50% extra attacks than Galway, can he? The Galway kickouts were a shambles and we had more than enough attacks to win that game and yet they were winning comfortably until they crapped the bed in injury time and we got a few frees. They have better forwards to execute their much fewer attacks, simple as
And looking back at highlights, we got lucky also with the black card which wasn’t really one at all. There was two hops on another point also by Carr. Two many of our scores came from frees. 5 points from play, just not good enough
It’s a disappointing night. However, we’re not out in 2 weeks, we’re out in 6. That almost is like an off season to prep and recover and get lads back. We may just be a new team again come June
Embarrassing display. No tackling, no penetration, no tactics and no heart. Run the shite out of lads get injuries and then get bullied by an average team. Lots of unanswered questions. Two awful displays in green and red this week…where are we going? Rip horan ball as they call it…same old ding ding…teams have copped on!
@Stephenite.
You say ” James can’t go on and kick the actual thing over the bar from our 50% extra attacks than Galway, can he ?
Maybe he cannot kick them over the bar himself, but someone made the point earlier that the guys who are capable of kicking the ball over from distance were left on the bench. (Coen and Boland).
@Revellino fair enough. I did think Coen certainty could’ve made a difference, especially with a wind and his booming kick. I’d have possibly swapped him and DOC
Think that positive pundit was Brolly Come back Joe all is forgiven! Mind you it was the nature of the question by Dessie in 2017 that annoyed me “Will they ever win an All Ireland” Didn’t hear what Pat said but I’m sure he didn’t say Mayo will never win an All Ireland ,he has more cop than that.
I’ve never seen either Coen or Boland score against the better defences on the admittedly rare chances they have got against better defences. But if you can’t take the chances you get you won’t get many chances. I do have to admit though, that Loftus appears no better than either Boland or D Coen apart from a couple of crucial goals he has got for us and I reckon K McLoughlin should have been in sooner.
Finally, if we were to choose to replace James Horan who would you have succeed him? We have had no outstanding club or underage coach in the county for donkey’s years. Bring back Stephen Rochford from Donegal?
Mayojoe, I heard Pat say today after the match with my own ears that Mayo will never win an All-Ireland.
Admittedly he said it at the end of some reasoning and in the context that he had always said that Mayo don’t have forwards, that this has always been their failing. He seemed to think this would always be the case.
And that they would never win an All-Ireland.
There’s always a chance that I misheard this but I don’t think so.
Cora had immense composure not to react but went on to acknowledge Pádraig Joyce’s achievement today and to mention the Galway defence.
Felt like Galway had one of those days where everything they struck went over the bar for them. Think they barely had a wide all game until maybe the last min or two.
That will regress back to the mean quick enough though – from their point of view it’s not sustainable to expect to have just 4 wides a game.
We might have created 31 shots but most of them were not in the high probability scoring zone (within 35m from goal around the D area). Doherty’s goal chance (which he blasted straight at the goalie anyway) and Ruanes poor miss from 20 m out directly in front were the worst two.
Most of the other shots were low percentage efforts from difficult areas. The problem with the slow running game plan is it doesn’t allow us to get out shooters on the ball in the high percentage scoring zone.
That is the biggest difference between Mayo and Dublin the last decade actually. Bernard brogan is considered an all time great forward but he spent his entire career tapping balls over the bar from 25-30 m out in good space. This was due to the way Dublin move the ball to create him that space in that zone.
We just don’t do that under Horan. A higher percentage of our scores look spectacular because they are, they are difficult scores to convert.
Unfortunately you are always going to miss more difficult shots, than you are easy ones. Hence we regularly have 10-15 wides a game.
Andy D when a managerial vacancy does arise I would like to see a combination of Kevin McStay & Stephen Rochford or Tony Mc Entee take over. We have completly lost our way even our defence has regressed and our tackling game that Donie brought to Mayo which won us loads of turnovers is gone completely out the window.
Beaten by a very average Galway team.
We couldn’t score. Simple as that.
As a rossie,reading these posts,icant believe alot of them,galway have 3 players in walsh,comer,convoy who were class but mayo had plenty of posession to win that game but dont have forwards that can score with ease,imagine if walsh was with mayo I’d say mayo would have at least 2 all irelands whether under horan or rochford style of play,I know its wishful thinking but I’m on about just 1 player and the amount of possession mayo would supply him with,we in ros have good forwards but no team behind that to supply them with ball ,that’s why mayo have been so close for so long
Just my two bobs worth.
Over recent years we seem to get more injuries than other top teams. Why?
The long ball is always worth a go into the edge of the square – not all the time of course. Does not really happen and when it does our one target man is there – when he is moved in to FF line – but I feel the delivery to him is just not good enough. So maybe the long ball has to be re-thought – it can provide the element of surprise when least expected – easy to do if practiced in training. A case of accurately finding the big man.
I heard on the commentary that Galway trained on McHale Park last week. I mean if that is true it is not only dumb it is almost naive. Any edge given is an edge conceded. What genius allowed this to happen? Can somebody tell me that did not happen and it is just waffle???
In the history of all sports there are few brilliant managers – then there are some who are very good or excellent and then you have the rest. I think JH has made a huge contribution to Mayo football and we should all thank him for that.
Maybe somebody else can now pick up from the groundwork he has laid. Surely other teams expect us to behave in a certain way and then that gives opposition a major advantage – why do I say that – because lets be honest very little ever changes – every game is as predictable as the last. It is frustrating to watch – you generally know what happens next – a bit like watching the same movie every few weeks.
If you are in a job too long sometimes a change is needed. Lets see how we go for the remainder of 2022. Maybe we will deliver via the back door? Personally I doubt it but lets just give it one last shoot out at the OK Corral and then time for some decisions to be made then I reckon.
And finally when is Lee Keegan going to be moved into the half back line? What a beautiful point he scored. Quality always.
Pat Spillane
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result “
I can’t stand his commentary but he has a point
I hate losing, but I can accept it when we show commitment and give it a go, but it is so annoying, when we put in performances like today-we were woeful, apart from the last 10 minutes, when we finally decided to have a go. Surely no Mayo player, in a Connacht Championship match, in Castlebar, against our great rivals Galway, should need any kind of motivation to be up for the game-we didn’t turn up today. And why are we usually such slow starters, which today played right into Galway’s hands allowing them to build up a big lead, twice, which they could then defend by getting numbers back to smother us and fouling to prevent goal chances, not to mention blatent time wasting. Lots of people hyping up Galway, but I feel that, if we had put in a half decent performance, we could have beaten them-I mean, we were short 4/5 regulars, played shite and still came close to beating them. Summing up today, slow sluggish start, sloppy goal conceded, with some of our defenders ball watching, defending too loose , allowing Galway attackers too much time and space, slow pedestrian predictable build up, way too many wides and too many Hail Mary efforts, too many poor individual performances. Definitely our injuries had an effect, but we had a good enough team to win, with the required level of performance. Some positives, Cillian looking fit, James Carr looking sharp, Eoghan looking himself and Rory a decent back-up. Hopefully with the long break, most of our short term injuries will have cleared, but it is hard to see us going very far this year. We still have some players who have been found wanting and others who have lost form and I think that we should replace them with our promising younger lads, as it would help their development and freshen up the team-players like McBrien, Carney and I would consider Irwin or Carney at midfield, if Jordan is not fit. Who knows, Mayo may surprise us all again.
12 wides to 3. We’ll never win anything until we sort out that. Always been our issue
If Darren Coen is the answer we are in trouble. When has ever kicked scores against blanket defences in the white heat of Championship?
Never
I’m suprised it’s not all Aidan O Sheas fault again!
Yday falls at the feet of one man and one man only. If you insist on having only one game plan it needs to work.
We also again didn’t look as fit as the opposition. That’s a huge worry
At the end of the day it’s just a game, hate losing to Galway but saw enough in first half yesterday to suggest that we could still be in the business end of things after Galway depart the party later in the year. We were much stronger than them for most of the first half yesterday against a strong breeze whi h definitely was much calmer in the 2nd half. Thought the referee could have awarded at least 2 hop balls for time wasting on the Galway kick outs yesterday. 6 weeks could be a tonic if we get a bit of lúck with injuries recovering. The road trips roll on again pity about the price of diesel. Cheer up the Sun will be on our backs in June. One swallow doesn’t make a Summer.
The difference between winning and losing yesterday was probably down to a really really good long range free taker. Walsh nailed 3 in a row and we missed a 45 shortly after and add in the early left foot attempt they could have made the difference. I’m delighted cillian is back but I really think Ryan should have been left on the frees as someone said he has earned his stripes and anyway he will be the taker for years when cillian steps away so no better time to get experience than when top class back up with him. I really think he would have gone for the 1st half free cillian kicked backwards and possibly popped the early one under the stand. We’ll never know but always wonder. Another observation since is if galway hit the last 5 pts and lost by 1 we’d probably be saying they would have won if they got another couple of minutes but I haven’t heard that regarding mayo. Just a thought
We needed that comment Revellino with all the doom and gloom this morning.
All, having had a chance to watch back the post match commentary on RTE, and reflect, I think I was unfair to Pat Spillane above.
He wanted to make the point that Mayo will not win an All-Ireland with low scoring forwards.
That was his viewpoint.
After having taken poor Pebbles to task above for not putting one of my points across, I shouldn’t do the same to Pat Spillane and take his language out of context.
I still expect Mayo to navigate the qualifiers with time for big injured players to heal. I’d agree on forward tactics and failing to learn how to play it. Dublin found a way.
One area that annoys me is people who know zilch about S&C claiming expertise on what causes injuries. Quite simply it’s an attritional game. Kilkenny hurlers dogged into each other in training but luckily for them they had 2 teams. I’m losing patience with our lack of a defensive system to rival other teams and failure to copy Dublin template of playing in triangles to avoid contact even when faced with a serious blanket and their other tactic was patience, keep working it until a man is free at or very near the D back and over if necessary but all the while with that knowledge of when it’s the right time to shoot.
Ojst,
If we had Walsh we’d only waste him. We wouldn’t know how to use him and we’d have to send him out to Connaught Rugby first to develop his off-the-shoulder, hand passing-on-the-run, technique. Then he’d have to wait in line behind all our other non-scoring, hard-running fowards like Walshe, McHale, Boland, Carney, Orme and Loftus.
I’m convinced that the real reason our scoring efficiency is so low is NOT because our forwards are inaccurate, it is because our forwards are always shooting under defensive pressure, from wide areas or from distance. Our forwards are almost NEVER receiving the ball one-on-one against their man. In that situation an intercounty forward should be either beating his man or winning a free. Instead, our forwards receive the ball in a crowded area, with their backs to goal, or on the move AWAY from goal. We do not give our forwards the best opportunity to score. That is by design and choice. Design by the tactics that dictate slow vertical movement of the ball up the field to the scoring zone. And choice by Horan in that that is the way he wants them to play.
For all the praise and appeal of Mayos helter, skelter, chaotic play and for all the plaudits rained down on Horan as being an attack minded manager, his design and choice of how we play offensively is actually very conservative. By choosing (and it is his choice) to utilize a hard running, hand passing style to move the ball up the field you are ensuring a high pass completion rate, low passing turnovers and loads of possession. We are minding the ball by being totally risk-free in how we transition it up the field. This is backed up by yesterdays stats, e.g. 45 incursions into the Galway 45m line and 31 shots. On the face of those stats it looks like we were ripping Galway asunder, and by getting a low average scoring success rate of 60% would have meant that we scored 18 or 19 times and that should be enough to win any game. However, our scoring rate was a poor 51% and there is a reason for that. And that reason is the design and choice of how we attack. By the time we hand pass our way 80 yards up the field into our opponents scoring zone (and doesn’t it look great having half backs bombing forward, off the shoulder, tearing up the field, burning all that energy!) they have withdrawn their half forward line back into their defence and the scoring zone is totally crowded out. There’s no space for our forwards to create a shot in the scoring zone, so, they go lateral with their hand passing, over and back, patiently switching play from wing to wing until someone forces a shot, under pressure, and then it’s a 50/50 as to whether we score or not. The stats back all this up.
A back will cover off a channel approx. 7m wide. So, very simply, if you withdraw an additional 2 men back into your central channel in front of the scoring zone you are effectively shutting down that area. The lads that come back into that zone don’t even have to be great tacklers or defenders, their presence alone will block off running channels and passing lanes. All you need are hardworking, unselfish players and in O’Laoi and Heaney Galway had them yesterday. They dropped back, Molloy and McHugh tucked in. Job done.
This stuff should be like a relay race with players coming on to complement the style of play…and turning the screw. 6 minutes left and starting to run the bench and Darren Coen left high and dry.
There should be a feeling like the fox is in the chicken coup when Mayo have the ball…not that the chickens are giving the fox, who doesn’t arrive until the 65th minute, the middle finger.
@Pebbles Yes, 100% correct. Basically we are going nowhere with this style.
Even worse when we face defences with brawny power and top 3 athleticism. In such a scenario we get beaten comfortably.
At this stage the tactics are zapping the confidence of several of the forwards.
Even with the best possible athletes available and on the bench the tactics are simply too flawed.
You don’t score enough and you’re too vulnerable to conceding goals in all the chaos.
You know what really top boxers do to chaotic athletic and physically strong boxers? They outbox them easily, because there’s a certain predictability of a lot of errors in chaos.
We get hit for goals, knockout blows time and time again against the top 6 teams.
Looking at the stats we should have won that game. We won most sectors of the game, kicks outs, turnovers, possessions, more shots at goal etc. The only one we lost on was scores, Galway were at 68%, we were 52%.
To my uneducated eye this loss was very similar to the Tyrone loss, deep lying defence and wait to counter attack. Simple enough really, but to my eye, no obvious attempt to circumvent this approach and we will again flounder against any half decent team (Galway are not even one of those) that decides to do this against us. What have they been working on all winter? I had hoped against hope that the Kerry league final was an exercise in not giving away trade secrets prior to championship.
Afraid I think my hope was in vein. We will truck along get to a quarter or semi but once we meet a decent team that will be the end of the road. I am more and more of a mind that last years final was our chance, our last one to finally win, we went into that game without a plan A, who am I kidding myself that we would have been working on a plan B. Lost faith in James now, he is a man of principles whereas we need someone to win matches.
Very frustrated and demoralised after that yesterday. I actually thought the first half was good, had the majority of the ball, worked a few scores well and should have had a goal. The goal we conceded was a killer and a very poor one to concede. After half time then the whole thing seemed to fall apart, was very hard to watch. Walsh’s 4 frees from the ground were the difference, some kicks they were too!
All is not lost though, we still now have to win the same amount of games to get to a QF as we would have if we won yesterday, so it’s not a disaster overall. But the manner of the second half performance yesterday was worrying and one can only hope that things will greatly improve in 6 weeks.
@pebblesmeller
I disagreed with you earlier about Hennellys absence but I couldn’t agree more with the post just above about the style of football we play not giving our forwards a fair chance. Being a Mayo inside forward under Horan you need to be almost a superman. That point by ROD in the first half yesterday was simply ridiculous when he turned running away from goal with a man breathing down his neck and curled it on the non favouring angle between the posts. The difficulty level of that score was off the charts.
The problem?
You can’t do that as a matter of course. That’s not a “routine score”, created off good systematic approach play. Instead, it’s actually the opposite. A piece of individual brilliance scored purely due to the talent level
of ROD, and actually in spite of the approach play out the field, not because of it. If you need to produce 10 or 12 bits of brilliance like that a game to get a winning score, then you have a big problem.
An even bigger annoyance is when fans and commentators start fawning over a wonder point that Mayo might kick every now and again and losing their minds about how good it is. Diarmuid o connor often gets one or two a game off the outside of the boot from 50 yards as an example. Lee keegan often kicks scores like that too that are 9/10 on the difficulty scale to execute.
I actually get depressed seeing us rely on scores like that to win big games. There’s no system in how we play that ensures sustainable supply of scores.
As soon as you remove the top end talent and rely on lesser players to kick scores like that, it falls apart.
Meanwhile in Dublin, Brogan and Rock build generational legacies for themselves from kicking nice handy points from 25 m out with lots of space.
Said it before – if Cillian o connor was a Dublin player the last ten years, getting on the end of their forward play, he’d be regarded as the best forward of all time.
Same below in Kerry.
@Larry Duff. Agree with all that.
We’re a boxer that’s only been taught to box one style. The style is figured out and now we’re trying to double down with perfecting a figured out style.
It would be interesting to see how we’d go actually selecting the team for the pace needed for Horanball. As others pointed out we had too many players who are not quick enough or far too often produce quiet games.
Conor Loftus was a huge Horan error. On what possible form could he be starting? His few bright moments this year were from the bench
Has Conor ever gone well starting versus a blanket?
@Km79 Darren Coen did that in 2019 against Roscommon. Kicked some incredible long range points. Wasn’t enough to win though.
Excellent explanation, Pebblesmeller, and really well put! I think it’s a perfect way to describe our issue and should be required reading. Can we please learn from it? I’d love to.
I also agree with you, Larry Duff – how on earth can we be expected to pull off those hard, wonder-scores on demand? They’re so hard to do. We achieve them but we can’t do that on tap, like you sometimes need to do to win games. In several of our games this year, opponents were getting scores much more easily than us, criminally so I would say.
Something needs to change.
We need to be more tactically astute and play the opposition or outthink them.
That’s what Galway did to us yesterday.
Great post once again, Pebblesmeller.
To keep those blanket swarm defences honest we need someone who can convert long-range frees (is there anyone in Robbie’s absence) and also someone who can pick off long-range points from play (Darren Coen?). All is not yet lost – the sun is shining. Muigheo Abú.
Stephen Rochford had similar issues with blanket defe nces. Lost to Galway under Walsh. Managed to ssqueak over Tyrone on 2016 because we held them to 13 points. We struggle against that type of opposition. We know its coming but we just cant deal with it A combination of Strong running off the shoulder by backs (in JH first term when we had super attacking backs) and direct long ball into forwards which we practiced unde Rochford at times is needed to break this down. Our forward movement needs to be good and our kickpassing accurate as we simply do not have enough strong physical forwards to win 50/50 ball. For those wishing to see the back of JH, who do you suggest we replace him with. No outstanding club or underage manager of late. Possibly McStay. I rate him. Or we could always go for Jack O Shea I suppose. Now thats when Mayo football was a joke and like him or not JH has made us a seriously competitive team in both his times in charge
@to win just once, My preference would be Ray Dempsey. I think he’d achieve the following:
1. He would cut down our goal concession. Two seasons with Knockmore his team were well under the average of goals conceded.
2. He’d bring onboard Terry Kennedy for the aspect he adds from basketball.
3. He’d coach in a pass pass pass shot; pass pass pass pass shot style of play.
4. In my view he’d make better calls in selection and in game. But again, I can only go on Knockmore games.
Yes it’s club level, but to win two county titles with lots of young players onboard?
Certainly we find it tough against decent teams who protect their D properly there is no disputing that. It’s because everyone knows the way Horan wants us to play. Runners from deep kicking scores. If those channels are blocked then we struggle for scores.
Galway protected their D with the two wing backs because it is an identified way of beating us.
They haven’t played that way against other teams this year – a horses for courses job.
We did something similar against Tyrone in 2016.at the time they were probably a better team than us so we came up with a way to give ourselves the best chance of winning that game – same as Galway yesterday.
We sneaked over the line that day. Wasn’t too many of us complaining at the time.
The six week break is a Godsend now I feel.
@JP I think we need management to come in from a different county. We have to face it, there’s politics in the camp even seen ROD not taking the frees yesterday. We need someone to come in and make the hard decisions. Just my thoughts… I don’t think we will win an all Ireland under the current decisions being made during games.
@Balla6 – yeah it is not unreasonable to look for management from outside the county when the time comes. By drawing from the whole of the country you have a bigger pool to choose from. Shop local and you will face local politics. You would think that an outsider would be less exposed to bias. The closer you are to people there is potential to be less ruthless. Would Alex Ferguson be interested ? 🙂
For O’Laoi Black Card. First Galway Goalie kick out – took 40 sec to get away, next two kick out too 20 sec each. Shane Walsh free took 1.35 to take, Another goalie kick out too 45 sec to take. And a foul on one of Galway lads took 30sec, before he was told to get up. In total 4mins and 10sec of time wasting. What ever about losing the match, this really takes away from the enjoyment of the match.