202 thoughts on “Mayo 0-17 Roscommon 2-12: Clinical Roscommon win it at the death”

1. Baptism of fire for you Cian 🙁

2. Surely that has to be the end of Robbie Hennelly in a Mayo jersey. The man has cost us in so many games down the years with his mistakes and was the reason the game turned into the dogfight it was tonight.

   He must now be dropped from the team and, with any luck, he will do what he did when he was dropped previously and walk away from the setup, this time for good, for the sake of Mayo football.

   An absolute disaster of a goalkeeper out there, all while one of our best ever sits on the bench. Shameful stuff tonight.

3. That “old chestnut” nothing up front. Very poor in front of the posts. The writing was on the wall against New York where we kicked close to 20 wides.

   Wat three games to make the super 8’s and another three to make a semi. It looks like another early summer unless we work on our scoring.

4. Excellent game. Fair play to Roscommon, thought they won the game more than we necessarily lost it. Took their chances well and were sturdy when they needed to be at the end.

   A bit of concern that some of the players weren’t at the pitch of the game. Chunk of the back six never fully got into it, in particular some of the more established players. Also a concern that Hennelly doesn’t have genuine competition these days (not sure Clarke is trusted to play to the game plan at this stage) to keep him on his toes – few too many lapses of concentration in important moments.

   Was the atmosphere as muted amongst home crowd as it sounded on the television? Happy to be wrong on this, and mindful of the deteriorating conditions as the game progressed, but sounded like not much from the crowd when it was needed. Why does MacHale feel like more of a hindrance than a help?

   Disappointing but no major panic. Competitive game where we just came out on the wrong side, nothing in that performance that’s irretrievable, and we’ve been down this road before. We’ll still have an important role to play in this championship.

5. Only for AOS we would have been bet out the gate.
   No bench today. Boyler left sitting. Should have let him have a go at the Kerryman. Long grass does it again. More later.

6. Another long route through the qualifiers. The only option this year was the direct route. cant see it happening. bringing Hennelly up today for missed free after free, while the ros keeper slotted them over for fun. How hard is it to have one outfield player on the panel capable of taking a long range free. i had great hopes for this pane.but yet again, we had to hope for Andy Moran, a man of 35 years of age and 177 caps under his belt to try and save the day. hard to know whats to come for the year now. Maybe we heralded the second coming of the messiah just a little too soon.

7. Well done Roscommon they deserved their victory if we had a free taker we would have won it. Evan Regan was unlucky to be taken off. I think it’s time we reinstate Clarke and give Slingerman a Chance too. Unfortunately Andy’s best days are behind him he has been a magnificent servant but time to rebuild and go with youth.

8. Gifted them 1-2 from shit kickouts and gave them the momentum they we’re looking for. Also, some of our more senior lads let us down big time when the game was there to be won. Keegan’s ridiculous decision to shoot for a point from a tight angle when we had a 3 v 2 inside in the dying minutes was terrible. Also, Andy was extremely selfish to take a shot on, from a very tight angle, out under the stand with two Rossies on him instead of playing in Loftus who had gone around on a loop!
   Roscommon we’re hungrier, far more clinical and deserved their win.

9. Obviously Hennelly had a nightmare and hard to see how he can start again. The goal was a real turning point but it wasn’t fatal. Mayo had more than enough time and chances to win and actually went ahead late on. Shocking kicking from great positions, poor defensive setup, fb line left exposed in one on one situations too often. Roscommon played well but Mayo should have won. Horan has a huge decision to make, stick with the experienced players who look to have too many miles in the legs or play the youth from now on.

10. All well and good Eugene and your right it was a competitive game and sometimes you just come out the wrong side…BUT… Roscommon down to 14 for at least 11 minutes and we fail to take advantage. The missed free at the end Criminal. And I don’t necessarily blame McLoughlin (but he should be putting them over)…it’s that when free was won it was not definite who was going to take it!!..all looking at each other. DOC called Kevin over. That’s just not acceptable at this level….the sad thing is one would never feel Mayo learn these basics.

11. It was clear in the last 15 that we were tiring and yet we didn’t make the much needed changes, unforgivable especially as we had underperformers upfront. Ross had the legs on us, deserved their win. One of our points down the train station end should have been flagged wide.

12. As a neutral it was an exciting game, I was hoping that ye would win and take the Connaught championship but it was not to be. Perhaps it was the perfect storm with the obvious consensus within the county that this was a matter of showing up and putting in a good shift and hoping ye got a good test before Galway.

    Championship football has so many unseen or anticipated ingredients that it bites you in the arse when you least expect it. The conditions in the second half probably conspired against ye as the team were definitely trying to wrestle momentum back and it became a real game of desire. Ross were chomping at the bit and Mayo were like a boxer who had the weight class of their opponent changed. Ross probably deserved the win but I think it’s very unfair to be criticizing individual mayo players as this was a collective failure in too many positions all over the field.

    Horan now has to focus the team on one goal and win the dirty games with this group and make the super eights, the Dubs will thank the Gods tonight as this albeit early result may well bring fortune to them in early autumn.

    Expectation and the lack there of mixed with unrecognized apathy meeting steely hunger for that one chance probably cost ye.

    Good luck going forward and I hope ye get a few of the injured players back soon.
    All is not as it seems tonight,

13. A lot of questions that need answering after that.

14. We are in draw for round 2 qualifier June 22nd. Rd 3 June 29. Round 4 July 5th. … the usual lottery…..

15. Well said Gamechanger. I’m not enjoying the heavy hitting on one player in particular. It’s not right. It was a collective loss.
    In general I think Roscommon were not given enough respect by our players or supporters really.

16. Yeah, Horan has to take a share of the blame .. Poor decisions, on the sideline…. and Substitution’s earlier… We all now, want some changes to the starting 15, and earlier changes during the match, but we DON’T actually know what’s happening in training, have player’s knocks?, are they on form? We the public don’t know these things… fair play to AOS had a fabulous game today for Mayo, didn’t deserve to be on the losing side, honerable mentions for Darren Coen, Mathew Ruane and Lee Keegan!. The Rossies are singing in Castlebar tonight, fair play to them, I hope that they now beat Galway…at least they don’t play with a Blanket!…

17. Good post Gamechanger.
    Cillians loss is huge for us.
    We are at nothing without him

18. @Well said, Sínead 37.. Of course it’s collective failure….

19. A big sense of de ja vu right now. Hennelly mistake leading to a goal and McLoughlin missing frees. I was praying for Loftus to take the last free instead.

    Say what you want about Evan Regan but he’s a reliable free taker and should have been left on with how we were doing in that department. He was doing okay in general play unlike Diarmuid who was anonymous. Darren Coen may have been tiring but could he not be left on another 5 minutes? Doherty was kept on too long IMO.

    Higgins was badly done for the 1st goal as well. Cregg is no Paul Mannion either. Losing by such a narrow margin to Roscommon doesn’t make us a bad team. Get a few injured players back and we’ll be a match for almost anyone.

    Still sickening all the same.

20. Roscommon won it by bringing on fresh legs through the 2nd half. We should have made at least 3 changes at half time. Far too slow with changes in 2nd half. Could not pick out any Mayo player to nominate for a MOTM performance. Beaten by a very average Roscommon Team.

21. PS. The Player that I think we missed the most this evening, apart from Cillian, was Donal Vaughan..we needed someone who was Big Enough, Strong Enough to keep breaking the Rossies tackle’s, and continue to drive forward!

22. The Player that I think we missed the most this evening, apart from Cillian, was Donal Vaughan..we needed someone who was Big Enough, Strong Enough to keep breaking the Rossies tackle’s, and continue to drive forward!

23. Actually we could have brought Evan Regan back on for the last gasp free… I didn’t think of it in real time in McHale Park, but someone mentioned it to me, immediately after the final whistle’…. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

24. Totally agree Leantimes. Vaughan loss huge. It was the type of match he’d relish.

25. We beat ourselves. Why can’t people acknowledge the Achilles heel of this team…..not scoring enough from the possession we have.

    For heavens sake we basically missed two 21-yard frees in the 2nd half and had plenty of other bad wides. A better conversion rate and we’d have won.

    It’s the same old story.

    Imagine no CF now for 4 years and counting plus a loss to Kildare last year and we struggled against Tipp also.

    Hennelly is not to blame. The old problem of scoring is the real issue and nothing else.

    What’s Rochy thinking?

26. Sometimes a group of people when they think they are operating at optimum need to take stock when you get something happen such as we seen with us not being sure who would take a free and us choosing Kevin McLoughlin.
    I’ve posted it years ago, he’s not a freetaker, he doesn’t straighten out his kicking leg and kick through the ball. Hence he scoops wide on the near side time after time.

27. Sinead 37 completely disagree with you that it is a collective failure. Scored 17 points and should have scored more so obviously the middle 8 did well.
    There were good performances by AOS, Ruane, Durcan, Boland, Coen.

    Handing goals to the opposition is an absolute disaster lifts them and puts your own team under a lot more pressure.

    Mayo are probably a 4-6 point better team than Roscommon but when you hand them a goal it evens things up, gives them more oxygen and turns the match into a dogfight that could go either way.

28. I agree with Sinead37. I am sorry but some of the reaction here is actually more offputting to me than the result itself : ) I find I have the stomach for the result but much much less for some of the comments on the blog. Onwards and upwards.

29. Leantimes..’at least they don’t play with a blanket ‘??? What do you call the entire 1-15 roscommon team in their own half when we attacked them start of 2nd half?!’ Not one of them in the Mayo half until the ball broke..

    Anyway. Tonight was an utter shambles. We let a mediocre ros team beat us. They’ve average players with a few clinical forwards. We were just diabolical in shooting and incredibly loose at the back.

    We had 17 scores and God knows how many wides. They had 14 scores and probably only a quarter of the wides we hit. That tells you that we owner the ball more than them but were pretty clueless when it came to the final third.

30. I wrote earlier about what we must have done tonight in order to beat Roscommon including
    Focus, Passing, Scoring.
    These key elements were nor there tonight. We gifted the game to Roscommon. Our shooting was way off again this even showed against New York. Our Marking at the back was not tight enough. We made to many wrong decisions on the shooting when players were unmarked inside.
    Our Management were fatally slow in their substitutions.
    You cannot blame an individual player for losing the game tonight. It was a collective effort of not being good enough from ALL. Were we too complacent going into the game Focus?
    We are still a good team and have been here
    before and reached All Ireland Finals through the back door only to have our hearts broken. These lads deserve our full support they dont go out to loose matches.
    Personally I would have started the team that played Kerry in the League Final.
    Mayo will rise again and its now time to get behind James and the lads again.
    It will not be easy through the back door but better the back door than no door. A battle hardened Mayo to cause damage yet.
    Mhuigheo Abu.

31. Loftus just had to take that last free. Diarmuid picked the wrong guy.

    I suppose the panel is a bit deeper this year, so might be chance to use
    more of the younger guys in the qualifiers.

32. The shenanigans with the free taking at the end was ridiculous. It should have been worked out well in advance who was doing what. Everyone standing around looking at each other and then finally giving the responsibility to someone who clearly didn’t want it in the dying moments of a match that was in the balance was unforgivable and bad management

33. While its important to acknowledge that these guys are amateurs who have to go to work on Monday, the goalkeeper simply cannot be trusted at this level. I don’t know if he’s injured or anything, but Clarke is evidently a far superior goalie. Also, tonight’s keeper is nowhere near accurate enough with frees. It’s simply crazy continuing to select him and give him the job of free taking.
    Having said that, recent years have seen a real slowing down of Mayo’s attacking style. They’re way too ponderous and lateral and are missing a real cutting, “drive straight at you” attitude and are too easily swallowed up.

34. Historically, horan has been brilliant at preparing teams but in my opinion, his game management can be questionable. Substitutions were poor today. I’m baffled at how collectively poor mayo were, it’s totally unlike them, but tonight they appeared lazy and sluggish, not even showing urgency in the final 5 minutes, with the exception of AOS. Shot selection was piss poor also by the forwards. Like it or not we are definitely prone to conceding goals, which needs to addressed pronto. However, I can’t see mayo ever being this dire again and expect them to bury the next team they’re drawn against.

35. Cunningham got his tactics right – James didn’t. To not play with a sweeper from the start was a mistake. Evan Regan’s selection didn’t work (mom against new york tommyk?) nor did starting Kevin Mc so close to goal. 16 wides was disastrous as was Hennellys kick outs. Rossies were living off scraps but they peaked for today’s game where as Mayo didn’t. We aren’t gone yet so don’t write us off just yet!

36. Management were asleep when last free was awarded. Straight away Regan should have been brought back on instead of Tracey. Reality is we don’t have enough quality in the forwards. Quality forwards score under pressure. Our three most experienced forwards – Doc Doc and KevinMc never got into the game.

37. The qualifiers mightn’t be a bad thing for us but there need to changes, goalkeeper is obvious one, but Keith needs to be kept as impact sub, great man to bring in but beaten too easily one on one. Our 3 experienced forwards O’Connor, Mcloughlin and doc were off form so maybe changes there too. Fair play to coen and boland who scored vital points in 2nd half. Need to regroup and drive on.

38. If they survive!From what i can see to get to an AI semi Mayo will have to play 5 weeks in a row starting Jun 22nd. then a break week then final super 8 week. then semi the following week.

    7 games 8 weeks to get to AIF
    Jun22 to Aug10th.

    Mountain to climb

39. A few of the comments on the last couple of threads have been nothing short of disgraceful.

    Roscommon deserved to win this game. On another night we would have won it.

    To single out particular players and abuse them on here and insult them is never acceptable and nothing short of ignorant.

    It’s easy to analyse players performances without having to insult these men.

    I’m not dumbfounded with tonight’s result. I was well aware that this might happen.
    Having said that, it is very dissapointing.
    Some of tonight’s bad decisions were Majors.

    Players and managment I fear, will be under the spotlight now, for all the wrong reasons.

    Only positive I can see is that we have some big players to come back. Cillian, Carr, Vaughan and Seamie.

    We are under severe pressure now.

40. Leantimes this blanket thing on Galway totally overcooked. Most teams do it. Some just break faster with runners and/or use the long ball better. Rossies are no mugs and final is 50/50 particularly with injuries to some key Galway players. The wide count today critical especially in games of tight margins.

41. Gerard we aren’t popular anymore…lots of people glad we lost. Just need to suck it up and sort it out ourselves. Tonight was fairly woeful in almost every capacity bar midfield where we were stronger than roscommon. The thing that really concerned me was our shape and positioning. It was all over the place. It looked like we really didn’t have any tactics. Off the cuff stuff. I’m a bit baffled to be honest as to how such an experienced squad and management underperformed so badly.

42. Well said Revellino

43. David Brady and John Maughan I would loved to say what I really think of them…..but I have too much respect for Mayo supporters

44. There wont be too many poems or limericks being written these coming weeks..

45. Donnie Buckley was at the game, I wonder if he knew before it was Roscommon he was there to see.

46. Congrats to Ros..We let them off the hook but one must credit their approach in taking game to Mayo @ every opportunity… No blame to Hennelly, Docherty or Kevin Mc for high percentage of missed frees today and previously…… the truth they are not NATURAL free takers..
    yet successive Management have persistently failed to address it…. Thats where questions need to be asked….. Also 18 wides against a team of New York’s standing had alarm bells ringing for me despite poor weather conditions…The expectation levels are set too high too quickly… We won the League final, its a feeling of deja vue as 1970 Ros dumped us when strongly fancied to win…

47. I think the venom directed at Hennelly is unfair. He was lauded during the league especially following the Dublin game where as well as saving several goals he saved several blushes. It is not fair to heap all the blame on him alone.

    We have been on the other side of these results from time to time, and it looked like we might have pulled out of the fire, but it wasn’t to be. Several forwards were off tonight, and in some ways we were lucky to be still in the game at the end, though Coen was not one of them.

    This is not what was planned and it is going to make the championship more difficult.

    Watching the reaction of the Rossies at full time showed how important this was to them.

48. – Ross deserved it because they took the stupid goals chances that we gift teams.
    – it’s not the first time Higgins has been turned so easily nor is it the first time Robbie made a major error or McLoughlin misses a giveme free the big question is it the last time. ??
    – Both goals completely deflated and rattled our team and supporters particularly the team who were complacent in the first half.
    – Aido saved us from a bit of a drubbing and Coen MOM.
    – Could have subbed 9 players at half time so poor were they. The final 15 mins crying out for Boyler who would have relished the scrap the match had become at that stage.
    – I personally think the captaincy and vice captaincy is weighing too heavily on Diarmuid and Paddy. Paddy improved a bit in the 2nd half, Diarmuid poor entire game.
    – What can we get out of the rest of the championship ? I don’t know and I suspect neither do our team or mgmt.
    – Finally it was strange seeing Diarmuid throw the ball back to Hennelly for a free rather than hand it to him , did not look right.

49. Fair play Revellino.

50. Well said Revellino.

51. i Agree Gamechanger with your fine post. Fair play to Roscommon this evening,and I for one would like to wish them the best of luck in the final. I hope they go on to win Connacht. They played well tonight and played their part in a great contest. I would not go pointing fingers at anyone as with any team game when one fails, all fail. The usual suspect are on the warpath here on the blog tonight building the lads up over the past few weeks only to stab them in the back at the first opportunity. The backdoor it is. A chance to regroup and make the Super 8’s. Our focus should be on the Super 8’S Now would anyone here bet against us reaching the Super 8’s with a younger more experienced team.

52. I agree with you Revellino that Roscommon deserved to win this game in the end only in so far as they hung in there and took advantage of the breaks that went their way. It’s impossible to not highlight Hennelly’s mistake or our poor shooting from everybody (except Darren Coen) when you lose by a point – where’s the disgrace in that? Mayo will be ok – we got caught by a decent Rossies team but they looked at peak fitness for this – we are burning more slowly. Remember – the Connacht champions this year will have to play Dublin in their super 8 group so it might not be all bad for us yet!

53. It’s a long road back , the most disappointing thing is that we’ve seen all the mistakes that killed us, many, many times before . We’ve a long time off now but then an insane amount of games . For a team that talks a lot about game management, there was little evidence of it tonight

54. Tonight’s defeat as hard as it is to take could turn out to be a blessing in disguise if Horan has the guts to give the younger guys that impressed in the league game time start them in the next match and see what happens. Forget about winning Sam take it one game at a time and throw in the younger lads. I’m talking specifically about Eoin O Donoghue at the back James Carr up front if he’s fit, keep playing Plunkett and Darren Coen by all means play Cillian if fully fit. I think we’ll need to go back to the old plan of Mc Loughlin as seeeper to protect the defennce and with respect to Robbie I think it’s time we tried a new goalkeeper or bring back Clarke and come up with a plan where his kick outs are more effective. Father Time has caught up with a few lads over 30 that have been fantastic servants but we have to be ruthless with team selection going forward not nostalgic

55. Totally agree olive kerrigan

56. I’m not going to criticize any of the players, nobody goes out to make mistakes, but I think this match was lost on the line…

    The match was there for the winning in the 2nd half but why was our best forward on the day (Darren Coen) first of all moved from full forward when Andy came on, and then substituted himself? I’d also ask why was Evan Regan taken off? And why was the last free taken by a player who seemed off form on the evening?

57. Bad day at the office, we should not be concerned by going through the qualifiers. Any team with aspirations to win the all Ireland should not be beaten by a team in the qualifiers, if they are then they re not deserving of an all Ireland. The result today may be a true indication of where we are in the pecking order right now, you would not see a Dublin, Kerry, Tyrone team debating who should take a crucial free at such a critical stage in a game. Small things make a difference in games and the better teams get these decisions right more often than not,

58. I think yous are being a bit unfair to your keeper. Even the mighty Cluxton has given away a goal or two. I thought Hennely was fantastic against us in croker.. Fully expect to see Mayo at business end of Champo.. The media (off the ball,) built yous up for a fall during last few weeks.. Don’t know if Horan is the messiah, these second comings don’t usually work out.. And it was his side line calls in 2013 won us the all ireland.. Mayo are some team. Stay classy.. (Anyway. Tonight was an utter shambles. We let a mediocre ros team beat us. They’ve average players with a few clinical forwards) Mayonnaise that’s a fairly bitter quote. Think the ros are far from mediocre… What we’ve to wade through in leinster is mediocre… Keep the faith.. See yous later in the year

59. I can’t for the life of me understand why Evan Regan was taken off. We were having no success at free-taking otherwise: Robbie missed all of his attempts, and Jason appeared unable after a heavy clash. Players should not be put in the position of wondering what to do at such a vital moment in the championship, as we witnessed in the final minute.
    Disappointed at this management faux pas

60. Lets not put the blame on the players. The blame lies with the manager who in my opinion is clueless. The same man who cost us a All Ireland V Donegal,. Oh the semies of 2014. But in fairness found us the best forward since KMc in Dareen Coen… Please James Horan mistakes were made tonight,,, but with a sweeper we will be there in September.

61. Eamon Coughlan used have a quote for those looking to improve their middle distance times. “Take care of the minutes before you take care of the seconds”. The meaning was to do with all of your common sense basics as a runner being locked down. Mayo don’t have the following locked down:
    – Concession of sloppy goals (GK/FB and quite often Keith Higgins involved with losing his man)
    – Inability to score goals and underrating goalscorers, see Brian Reape not in the 26, a physical forward that can get you a goal and forwards in ahead of him that have not scored so far this year)
    – Totally shambolic freetaking in the absence of Cillian O’Connor
    Those three basics were missing in James Horans first tenure and tonight they were missing again.
    It is the very reason he never rated Alan Freeman in his peak years of 2013/2014.
    If Freeman could have changed his goals to being three separate points he would have been a Horan and fan favourite. We underrate preventing and scoring goals.
    We will not move closer to winning Sam until we recognize that fact.

62. People half brushing this defeat off and accepting it as losing to a decent Roscommon team are way off the mark. They were relegated to division two, we won division one.
    We were off the pace and you could see that we had no competitive football in a while. Diarmuid was way off the pace and, all around the field, I felt our body language was off. There was no zip to us, we looked happy to let Roscommon bully us and we never once broke through a defensive block. Their no.12 had his hand on Paddy all game, always touching him and holding his jersey, always there. Paddy did nothing! He should have flailed your man’s arm to bits off the ball and let him know, “not today, boy”. Paddy was not alone as I felt we were out muscled all over the field. It took Boyler to lay in to a few of them as they came off the pitch, and he was a sub!
    I’d have questions about the sideline too. Horan had two major failings that cost us big time in his first stint as Mayo manager. Not protecting his full back and, not making changes quickly in terms of personnel. Both surfaced again tonight. Had we dropped another player back in front of Cox we would have cut off the supply of their quick ball from midfield in to their full forward. By Horan not reacting, that cost us 5 or 6 points.
    Taking Regan off, assuming he was not injured, was a poor decision. Taking off a reliable free taker, who was also playing well and had scored from play, was wrong.
    For a man that constantly preaches about the process, the fine details etc, not having your free takers organized prior to throw in doesn’t look good.

63. Roscommon deserved that win and probably by more than 1 point as one of Mayo points looked wide and one of their effort looked a certain point but waved wide.

    Game was always there to be won for the rossies, A Div 1 team and Connacht champs of 2017 were ridiculously written off and the likes of Brady,Maughan in media don’t help matters with their loose chat. Back door for Mayo again who knows where that will end up?

64. Ffs, d coen put over 5 points from play, man of match from ros put over 3 from play. Mcloughlin doc and doherty never threatened scoreboard, First man off D Coen, honestly don’t understand

65. Liamontherun.

    Maybe you need to read back through the comments again.
    I never said that there is anything wrong with commenting on any players performance.
    I said that some of the comments that have been posted are a disgrace. They go above and beyond what is respectful analysis of tonight’s match.
    If you read through them again and find everything up to your own high standards good for you.
    Every player on that squad, regardless of whether we win or lose, break their butts preparing for nights like tonight. Whether they play brilliant or poorly, the very least they deserve is some semblance of respect from their own fans.
    There is not a thing wrong with rating players, but if you can read back through these last couple of threads and tell me that there are not some nasty remarks in there, it might be time to get to SpecSavers.

66. Dropping a forward back as sweeper is not the answer. No serious team does that anymore. It’s up to the half backs to provide cover for the full back line. I rate him highly but Michael Plunkett got pulled out of position too much today. Keegan and Durcan raiding forward are very important to the way we play but they can’t hang our full back line out to dry.

    In any case, our defence only conceded 14 scores today which was reasonably good. We were just not efficient enough ourselves in front of the posts.

67. It was striking again tonight that McHale park is too short and narrow for Mayo’s running game, and it means we have no home field advantage there. It’s a shame that Mayo fans travel there in trepidation and so many times are proven correct.

68. Pebblesmeller, you are the poster that said Mayo would win by at least 8 points and weren’t expecting a competitive game at all, i think you said Mayo would get a tougher A v B game? very wrong my friend, I might add league means nothing when it comes to championship and i hope you give the next opponent a bit more respect than you did Roscommon

69. Was Harrison as much to blame for the goal as Robbie.?
    I’m sure that move was tried several times in the training sessions but Harrison just seemed switched off for a second and it seems to me Robbie is an easy target to take all the blame.
    We were poor at the back throughout the whole game. The Roscommon fowards had the beaten of us throughout
    the whole match from their first score to the last. Fullback is a serious problem still for us.
    James obviously does not trust the bench that we had as several players were off the pace in the first half and needed to be called ashore our Captain included. Andy was not an improvement on Regan and with Coen and Doc taken off it was hard to see how we could come out on top at the end in such a tight game.
    Based on what i saw tonight Mayo in May are not a Super 8 team. Maybe we gambled on not peaking too soon
    with Galway on the horizon, but not having a regular freetaker as back up to Cillian is division 4 stuff.

    Its over to Mayo in June now to rescue our season.

70. Some people taking massive offence to some of the comments here…for the record, lots of these ‘offensive’ comments are justified. Why do some people feel that we can’t be harsh on Mayo tonight? If we are not harsh, is it right to give out about the people who critisise a horrible team and management performance? If that’s the mentality amongst fans then we’re bunched..We just won a league, we should be full of confidence, confidence that is postive and something that gives each player assurance of their role in the team and trust in other teammates ability. But, can someone point out to me what tactics were in place tonight? The whole country knew how Roscommon would set up. The major worry is that our experienced players and an apparent experienced manager just don’t have the ability to learn from previous errors, and that is the fundamental problem of this team.

71. The simple reality is we’re not as good as we think we are!

    Unfortunately, Brolly is sticking the knife into us.

    TP is badly missed.

    Horan has to be accused of some Ballintubber bias… DOC should have been taken off.

    Remember this: In Horan’s first term we had plenty of close shaves in the province i.e. London and Rcommon 2011, Sligo 2012, Rcommon 2014.

72. I’d say some of you boyos will get a rap over the knuckles when Willie Joe gets back.
    Some really over the top stuff on this and the previous thread.

    Can’t help wondering, if only we had a forward of the class of Conor Cox.

    BTW, what caused the punch up at half time ?

73. I take your point Revellino. I’m not one for that kind of baiting either. I just assumed you were targeting me because I felt Robbie’s moment of madness could have cost us the game. I’ve always respected your contributions as sensible and fair. Mayo will be back this year yet – just not through the front door!

74. I have absolutely no complaints with the result. It was obvious from early on in the first half that we were struggling. Even going one point ahead late on in the match we never looked like driving on and closing out the game. Tonight was atrocious but lets put things into perspective. It was a perfect storm of playing a blanket defence in poor conditions, opposition who were well up for the contest and effective at both ends of the field, and sub-par performances from almost every Mayo player. The newbies did not impress tonight but the go-to guys we look to when the going gets tough just couldn’t pull this one out of the fire. It’s a long time since I can recall such a collective meltdown across the board. Anything that could go wrong did go wrong. Conceding goals from kick-outs, missing frees, passes going astray, poor shot selection, take your pick. We were light up-front this evening and it showed in the lack of goal scoring opportunities. Instead of quick ball into the forwards we continuously ran up blind alleys and resorted to shots from distance, resulting in the huge amount of wides. This has been a major problem for us against Galway and no doubt Anthony Cunningham did his homework in this regard. I thought our two stand-out players were Darren Coen and Fergal Boland. Evan Regan didn’t have a bad night. AOS tried his best and in fairness Roscommon lost a lot of their kickouts. But we were ineffective up front and far too loose at the back. Plus, lets not take anything away from Roscommon who came into Castlebar with a plan and took some excellent scores, whilst working hard to frustrate our forwards any way they could. Generally the team that makes the least mistakes wins the match and we made far too many.

    Two months ago Mayo were heroes and now all of sudden they are villains. People need to calm down and take stock. It was acknowledged by many that Mayo were in a transition phase after last year’s exit and that is still the case. Did people honestly believe Horan was just going to come in and lead us to straight to glory. It’s a multi-year project. Talent was unearthed in the league but it takes time to develop it to the standard required for Senior Championship. It’s not going to happen in a matter of months.

    All that said, it’s hard not to be pessimistic about this year’s prospects. Teams at the level Mayo are supposedly at need to be winning their provinces regularly and we have failed badly in that regard. Reaching the Super 8’s is difficult but do-able but hard to see much further past at this point.

75. Wide ball, I think Michael plunkett was moved to the wing after a few mins with keegan going to the centre. Durkin was good at times but over turned alot and gave away a free at important time. The Ross forward line switch alot in the first half and I didn’t think we knew who we were picking up.

76. Dissapointed.. What’s next When’s the draw? Any information thanks

77. Could really do with a couple of easy rounds now and injuries clearing up

78. Mentality is a huge thing in sport at the elite level. Every person on the Mayo and Roscommon panels is a good footballer. It’s the little one percenter that separate the greats from the rest at the top level. Mayo were mentally very very weak tonight, not for the first time. When I saw normally sensible posters like pebblesmeller talking of ten point wins and games being over after 20 mins in the build up, I was worried. As Tomás o se said last week, when people say lots and lots of nice things about you before a match it’s BAD BAD BAD!!! There’s no anger, no ferocity, no ruthless edge. We in mayo have fallen into this trap many times before and it’s like a viral disease when it sets in on game day like today and is very difficult to “switch on”.
    Roscommon are a very decent football team and weren’t given due respect by anyone tonight.
    I expect the panel to go back and lick their wounds before the qualifiers and we’ll see what we can do then. In the meantime, the more then media etc put the boot into us, the better for our game day mentality for the qualifiers.

79. Norris, Horan didn’t kick 15 wides tonight. While mistakes were made all over the place including the sideline the players must take a large portion of the blame for squandering numerous very kickable scoring chances and waisting a huge proportion of possession.

    Also some are actually blaming the size of the pitch, sorry but that isn’t an excuse. With the likes of Coen, Reape, Diskin, Carr in the panel there is no reason Mayo can’t play a more direct game at home and play more expansive when we get to Croke Park.

80. For those who are saying this game was lost on the line… maybe so, but the consensus around the team selection seemed to be that Horan put out a strong team. No doubt Vaughan and COC would have made a difference but were injured. It seemed the obvious substitutions were made. Most were in agreement that Hennelly had a good league. Mattie Ruane was the next big thing. Could we really afford a sweeper against a team as defensive as Roscommon? Established players in all areas of the field were well off the pace tonight and that for me was the main reason we lost. Yes the free-taker situation was less than satisfactory but aside from COC who do we really have?

81. Mayomagic, that is correct my friend. I got it badly wrong as did almost every bookie and pundit. I did not see that coming but at half time it was plain to see we were not operating at their level of intensity.
    16 wides with 2 dropped short, is a terrible return for our possession. We won 65% of our kick outs and half of theirs which should have been more than enough ball to win a game. But very slack marking throughout our back six (when can we say that before?) and exceptionally high shooting from them, 14 scores from 24 shots with 5 from 6 frees, gave them a deserved win. By comparison we got 17 from 35 efforts, 35!! And only got 3 from 8 dead balls.
    Also, I didn’t think Horan would be so unresponsive on the sideline second time around. During the league he made changes early and decisively, not tonight though.
    Fair play to the Rossies (and I grew up on the border so it pains me to say it) but they were given a chance by our poor performance and gifts from Hennelly, and they took them.

82. Larry Duff, I like your line “In the meantime, the more then media etc put the boot into us, the better for our game day mentality for the qualifiers”. For some reason this cheers me up. Some of the comments on social media are repugnant, admittedly a fraction are from Mayo fans while other county supporters make up the rest. And I think our favourite Indo commentator is putting the boot in on the Sunday Indo also. What truly is new there? His lack of self-awareness is breath-taking. As a social media user put it once about that particular commentator – his only insight is hindsight. It’s quite over the top, juvenile and classless. Mayo and our players have class and class is permanent. We just didn’t see enough of it tonight.
    But I hold on to your comment above: )

83. Congratulations to Roscommon. But there is no debate we lost that game rather than Roscommon outplayed us to win it. We lost by a point kicked 15 wides had no free taking strategy. Ducked hard calls by substituting coen and regan who both went well regan should have been around to take last free they had kicked half our scores between them. Why wasn’t Treacy introduced? Our back line was left totally exposed Higgins should be our sweeper providing protection at the back. The big problem now is a punishing itinerary of games every week for 5 weeks providing we continue to win. Still this is the strongest panel we have had but gonna need Cillian Seamie Donie James Carr Fionn McDonagh all fit if we are to go far

84. Eugene if Clarke isn’t trusted with a gameplan, How a fella is trusted who kicks a short kickout straight to a Roscommon forward and puts us under pressure straight away today.Let us not get started on how he got Lee black carded in the 2016 final and took Paddy Andrews out and gets sent off.Let us not forget about 2015 semi final where he rushed a kickout with gloves under his arms that led to a Brian Fenton goal.Let us not forget about 2013 final where hes again at fault for a Bernard Brogan goal where he misses a high ball where he clatters into Ger Cafferkey.In the defeat to Galway in 2016 game he was at fault again for kicking a bad kickout to Tomas Flynn goal.Minor final replay v Tyrone in 2008 the list is endless.David Clarke is a 2 time All Star keeper for a reason in an era with Stephen Cluxton.

85. I’m in agreement with Pebbles. I wasn’t as openly confident prior to the game but said that if we played well we would win. I still at and by that. This evening the stats will prove and anyone at the game will have seen that we dominated possession. Our strike rate was abysmal. Ros scored from almost every real chance they created and out loose marking and space made it much easier for the roscommon forwards to score than our forwards. That being said we had ample opportunities that were kicked side as well as some very poor shot selections, particularly in the last 10 mins. Hennelly missed all his frees. Their keeper kicked all but one.

    I said we lost to a mediocre ros team and I stand by that, Outta the blue. If anything thats me having a go at us for our inability to overcome their challenge which reflects poorly on us. Ros took almost all their chances, got some very fortunate breaks and in fairness to them they capitalized on our errors. I’m watching connacht football a long time. I’ve seen better ros teams, play better and lose.

    Finally, few if any have mentioned it but our support, or more specifically, our level of vocal support was fairly grim. Zero atmosphere. The majority in McHale park tnte were spectators, sitting waiting for something on the pitch to inspire them rather than trying to be the ones to inspire the lads on the pitch.

    The team and management have bucket loads to work on and think about but maybe some of the Mayo ‘supporters’ do too. We never got behind the team tonight which is a bit embarrassing considering there was probably 12/13,000 home supporters.

86. 1; The warmup tonight looked old fashioned not intense, as if to relax a team rather than stoke them.
    2; The team didn’t look like a team back from a camp raring for action as a team.
    3; When the pressure was on, there was too much individual response, not keep doing the right thing.
    4; Who would be a keeper! Hennelly had a bad game, but all he did wasn’t bad. We have 2+ great keepers (all of who make significant mistakes). We should keep our keeping options alive.
    5; All the players (nearly) will have an uncomfortable video show
    6; Not only were the team flat, the crowd were too ( me-inc).
    7; An away game or two to get us going again.
    6; Maybe a good (blue) air clearing session will help too.
    8; On the goodside our odds will have lengthened.
    9; See you all on the 22nd ish

87. I wont be critiscising any players or management tonight ,Ross better team on the night, but where was the great so called Mayo supporters tonight.Not one chant or sound out of them, but some were great 3 weeks ago singing like eejits in Times Square with Marty Morrissey, not a dickiebird out of them tonight when the team needs it, a big flat atmosphere at McHale park.

88. How many times is that now that Keegan has gone for precision over power and dropped a kick short into the keepers hands. Just at a crucial time of the game as well. Could point at a thousand different things though I suppose. Unfortunately youd just have to wonder, is it time up for a few of the golden generation of Mayo football. Andy, Higgins, Boyle, SOS, Parsons. Time waits for no man. They’re going to be a very hard act to follow though.

89. Poor performance from management and players alike. The one thing we couldn’t afford to do this evening was let it become a dog-fight and yet we did so with aplomb.
    We should of dictated the terms from word go but failed to grab the occasion by the scruff of the neck and take control. We’re surely better than that performance suggests however, fair play.to Roscommon and Anthony Cunningham. They scored great points from out the field when it mattered most and they looked very fit towards the end.
    Mayo didn’t deserve to win with 17 scores taken from 36 scoring attempts. Simple as that. Full back line looked dodge throughout,can’t understand why in the 2nd half when Roscommon left two forwards up front Horan didn’t tell one Mayo player, Plunkett, to just drop back and cover. It was obvious those Roscommon forwards had the beating of our full backs, had Horan’s made hat call they woulda forgotten about that ploy. Also subbing both free takers in a tight game is a curious move.
    Coen was the only Mayo forward willing to take on shots and he was also subbed.
    Obviously question marks over goalkeeper selection. Youth must be given its chance for the sake of the future.
    Here’s hoping one swallow doesn’t make this summer!

    Maigh Eo Abú

90. We are very poorly organized

91. Subs all wrong today. Yet again relying on Andy and playing into the corners and shooting from impossible angles. Hope today is proof Carr must start over Reagan. Desperate need for COC to make a return.
    On a brighter note Coen had a very good game and looks very exciting

92. I am really annoyed at that performance-we did not need another, hopefully, long run thro’ the Qualifiers, but it might give us a chance to iron out our deficiencies. It seems we had our eye on Galway, instead of focusing on Roscommon.You did”nt need to be Sherlock Holmes to know that the one thing Roscommon would bring would be intensity and we did not match them, especially on the 1st half. Their forwards got scores much easier than ours, because they were not put under as much pressure-standing and waving your arms in the general vicinity of an opponent is not putting them under pressure. Apart from the sloppy goal, we had the usual mixture of wrong options, inexcusable number of wides, goal chances missed,Hail Mary efforts instead of showing composure and waiting for the opening. Diarmuid should have come back inside on his right foot for a certain goal, Lee trying to side foot a sitter just over the bar, instead of into row z etc. Also our attacking was too predictable and side to side against a well organized defence. The last straw was Kevin taking the free-I never have any confidence in him taking them-surely, in the absence of Evan, Robbie should have taken it. Not sure about Brendan Harrison either at full bsck-he got roasted. Mind you the Roscommon full forwards won nearly every ball kicked in to them and seemed to be under no pressure, when the got possession. Big improvements needed all over the place. Positives-Darren Coen and Matthew Ruane.

93. So dispirited that I spent the first hour after getting in from that looking at election results.
    I think we need more new blood than I thought a week ago and that we need to make changes more quickly too. I also wonder about the management plans. Did Loftus not have instructions to take over freetaking duties from Doherty when he went in? If so why did McLoughlin, with his record on frees, take that crucial last free? Surely all managements have sorted these issues out before the game even begins? What were Diskins’ instruction when he was introduced? I would have thought that with his height he would have been intended as a target man in the full forward line but instead he was all over the place.
    So we go on the country circuit again. I would not rule out making a success of this tour but we have to learn fast on the road and hope that a bit of luck goes our way for a change.
    By the way, What about the refs performance? I thought hat the black card had been abolished as Mayomen were taken down time and again as they tried to carry the ball. Usually by two or more so the ref could avoid making a decision.

94. Sound Sharkie, fair dues, but you wudnt mind jumping on to a Roscommon blog and blow your trumpet there, yes ye won, and fair play, I’m not going to exchange taughts on defenses,
    , but, the last time a forward line ran at ye in HQ, we all know what happened, enough said. Just enjoy yer night, and move on.

95. Poor day at the office all around. We create so many scoring chances but missed again and again.

    Some inexplicably bad displays by experienced players too.

    3 points I’ll ask.

    How can we play so well and with confidence in Croker against a very good Kerry team a few weeks ago and by abject last night?

    Unless Coen was injured why was he taken off?

    K Mc (who’s a wonderful footballer) shouldn’t have been asked to take that free, he missed it near side.

    However, no one died. We lost by 1. Fair play to Ros.

    Off we go aboard the crazy train again.

    Up Mayo.

96. Also, I’m not this sites moderator but as fans it’s understandable to be annoyed but laying blame and elaborating at certain players needs to cool down.

    Players don’t intend to make mistakes.

    Get behind the team and support versus type and abuse.

97. Very upset this morning because we caused this ourselves. Fully agree that the Rossies were not given respect. Firstly Cox is not a great player and is carrying serious timber but our backs made him look like Bernard Brogan. Lots of our big name players did not stand up today AOS the only exception. I have never been a Regan fan but he was excellent apart from two incidents of holding on to the ball too long . Him and coen should not have been taken off. I fear that horans sabbatical has not improved his management on the line which was always a failing. A less than 50% conversion rate means that we threw away the game and this needs to be worked on immediately.

98. Monaghan back door mayo back door and there will be more upsets along the way for other team’s it’s not the end of the world we will have to take the long road but it’s better than no road we will still be there come summer not going to blame any players because it’s not fair because they know themselves without us pointing fingers at them when

99. Hi Willie Joe
    Was there something wrong with my post?
    I dont think I was as bad as others?

100. @Mayo13bg, In the league final we were very lucky not to concede more goals.
     But, we had James Carr starting and he was badly missed yesterday. We didn’t have a forward who could drive at his man.
     We need to spread the selection wide now to navigate the qualifiers. I don’t want to see Aidan or Leeroy starting against the likes of Waterford or Wexford. We need to use proper game theory and not this naive one game at a time approach. One game at a time will have us burnt out after four weekends with our older players.

101. For some reason I have began to loose interest in football this year, just don’t seem to be too bothered anymore, this applies to Mayo to a lesser extent and 100 % with club in Dublin.
     I suppose as one get older one also gets wiser I know what too expect.
     I didn’t get too excited by the league win, funny enough the Rossies beat us in Hyde Park in Summer 2001.
     The Mayo supporters may be looking for too much from those guys, some have been there for 10 years and more and been through a lot of disappointment.
     I did expect Mayo to beat Ros, this has come as a big surprise, although the league game was a close call also.
     Some things have a habit of repeating themselves, ie Liverpool able to come back from the dead and win, Mayo give away handy goals, Mayo missing very soft frees, Dubs blow away teams in Leinster, again v Louth yesterday.
     The back door is very difficult alot of games and then the Super 8’s, Horan has a job on his hands, needs to use the panel, not keep starting the same personnel for every game.

102. Sick of the same old issues. A goalkeeper that has cost us numerous big games with same stupid mistakes. Top level sport is cruel. Not unfair for people to point these things out bluntly.

     Failure to protect our full back line. Naive and stupid.

     Lack of a freetaker. Making a shambles of covering Cillian. Loftus not see all year and proven in pressure situations ignored for last free which McLoughlin, who was awful last night, clearly did not want it.

     Turning to Andy to bring the game to the corner against a blanket when we were succeeding through the middle.

     We are middle of the pack now and give somebody a memorable night out in next few weeks.

     Many of our heroes are past it. Sadly. Newbies need time and faith.

     4 years without a Connacht Final. 1 or 2 used to be precedented. Galway revived by us. Ros revived by us. Third in Connacht. Sad times.

103. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, because I’m working from memory.

     We are basically at the same stage as we were before the Ball was thrown in yesterday, in terms of the number of games to reach the super 8s.

     We go into Round 3 of the qualifiers.

     Round 1 is all the early round losers.

     Round 2 is the winners of R1 playing off against each other.

     Round 3 is beaten Provincial semi finalists against R2 winners. This means that we’ll be playing a team that, ok, has been beaten, but has also built up a bit of momentum by winning the last 2 games.

     Round 4 is R3 winners against beaten Provincial finalists. Possibilities for us (if we get through R3), include Donegal, Cork, Meath, Galway. That’s just to reach the super 8s.

     Of course, if we’re thinking positively, we should relish playing these teams.

104. Sport is cruel but brings lots of memories good and bad. Will not forget sight of Rossies fand sliding down pitch last night in pissing rain with their shirts off. They enjoyed their moment of glory. Horses had knocked my flag this morning and were eating it. They all deserve their moment of madness and fun but we will be back. Hon Mayo!

105. Yesterday we had to win 2. Win one and we had two chances at Super 8 with 3 weeks to prepare. Now we must win 3 in 3 weeks, and play another4 out of 5 weeks to get to a final. Massive difference.

106. Did Anyone make it in for the Junior game ?? A supposed weaker Mayo Junior team from last season but I was impressed with a few players and they’re attitude.

     Keaveney from Kilmeena has good movement and power on the inside line, with Sean Walsh a great pair of hands in midfield and I noticed a number of ex Mayo u21s and minors on the subs bench too. They gave us some great joy last year with the stunt against roscommon and we should support them in numbers in the Connacht final. They are an underrated bunch of players.

     On the case of Goalkeeper, Mattie Flanagan had a solid game, made a spectacular double save to deny Leitrim only for the 3rd attempt to be tapped in, scored 2 points from long range frees, reached over halfway with kickouts and was solid in the air. Was he in involved with the seniors??

107. I had a bad feeling that we were being set up for an ambush all week, with too much loose talk from some Mayo pundits about comfortable wins and whatnot. Contrast that with Anthony Cunningham’s dignified talk. Our pundits in the national media do us no favours whatsoever (shades of Horan’s low energy comments on Galway in 2016, when will we learn?).

     At this level, you cannot give the opposition 1-2 and expect to win the game. A good start was undone by conceding two very soft goals, and once those went in, it was always going to be difficult to reel in a five point lead against a massed defence (Mayo still don’t look comfortable against a massed defences after all these years).

     Our forward play was often far too lateral with little breaking at speed off the ball carrier. An honorable exception was Darren Coen who won a power of ball and kicked some lovely points.

     Our conversion rate of 17/35 tells its own story, as does 3/8 placed balls, especially galling given that we won midfield. One wonders what our tally would look like if we struggle there.

     As for posters objecting to criticising individual players, well that comes with the territory I’m afraid. IMO we will not win Sam with RH in goal, though he had a fine league campaign, I’m afraid that the ghost of Christmas past returned last night. It is the height of insanity to persist with the same experiment that has self-combusted on several occasions in the past IMO.

     However, there are plenty of other Mayo players who need to examine their own performances. Other than in Centre-field, I don’t think any of the Mayo lines fully fired.

     Well done to Roscommon, they deserved their win for their belly fire alone, and the Kerryman they had up tops really did a job for them.

     A note of caution to posters talking of long qualifier campaigns, we could draw an Ulster team and be out on our asses on three weeks time. One of the lessons to be learned from last night is a need for greater humility IMO.

108. I see lots of sympathy for Robbie but none for the man who somehow, somehow is STILL eft on the bench in his favour. I am blue in the face saying it, the claim the Robbie has great kick outs is a total myth and I am absolutely stumped as to where it emergeD. There is no part of the game he is better at than Clarke. I really can’t fathom how many times this has to be proven.

109. As Roy Keane would say ‘at the end of the day’ it wasn’t good enough. I was scared before hand and it proved to be the case unfortunately.
     I think the same thing happened in 1970 didn’t it? Mayo won the League title and were beaten by Roscommon in the championship?
     They left a lot to be desired last night and only a couple of players performed….
     However I still feel we have a lot left in us.
     This is a huge kick up the rear end and will force team to reassess and management to make some hard needed calls on who’s to be on teamsheet and I think most people know who these people who started last night are
     So if you have 20 quid I’m telling stick it on Mayo to reach the last 2 because they will!!!
     Young players will be dying to get game time for qualifier games and we’ll come through.
     The scenic route again but let’s go with it ?

110. Did Anyone make it in for the Junior game ?? A supposed weaker Mayo Junior team from last season but I was impressed with a few players and they’re attitude.

     Keaveney from Kilmeena has good movement and power on the inside line, with Sean Walsh a great pair of hands in midfield and I noticed a number of ex Mayo u21s and minors on the subs bench too. They gave us some great joy last year with the stunt against roscommon and we should support them in numbers in the Connacht final. They are an underrated bunch of players.

     On the case of Goalkeeper, Mattie Flanagan had a solid game, made a spectacular double save to deny Leitrim only for the 3rd attempt to be tapped in, scored 2 points from long range frees, reached over halfway with kickouts and was solid in the air. Was he in involved with the seniors??

111. you would have to wonder what kind of physiological effect last night will have on some of the players who have been here before. Four years in a row having to dig deep and fall through the qualifiers, we could end up with something like the following to reach the Super 8s.

     I’ve no fear we would beat any of the teams in the qualifiers but after last night I’m not so sure about that.

112. Good stuff pullhard… im with you. let’s adopt a positive attitude so it will rub of on the players. We stay with them. it always easier to slightly distance yourself when it gets tough (and yesterday was tough!). Stay attached to the team. We dont want these young lads who have done so well to think that there is anything negative about this. Its a mindset and at the moment we have a chance to nurture the young guys so they know that no matter what happens they dont feel any disconnect between the fans. nothing negative. For example we want the likes of fergal Boland to keep playing positive with his head up and not go into his shell for fear of losing or making a mistake. Lets bounce into these qualifiers and beat whoever comes next. Dont mind how many games in a row and all that as these boys love the games and will love the challenge but they cant do it alone.

113. Really tough loss to take. It was the last thing I thought of going to bed last night, and the first thing on my mind this morning.

     As a supporter, all you can do now is back them. Trust the lads to figure it out and get moving through the next series of games. We have a host of players to come back into contention. The qualifiers might well give the likes of McDonagh and Carr the game time they need, and get Cillian, Seamie and Donnie back into the mix.

     Yesterday was a seismic setback but it need not be fatal.

114. This Mayo performance had all the signs of the celebratory trip to New York written all over it. Over there the players fated as heroes, having with them the National League trophy was proof that this team were on the rise again and the biggest task for that trip was fundraising.

     Back home again, their feet barely touched the ground, such was the hype from the trip. All the talk since winning the League was of our meeting with Galway in Salthill, not Roscommon. Sure the Rossies would put it up to us but after New York that was exactly what we needed, a good tough match to blow out the dirty diesel. All this would have gone to plan had Mayo not pressed the self-destruct button and by God did they self-destruct yesterday. Where we go from here will now depend on the luck of the draw.

115. We go into round 2 not round 3
     Round 1 is all the quarterfinal/prelim losers against each other
     Round 2 is the 8 semi finalist losers against 8 winners from round 1
     Round 3 is the 8 winners of round 2 being whittled down to 4 who then play the 4 provincial losers

     Rounds 2,3&4 take place over consecutive weekends as well
     A huge ask going into super 8s after that

     The only positive is it gives our “new “ manager a chance to fine tune team and rectify mistakes
     However , given his stubbornness over certain things and his allergy to making subs I wouldn’t count on it

116. It’s been highlighted already by more than one person that Horan seems to have learned nothing regarding his full back line. If you leave any two forwards one on one at this level your playing with fire. Higgins has always been a loose marker but his blistering pace allowed him to make up the space, age has robbed him of a half second and he’s getting caught out now. The body language was wrong all over the field and the most disappointing thing is our decision making was shocking. Wrong shots, wayward hand passes, running into 3 defenders and getting dispossessed. The final nail in the coffin was Kevin Mc’s free. You could tell he didn’t want to take it and Loftus was signalling for the ball. We can have no grumbles as we were beaten fairly but by Christ we gave them plenty of help.

117. It Means Nothing To Mean.

     There is nothing wrong with critical analysis and nobody objects to that.

     A few of the comments posted were not critical analysis. They were downright insulting and went way beyond how the players performed yesterday.

     That is not alright and you should have a problem with that.

     I didn’t name who the comments were about or who made the comments but don’t come here and say that some of the shit that was written about some people comes with the territory.

     No it does not.

118. Congrats, Cian on your match report. It was a tough one to cover especially with the game in the balance right to the end.
     There isn’t much to add to what’s already been said in this and the previous thread.
     Personally I think the more established players should be rotated in such a way that they only play every second game going forward and see where that brings us in the qualifiers. If we gather a bit of momentum and reach the Super 8s then we can recalibrate again. The last thing I want to see is some of our greats out on their feet on the wrong side of a defeat on the qualifier circuit after desperately trying to drag us over the line. Let the younger fellas bring us through. Keep the faith all!

119. Well what did I say? Forget about the league win….it’s well and truly forgotten now. Absolutely pathetic performance…Horan a disgrace for persisting with Hennelly and taken off Darren Coen….no way back from here

120. It’s up now, The Heather is Rising – I was completely offline until this morning and won’t be tuned back in properly today until later on.

121. The buck stops with Horan. So many things went wrong and he’s the boss.
     Thet kicked 20 wides against NY.
     18 last night. Pot shots a lot of them. No composure. No patience to recycle for a better shooting opportunity. Surely aftef NY that must havd been addressed. We lost because of the wides.
     They scordd 2 11 not a huge score when 1 goal was a gift

     Hennelly was over confident. The praise after the league final seeped in. But hes a quality keeper. He had a bad night. Cluxton has had some too.

     Once hennelly missed his 2nd free i would have been looking towards coen. Hd was in form and can kick from distance. Obviously something was wrong with doc. Loftus over kevin any day. Small details ..

     Lee has to address dropping balls short. It happens too much. Small details

     We all knew andy was going to get blocked .. terrible decision from him

     We seem to lack a physical presence at FB .. dont have the answer ..

     Positives .. coen 5 from play .. superb kicking
     AOS good
     Ruane decent
     Regan decent
     Boland good in last 20 but impact sub for me

     We are not gone. 3 matches to get into super 8.
     Back to earth with a thud but in a strange way it could be the best thing for this team

122. @Revellino: Of course no GAA volunteer deserves vitriol. However, simply saying that a player hasn’t performed does not meet that criteria IMO. If there was personal criticism of someone, that’s objectionable.

     We won’t win an All-Ireland without Clarke in goal in my honest opinion, though there are also several other issues to address before we can consider that.

123. Aldan o Shea winning all kick outs , I don’t think Robbie was watching play with his short kick out. . We were well ahead at midfield. David Clatke back please.

124. Great Report Cian and best of luck with the Leaving Cert.

     On the game, I thought Cunningham got his tactics spot on. Ross had a wall on the 45 stopping Durcan and Keegan which is Mayos launch pad. The result was turnovers(bad) or long ball(worked for Coen). Secondly they were intense, physical and bordering on illegal with the 2 players above, let’s be fair it’s the same game Keegan plays himself, that frustration boiled over at the break when Durcan and Keegan were booked. They had a plan to break it in the middle which didn’t work in my opinion as I thought Mayo dominated the middle but the plan of isolating Cox inside worked. Strangely felt that Mayo needed a physical player on him(Cafferkey anyone!!).

     On the Connacht final, 50/50 for me. Cunningham was shafted in 2015 by players remember(sound familiar), so will be gunning for a win down in Salthill.

125. Would agree somewhat with the goalkeeper issue, but I don’t think that’s where our main problems lie. Our forward play is absolutely awful. No composure, no cohesion, and when cillian is absent, no reliable free taker. We can’t seriously hope get through the qualifiers if these problems aren’t sorted. And like I said, we need to start having a bit more respect for opposition outside of Dublin and Kerry. We simply don’t seem to be up for these games against so called weaker counties, and it has caught us out several times now over the last few years. I am not overly confident about the qualifiers as I don’t feel that these problems are easily or quickly solved.

126. @Itmeansnorhingtome.

     Simply saying that some of the players had not performed is not what I was referring to.

     Some comments went way beyond that.

     Have you read them ?

127. What has Eoin O Donoghue done writing to yet again be an unused sub when subs were still available to the manager ?
     Boyle not coming on was also strange
     McCormack to a lesser extent

     Just the fact we didn’t use all our subs AGAIN is just plain odd

128. Well done Cian on your article. Playing a straight bat as orchestra conductor took a lot of the heat out of what had all the ingredients for a writer to take the gloves off. I mean that as a genuine compliment and I envy your youth and ability to dip into serious sports writing. At your age I was confined to a biro, paper and no outlet or support . A hat tip to WJ who allowed me a platform on this blog since 2007. We have travelled a long road. It’s now time to say goodbye to old stalwarts who proved me wrong many many times. The rest of what’s left if the season has to be for the new lads .

129. @Revellino: I just checked back through the comments, some maybe a bit overwrought but nothing too outrageous, unless Willie Joe removed some. Holding such a position on the Mayo GAA team will always run the risk of criticism. Do you believe posters are wrong to highlight RH’s track record?

130. Wrong Keep moving forward. We enter round 2 on the 22nd June.

131. We have poor forwards it’s true..Coen aside. Anyone know why he was taken off ?

132. Maybe its blind faith in this team, but i woke up this morning in a weird optimistic mood. I watched the game back, and I place full blame on Horan for this one. The lack of a sweeper lost us this game, a current trend in Horans reign…2 soft goals conceded, par for the course for James, although the second is completely Rob’s fault, surely now Clarke is re-instated. No free taker, game over. We’re a far better team than the Rossies, ladt night was there 1/10 win, everything went wrong for us, from goal keeper to free taker, the basics as horan harps on about.

     I think we’ve proven that consecutive games suit these players, nothing better than a massive kick in the balls to reset the focus. I’d feared that they over celebrated the league final, Kids on the pitch laps of honour, borderline cringy stuff when its an AI that matters most. it took away a part of our edge and determination, that now should be restored after this loss. We’ve a fresher panel than last year, and I see us going on a serious run IF Horan makes the changes required, and cillian and co are fit again. We have 3 weeks to re focus and get the head right. I firmly see us making the super 8’s. I dobt buy this mileage in the legs bullshit, their was only 3 players 30 or over starting last night. My team for the next qualifier providing injured lads are back is:
     Clarke
     Higgins. Harrison. Drake
     McGloughlin (S)
     Keegan. Vaughan. Durcan
     Aidan. Ruane
     Boland. Doherty. Diarmuid
     Cillian. Coen.

     Seamie, Carr, Boyle, Barrett, McDonagh to inject pace and keep up tempo. Keep the faith everyone!.

133. A lot of complacency going into last night thinking all we needed to do was turn up. The whole Mayo4sam inittogether bullshit needs to end, already people listing dates and games to the all ireland final. We have only one game left, the next one, thats all that matters.
     Hennelly had a disaster but there were failures all over the pitch. IMO Horan needs to rethink the teams approach to the game. This whole running game from deep is not working anymore, opposition have sussed it out. Last night we had an fb line who didn’t defend and left our back line exposed all night. We had a corner back who can’t defend and is now being targeted because of the fact.
     Great teams are built on great defences. A fb line should never be exposed one on one all night. With the players Mayo now have at it’s disposal, Coen, Reape, Carr, Treacy ,McDonagh there is no reason we can’t play a more direct style, quicker, ball into the forwards. It’s time for the fb line to sit back and actually defend and protect the goal.

134. Well done Cian on your report… excellent! Good luck with your LC… and to all the young men and women doing exams in the coming month.
     Alas poor Mayo I knew him well. But God he wasn’t recognisable last night. Sad to say I’m not full of hope but I’m still the eternal optimist.
     Congrats to Roscommon and all your supporters. You deserved your win and I wish you well in the games ahead.
     Mayo…my heart is beyond empty…

135. There is more chance of me playing sweeper for Mayo than Horan implementing a sweeper system.
     He has one way of playing. His way. Has not changed since 2014.
     We knew what we were getting. Or should have ……from the minute it became obvious he had chosen to ignore the displays of Clarke over the past 5 years it was obvious he was going to hark back to old favourites and “Horan ball”

     Not sure why people think he will now suddenly see the light ……

136. I agree with John Cuffe it’s time to trust the younger lads now and give them their chance. Time waits for no Man or woman. The stalwarts John speak off will be missed for a while they have given sterling service and owe the county absolutely nothing. I would love to see James Horan using whatever games remain to give youth a chance give them a prolonged taste of the white heat of championship football so that we can really go for Connacht next year. Expecting Keith Higgins and Andy Moran and to a lesser extent Lee Keegan to dig us out of this hole this year is both unfair and unrealistic. They’re might be a bit of pain this year but it will be worth it long term I hope James Horan can see that. He needs to scour the county for a free taker or two there must be someone out there and he must look for two young goalkeepers and build them up. More learned men and women on this blog that know the club scene better than I do may suggest some new players. To keep going with the same team that started last night is insanity. To be fair as well everyone on the team and panel tried their best they are only human and didn’t set out to make mistakes or lose, it happens it’s life we all make mistakes everyday of the week though we are lucky we don’t make our mistakes in front of 20 000
     People and the TV cameras so a bit of consideration for Robert Hennelly and others wouldn’t go amiss today

137. Just on the substitution of Coen. he was absolutely shattered for 10 minutes before been removed.

138. Km79, He has to see the light, he had credit in the bank in his first couple of years, but he’s into his overdraft now, presiding over the first team to lose to Ross at home in 33 years! And 18 years in any venue. Sweeper or bust.

139. @It means nothing to me.

     I’d rather not dignify some of the comments but here are 2 snippets from the comments.

     [The two extracts from comments referenced have now been deleted so I’m also deleting them from here – WJ]

     If you think this is fair game or player analysis then you are sadly mistaken my friend.

140. Agree on Coen
     I had just commented that he was looking VERY leggy after chasing his man back twice in a row
     Not sure he had much more than 50 in him which is a shame as he was brilliant

141. I understand the shock to the system of this loss, but you have to keep perspective. Football is now bordering on professionalism; with elite S&C teams , sratisticians and all that. You just do not suddenly decide to cull all players over 32 because of one poor display/result. Of course you look to integrate young talent, but management has a duty to ensure they are fit for the massive step up in standards. I would like to pick out one superb piece of play in defence of Rob Hennelly – a massive belter of a kick out, straight into the hands of Ruane, who pressed on to kick a wonderful point. Some of us are around ling enough to realise Ros can sometimes do that to you – but isn’t sport just great..

142. I have to agree with Revellino here. Lashing out at imaginary ‘cartels’ is hardly constructive.

143. Cian Well done on your match report A very appropriate style for the game in question so well done on that.

     The first point is that we should be prepared to given credit where it is warranted. Rossie’s arrived with a huge monkey on the shoulder and they executed a plan that worked for them and they deserve credit for that.

     The next point is that James Horan is a great manager. he always was, and he always will be. Perhaps different style from your own favorite manager, but a natural leader and in the modern world natural leaders are in very short supply.. If you don’t know, then take from me. One loss will not change that.

     Finally When you spell out someone’s name on a anonymous forum like this in a negative manner you really should have a chat with the person in the mirror.

144. So much went wrong last night it’s hard to know where to start, first of all, Robbie had a poor game as he tends to do from time to time. The reason for starting him is his kickouts and long range frees, both were off last night. I would bring Clarke back in, the argument is over. Our full back line was hung out to dry, you do not want your fb line constantly left one on one and it happened again and again last night. Our half back line was being pulled out of position all night, I’m a big fan of plunkett and I hope he learns. Our overall set up at the back was poor, Horan should have seen what was going on and reacted. Our half back attacked and ran straight into a wall of Roscommon men on the 45’s. A pointless exercise we persisted with all night. Midfield was good. Even more frustrating that we dominated midfield and still lost. Apart from Coen none of our forwards played well. I actually think people are exaggerating how good regan and Boland were, regan got one point from play and Boland was anonymous for most of the game. Diarmuid, doc and mcloughlin had poor games. Doc got a bad knock in the first half and it may have affected him but he wasn’t himself. Andy came on and ran for the corners which was a complete waste of time and then took a few low percentage shots. Crazy stuff. The debacle with the free at the end said it all really. Most disappointing was the performance on the sidelines. Our set up was all wrong, our forward play abysmal.

     To take stock the last time we played well in Connacht was 2015, the last time we played well in championship was the 2017 final and the last time we played consistently well in championship was 2015. I think we need to temper expectations a bit. This was always a rebuilding job for Horan. Horans strong point was always bringing through young players. I’d hoped that the tactical side had improved a bit though. Hopefully we get a run games and young guys get plenty of game time. A complete disaster would be if we went out in the next game without guys like mcdonagh, Tracey etc getting a taste of championship football.

145. None of our full back line won their battle with their forward.Ross targeted our weaknesses.I fear Higgins time as a corner back are numbered.Need to add a new goalie to panel.We seemed afraid to shoot.We missed the physicality of SoS & Vaughan.Back door may improve us.Time for bold selections

146. Last nights performance well and truly signalled the end of the road for several great servants of Mayo football. Can’t see this team getting too far in the qualifiers now. Will be at least 5 years before we see another Connacht title. We have some fine young players but will time for them to build the strength needed to be successful in championship competitions.

147. Jr, our full back line lost the battle because they were hung out to dry all night, no fb line can survive with forwards running one on one at them. HB line offered no protection to full backs last night, too preoccupied with attacking. No point Keegan and Durcan attacking and scoring possibly 2 or 3 points when 5 or 6 are conceeded in their absence. Opposing teams have sussed out our HB line, create a wall on the 45, force turn overs and hit at pace v an exposed back line. Time for the likes of Keegan, Durcan, Higgins to concentrate on what they are there for, Defending.

148. Can anyone see Horan going with Hennelly again in light of Cillian’s absence??

149. In many ways the manner of the loss mirrored our Connaught championship losses to galway over the past few seasons. Bucket loads of possession, and bucket loads of scoring chances but unable to convert. Haphazard play and confusion all over the pitch. The free taking is a complete fiasco. All these issues are simply a continuing trend and its extremely worrying. Brollys article for the most part is spot on, hard and all as that is to take.

     A consolation is that we had lots of injuries. Still though, I’m not optimistic. I agree that we have to go with the younger players now. Keith is no longer a corner back. If we progress we’ll come up against even faster and better forwards. Has to be eoin o’donoghue. Horan is stubborn though.

     Kevin McStay warned that Ross fancy themselves to score goals in every match and they were unlucky not to nail 3. In contrast, we showed little urgency or invention in our attack and were painfully predictable. Ross fouled like hell to prevent us playing or attempting to play a running game. Why wouldn’t they. Again, we should have planned for this.
     Correct me of I’m wrong but we scarcely kicked one long ball into our full forward line. Where was the kick passing we used to great effect in the league? I agree that Diskin did seem lost when he came in and would have been a real option to drop a couple of high balls into, test the Ross defence and beat their blanket.

     I think complacency did play some part but its a lame excuse for a team with pretensions of landing Sam. The league seems like a distant memory now. We’ll get over yesterday though, will take a week or 2, but we will.

150. A few points:
     Don’t underestimate the loss of Donie Buckley and Barry Dolan in the backroom team. There is very little experience now in the backroom team. Warm up looked very low intensity to me – and we started that way.
     Kevin Mac is left footed – why was he playing in the left corner. Several times in second half he was easily forced into his weaker right foot because he was getting the ball in the wrong side of the field. Treacy should have been brought in with 20 mins to go – it was crying out for fresh legs with several forwards either not playing well or out on there feet. If fit – I would be starting O’ Donoghue, McCormack, Mc Donagh, Carr and Reape in our next game. We need 2-3 of these lads to step up to the mark like Coen did last night.

151. I’d love to know where all this strength & depth in the squad is considering we only used three subs – considering 3/4 of our experienced players were under performing I would have thought there would be more – really exposed the lack of faith in the bench .

152. We need to stick together now more than ever for these players. We lost by 1pt.
     We demand and pressurized our players too much and it’s unfair. My opinion for what it’s worth is sideline bosses lost it. Needed fresh legs much earlier.
     They will be in CP in August and I’ll be there too.
     In the meantime let the hols begin……

153. First off I have huge regard for Kevin Mc, Jason Doc and DOC but last night all three were well below their normal performance levels and that happens. Yet, probably our two best forwards on the night Evan and Darren C were substituted when the game was there to be won. Same ‘old’ story Andy brought in to save the day. Old story because Evan, Loftus, Freeman, Boland up to this year, Carr in the league final they all get called to the line at around 45-50 minutes regardless of how they are playing. Same old story last night when we’re in trouble Loftus gets the 5 minutes injury time to try to save the day like the Derry game in 2017, Treacy gets in because Andy is blackcarded with even less time and Diskin gets about 10 minutes. Loftus a proven free taker in pressure situations goes all the way across the pitch to take a game deciding free and our captain decides to send him away and calls up Kevin Mc one of my favourite players and club men to take a free from a position he has often missed from in the past.

     While on frees Robbie is at best about 1 in 3 with long kicks. Evan, Jason and Darren Coen all more than capable free takers, add DOC into that group and again Loftus has shown before what he can do under pressure and from distance. Why do we need to break up the momentum of games to take a minute and a half to bring up a kicker who is 1 for 3 by my reckoning. Robbie has a lot of qualities and I admire the way he bounces back from adversity but it’s time for management to stop putting our players in positions where they carry the flak.

     Basically time for management to learn from mistakes of the past and get on with the future and give the young lads time to show their talent and ability.

154. Very good report Cian, well done. Best of luck with the leaving cert, hopefully it goes well for you.

155. Did not rest very peacefully last night. As I live in Galway I met a few locals at a ladies match this morning. General consensus was that we were too full of ourselves and got carried away after winning the league. We still do not have the forwards and keep shooting ourselves in the foot. I said I was looking forward to seeing who had the best blanket in the Connacht final.

     We were definitely under-cooked for that game last night and did not make the changes to shore up our defence when it was obvious it was under pressure. Why stick McLoughlin in the corner in a packed defence when we needed someone in front of Cox. Going into the qualifiers we need to give the young lads their opportunity because without them we are not going to progress as a team. Waiting for injured players to return and save us is short sighted thinking. Hopefully we will get Monaghan or some other nordie team away in the first round and that will tell us if we have the stomach for it or not. Don’t want a repeat of any Newbridge or Nowhere shite like last year. If we lose it beats the death by a thousand cuts scenario. I believe we will recover and make the 8s. Calling them super is a bit premature. Another summer of Google Maps use lies ahead!

156. There’s people on this blog talking about the same Mayo failings every year
     The reality is that Mayo will always need to win 60 or 70 % of possession to win a game by a single score, this will be the always, the conversion rate is low for the amount of chances created, only one example comes to mind where we had a higher conversion rate, this was the semi final v the Dubs in 2006, this years league final is another example.
     Football has evolved in the past 30 years, but at any level there are a number of basic requirements.
     Goalie steady under pressure, low ball, high ball and kickout
     Midfielder catching the high ball from a kickout
     Foot passing into space
     A free taker right and left footed
     A few hard nuts to inflict pain on the oppositions most creative players.
     A go to player on the pitch that others take inspiration from.
     To be brutally honest, I think Horan doesn’t trust the younger guys in championship that featured in this year’s league or is he too Conservative.

157. Bogman, we take on Wexford at 3:30 in hurling today. You might not have to wait too long to get your retaliation in.. If we lose, go in low and hard as they say.. lol

158. I agree with Mayomad’s analysis (I saw examples last year against Tipperary and Kildare in the qualifiers). I feel we often rely too much on running from the half back line, leaving our full backs exposed and ourselves cheaply and easily open for goals or points. On the other end of the pitch we seem to lack the potency up front in terms of scorers. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying our forwards can’t score because I believe that are capable if they want of being dangerous. But it doesn’t seem like Mayo management put enough emphasis on a game philosophy of empowering dangerous forwards. Why ever not?

     It’s the cheaply giving away scores close to goal combined with an absence of real threat up front that makes very hard work of things. It’ll be nice to give teams something to be anxious about with us for a change.

159. Or maybe we left our backs exposed last night because we were trying to press up the field. I’m not sure.

160. It was shit weather and we were caught on the hop. Hennelly I really feel bad from him. We have two very good goalies but the two of them have Achilles heels. Hennelly is not consistent and Clarke’s Kick outs leave a lot to be desired. So is Hennelly going to a sports psychologist? Is there a specific kick outs coach with Clarke. Thats how things change and get better, players can grow.
     There hasn’t been an inter county goalkeeper with more pressure, analysis and exposure on him than Rob Hennelly before to my memory. An obviously gifted but inconsistent goalkeeper. Its like the perfect storm, how can his confidence improve when I as a fan and many other fans and commentators are fretting like a nervous parents over him. It’s the perfect storm, he will need to find the inner belief to get past this if he is to continue.
     That Kiltimach man might well be in with a shout ongoing for between the posts.

161. I hope that ‘Dont Foul’ do the stat’s on this Match… They will be interesting and I expect damming from a Mayo point of view! …. Apart from, Darren Coen, AOS, both were inspirational, and (Padddy Durcan, Lee Keegan, Fergal Boland and Mathew Ruane who had all very soild game’s) virtually every other of the starting 15 were below the standard that they normally live up to.. That’s 9 Player’s, and some of those 9 Player’s were and still are some of the greatest Player’s ever to play for Mayo .. ie, Kieth Higgins, Brendan Harrison, Jason Doc, Kevin McLoughlin and Diarmuid O Connor) Other’s were on the bench, like Colm Boyle, David Clarke…. Andy undoubtedly the best Forward Mayo ever produced came on, but didn’t set the world on fire… However despite our Missfiring in several sections on the the pitch .. with several of these Player’s not going well… Despite our completely dominant midfield. No changes were made by the sideline, in terms of positional changes or the personell playing…. Inaction on the sideline ..Plan B, didn’t seem to exist, unless it was more of Plan A…. also troughout the game, there seemed to be some confusion, regarding the free taking responsibility… With multiple Free takers on the pitch, there didn’t seem to be a clear hirachey of who takes what free in different sections of the pitch, in different seneario’s , this problem seemed to get worse as the game went on!

162. Was sitting beside a mayo man ( a so called Mayo supporter) and the abuse he was roaring at a mayo player was just unbelievable.
     This behaviour is so bloody upsetting. I wouldn’t normally open my mouth but I had too. I said to him what you are doing is wrong and unfair
     What if that was your son.
     It’s so upsetting and makes me ill.
     We leave last night behind and move onn now with heads up. Players are human too.

163. On on our day we could beat anyone……Dublin included.

     Yesterday many of our “big” players underperformed, we kicked 17 wides, gifted the opposition a goal and missed a wide open goal ourselves.

     Time for some of the younger guys to stand up and be counted.

164. I believe David Gough had a great game again last night. He imposes the rules and he gives the best footballers a chance to play football. The rules allow for good footballers to play but only if the rules are implemented correctly. The best referee in the game at the present time.in my opinion.

165. Why drop James Carr after his performance in NFL final?
     Why take of your best forward and Motm for Mayo Darren Coen?
     Why have Kevin McLoughlin takes frees when u can see by his body language he hates taking them?
     Why have Robbie Hennelly in goal with his history and leave a 2 time All star on the bench?
     Why only bring 3 forward subs on when your players are been bet all over the field?
     If James Horan bothered to study free takers in the County he would know Darren Coen and Neil Douglas are the best free takers outside Cillian O’Connor not Doherty or Hennelly who always have an average 50% strike rate.

166. Only one way to go from now on and that’s up, we were poor today, when you are relying on a last minute free to send you into extra time, you know you don’t have an All Ireland winning team. If they can’t do the business in 70 minutes of Championship Football when the chips are down how can they be expected to win seven games in eight weeks ? They have made it very difficult for themselves now.

167. Chris Kelly, James Carr obviously injured as he wasn’t even on the bench Darren Coen was taken off because he was exhausted, could barely walk let alone run. Kmc was choosen to take the free because he is an experienced left footed player, regardless if he didn’t like taking frees it was well within his capabilities to score from a good position. Robbie Hennelly while not excusing his performance was picked because he had a very good league including a great league final game.
     Very few people questioned team selection before the game but hindsight is a wonderful thing. People fixated on free taker because of the last kick but why were we in that position? We were there because of the disgraceful waste of opportunities during the game, straight forward opportunities wasted by experienced players like Keegan, Durcan, Moran, Doherty and the niave defensive setup empolyed, the game was there for the winning, It’s the same old story. Had Cillian been available we probably would have won but that would have covered over what was an absolute shambles from the so called “second best team in the country” people need to start being realistic and stop hyping up the team year on year, Mayo4sam, in it together bullshit. Yes support the team on the day but there is no need for the rest of the crap that goes on.

168. Who’d be a goalkeeper? It’s not long ago since that Saturday evening when I sat in Croke Park and watched Robbie save Mayo from a 25 point drubbing at the hands of the Dubs in the League. One has to worry about a team which relies on its goalkeeper to be its top scorer. Call me old fashioned but, as regards a net-minder or goal-keeper, the clue to his function and job description is in the name of his position. To keep the leather out of the onion sack. A team with any of numbers 2 to 26 incapable of putting the ball over the bar from hand or grass is a team at a decided disadvantage.
     When Mayo get a free and all eyes turn to our goalkeeper as he makes his way out the 70 metres to (possibly) kick it wide and this starkly underlines the paucity of attacking talent in the team or else it highlights the lack of dependence on those whose role in the team it is to raise white flags. This charge can be laid at a number of big name teams right now, but I’d love to have a Jimmy Keaveney/Mikey Sheehey/Tony McManus/Dean Rock/ Joe Corcoran (RIP) type player in our ranks. One who you know, once the free is awarded, will simply not miss. Maybe that missing link is Cillian. I have no doubt that, if he were on board, we could and would lift ourselves from being the third best team in Connacht.

169. Perhaps it’s best this year is wrote off , we are going to have to be patient in this rebuild . Players like Seamie, Andy , Higgins, boyler Barrett are once in a generation type and it will take some amount of work to get players to take over .

     Last night was ridiculous
     , to leave Harrison exposed one to one with Cox was beyond belief . I mentioned beforehand about Robbie taking long range frees and 45s , it’s not the percentage we have to go short .

170. Sorry Mayomad, but Kevin McLoughlin has a poor success % for that very side and range. It was Conor Loftus free all night.
     Similar Jason Doherty has a wildly varying technique. Addresses the goals left shoulder facing goals turned 90 degrees. He then has to pivot around his standing leg. He had a high scooping wide on the far side in the second half. Conor Loftus should have been started and also during the league and entrusted with frees.
     Alternatively Killian Kilkelly from Westport. But for the love of God do not tog out with JDoc Robbie Hennelly and Kevin McLoughlin as a trio of freetakers once Evan Regan was off.
     The freetaking needs immediate correcting and likely that is James Carr. In his absence either Conor Loftus or the accuracy of Killian Kilkelly. We can’t go another season like this wholly reliant on Cillian O’Connor.

171. keV MC missed one even closer in v Monaghan in the league , absolute madness giving him that free last night , he hasn’t got the style for a free kick taker

172. @Leantimes I have a few stats kept regarding scores, wides, kick outs, and frees conceded that I can throw up if you like

173. @ Cian, I for one would be very grateful if you shared those stats. Thanks

174. Haven’t seen it on the TV (not sure if there’s any need), but that was a bad performance. Bad as a number of key players were off the pace / didn’t make the right choices, combined with the fact that it still looked like we had the beating of that Roscommon team (all credit to them on their win).

     Felt like we bossed it in the middle but frees and general shot selection from the forward unit wasn’t where it should be, and I’d agree with the comments on defensive shape and making use of the bench.

     Obviously there’s plenty to work on, but there were a number of key players out and good teams don’t turn bad overnight. Fair enough it’s “only the league”, but the rest of Div 1 didn’t send out dummy teams and it’s not like everyone else was on the piss whilst we were training over winter. We should look to our performance in that competition as evidence of our potential – any overconfidence from it will be cleared out now. Hopefully once the pain of this loss passes we’ll all be ready to back them again once on the road – as they’ve said themselves the support does spur them on (I doubt there will be many other counties bringing the minimum 10k following that Mayo will always get assuming there’s room enough for us). Hoping we get as soft a run in the qualifiers as possible.

175. Okay, I’ve now gone back over the 300 or so comments posted since the match started. I’ve dealt with the ones I’d consider objectionable and in breach of the house rules. Those who posted comments in flagrant breach of the rules – for info, Revellino, both of those you referenced fall into that category, thanks for flagging them – are now on moderation watch. In total, I’ve deleted 25 comments (some of these, in fairness, never made it up and were from some who reside in permanent moderation or new contributors coming on to gloat) and edited offensive bits from others. I only had to deal with one or two unacceptable comments from Rossies, which reflects well on those from that county who read the blog and contribute to it.

     Overall, I’d say the reaction in the comments hasn’t been overly bad – bearing in mind that online comments often tend to exhibit extreme mood-swings – so thanks for that. If anyone spots something that’s still up and which they consider is beyond the pale please let me know and I’ll review it.

176. Thanks Cian, that would be great, if you have the time. But I wouldn’t want you to be taking too much time away from your studies, Good Luck with the Exams, and I’m sure all the poster’s and reader’s of the Mayo GAA appreciate your excellent, efforts on behalf of fan’s this Blog!

177. Scores:
     Mayo- 17 (3f) First half= 10 (2f) Second half= 7 (1f). Points from play= 14 (8,6)

     Roscommon- 14, 2 goals, 3F 2 ‘45. First half= 8 (2g, 2f, 1 ‘45) Second half= 6 (1f, 1 ‘45). Points from play= 7 (3,4).

     Wides:
     Mayo total= 18 (15+3 short)
     First half (9,2) Second half (6,1)

     Roscommon total= 7
     First half (2) Second half (5)

     Kick outs:
     Mayo, Long= (10CompletedNC-62.5%) Short= (5C 2NC-71.5%)
     After his first two short kick outs went astray Hennelly completed 5/5,
     After only completing 3/8 in his first 11 long kick-outs, Hennelly completed 7/8.
     Total= (15C 8NC -65%)

     Roscommon, Long= (6C 13NC-31.5%) Short= (8C 2NC-80%)
     Total= (14C 15NC-48%)

     Frees conceded:
     Mayo= 10 Roscommon= 22

     Cards:
     Mayo (Y3, B1, R0)
     Roscommon (Y5, B1, R0)
     One yellow for both sides in the first half, a double yellow for both teams straight after the interval.

     Frees/45s:
     Mayo: (3/7) – First half (2/4) Second half (1/3)
     Roscommon: (5/6) – First half (3/3) Second half (2/3).

     Attendance= 20, 471.

178. WJ, the abuse some of the Mayo players got is not on, I believe Mayo were very jittery going into the game yesterday evening. 2 points to make, (1) the Mayo fullback line were dragged out of position on several occasions & no one defender to cover the square area, bad mistake. (2) Aidan was brilliant in middle third, but the full forwards inside were fearful of going for goals. Something not right there? Management needs to use players in proper positions, cut out the nonsense now

179. It’s something I’ve mentioned several times over the years with this squad…our players are far better suited to a defensive counter attacking format. We’ve done very well over the past 8 years, generally but our game plan with the exception of the 2016/17 finals (which Rochford got pretty much spot on a tactical set up basis not necessarily on personnel) has been to take an offensive approach with our half back line pressing forward. Teams have copped on to how we play, as Mayomad alluded to earlier. We have become FAR TOO PREDICTABLE. It’s actually easy now to play against us. Drop everyone back and hit us on the break. Ros did it last night and Galway to a degree did this the past few years. The irony is, we have better players than these sides do to master this tactical style. We operated a sweeper type system in the 16 final and bar two fluke goals would have probably won the All Ireland. Why on earth do we not play a defensive counter attacking system. Let teams come at us and hit them with pacey attacking defenders…This too would enable our forwards have more space.

     The way we are currently playing doesn’t give us a hope.

180. [Deleted].

181. Forgive me for playing the man Willie Joe but Sharkie is letting his county down by coming on here making stupid comments like that. The reality is Sharky you beat us by a point in Castlebar for the first time since 1986 we had 17 wides and had an off day I bet if we meet ye in Croke Park later on in the year we’ll beat ye out the gate again maybe not by 23 points like we did a few years ago but beat ye nonetheless.

182. I love David Brady and John Maughan

183. Gas the way hennelly is being crucified for this game but if he didn’t block that shot at the death against Kerry in the league we would not be league holders.
     Scores win games and mayo have demons in there head when they take there scores. I’m sure they get all those scores on the training ground.

184. @Mayonaze best post I have read here since the match ended. I would add too that we need to become more street wize, Fergal Boland scored 2 fabulous points to put us 1 up, can you imagine what any other team in the country would do at that point? They would protect possession instead of pressing everyone forward to score again , even in injury time there only looked like one team who could score till we took on that stupid hero shot , were turned over and they go down and score.

     What was wrong with holding possession for extra time?

     If we can’t get smarter and continue to repeat the mistakes of the past then that is absolutely the definition of insanity!

185. By bad, Sharkie, forgot to direct your bile straight to moderation. That’s sorted now. If you’d read the post-match comments here, you would have seen that there were plenty of gracious ones congratulating Roscommon on their win, which I’ve done myself in a separate post just now. But every county has its idiot supporters and you’re clearly one of theirs. Your time contributing here is now over.

186. I’ve dealt with that Backdoorsam. It was my own fault that comment got through but it’s been sorted now.

187. Left Boot – have you any specific examples in mind? If you can list the time the offending comments were posted and by whom that would be helpful and I’ll review them. I’ve already deleted a bunch of them so the issue may already be dealt with. Note, by the way, that criticism of performances by named players isn’t abuse per se unless it goes over the top and doesn’t relate to what happened in the game.

188. Mayomad. There was no talk of James Carr been injured during the whole leadup to the game by Management so you dont assume he was.Darren Coen was exhausted playing at full forward dont make me laugh thats just a silly comment ,but we leave on Jason Doherty who didnt look right when he went over on his ankle in the 1st half and contributed nothing to the team in the 2nd half.Jp I would agree Kilkelly from Westport is good at frees but I dont think hes County standard from play.
     Jack Reilly from Charlestown is the best left footed player and freetaker in the County judging from all the club action I have seen in the last 4 years in Mayo one of the few forwards I have seen give Lee Keegan a hard time in Club championship yet Horan didnt think he was good enough in County trials last October.

189. It’s my understanding, Chris Kelly, that James Carr was indeed injured, which was why he wasn’t included in the match-day 26.

190. Good job WJ you have cleared the decks.

191. Would go with something along the lines of the following the next day. Horan really needs to roll the dice now

     Clarke

     ODonohue
     Harrison
     Barret

     Vaughan

     Higgins
     Keegan
     Durcan

     AOS
     Ruane

     Boland
     DOC
     Mcdonagh

     Coen
     COC

     Sub:
     Mclaughlin
     Carr
     Doherty
     Moran
     Shlingermann
     SOS
     Reape
     Boyle
     Boland
     Treacy
     Coen

192. Bad day for poor Robbie. He finds it difficult to recover from a mistake, and usually follows it up with another. It’s hard not to feel sorry for him with all the good stuff he has done.
     To me, it was like watching an underage team – some very basic mistakes and poor decision making in critical areas. But like an underage team, Mayo can come out the next day and blow away the opposition. This is what we have come to expect and have experienced over the years.
     Best of luck to Roscommon, but I think they’ll need it. Mayo had 17 widest and quite a number of poor decisions in other scoring positions, and they still only got over the line by a single point. Their game will get well tested on the larger pitches. I think Sean Andy will close Cox down, and with it, shut down Roscommons main threat.
     I still expect Mayo to progress and it could be on the back of a couple of more dog fights.
     I hope Horan can move forward as a manager and respond to the problems on the field and introduce fresh legs earlier. Think he also needs to replace the proper men. It’s still difficult to see how he has matured as a manager, yet!

     Anyway, time to get the sat-nav ready and get on the road to support this team.

     Hon Mayo!

193. Forget the individual mistakes you will always have some of them in a game. The reason we lost was due to the defensive setup which is down to management and a dismal forwards performance except for Coen, 1 of 6. Management at fault for free taking fiasco. Some basic stuff indeed.

194. Chris Kelly, what’s your theory on why Coen was subbed?

195. Thanks, Left Boot – if there are any others please let me know.

196. A collective collaspe is what happen last night.
     Disapointing as it is its time to move on and learn from it.
     Sharkie is it not bedtime for you have you not creche in the morning.

197. I don’t really understand people calling this a collapse. Getting beaten by 6 pts woulda been a collapse. they got within a point of us in 11 & 14 and drew with us in 17. So this was likely coming at some stage if we were a bit off, had some big errors or sendings off etc.

     Roscommon are a top 10 team so they have chances against anyone outside the Dubs

198. A collective team collaspe is when multipul players experience extreme or sudden dip in form.something was way off last night and doubt very much they were under prepared.
     Rossies were good not outstanding not being disrespectful just how i saw it.

199. Once again for effect….

     Coen was subbed off as he was absolutely shattered. He actually struggled to walk to the bench. Our line got a fair bit wrong yesterday but that decision was fully justified.

200. Decided to let the dust settle before commenting on this one … ! It’s probably all been said already but …

     I said earlier in the week that Roscommon would pose a bigger threat than Galway. Obviously now we won’t know whether we could have beaten Galway in a final but full credit to Roscommon for being prepared, relentless, and showing great character to claw their way back into the lead after conceding it. We were also awarded a point that was clearly wide. I am however irrationally annoyed at everyone involved that we let them come to Castlebar and beat us. Jesus, where is the pride?!

     I thought the referee had a good performance. With the exception of the ridiculous half time melée I thought it was quite a clean game too.

     Poor performance all over the pitch, with (for me) four exceptions – Aidan O’Shea, Darren Coen, Fergal Boland and Evan Regan, and none of those performances were A1 either. But they deserve credit for preventing the situation from being worse than it was.

     I know nothing about what goes on in training. But like everyone else I know that for as long as I have followed Mayo football – well over 30 years now – that we have always struggled in front of the posts. I cannot fathom why a team that has been on the road as long as we have has not addressed that problem in the county.

     When Horan was re-appointed, I expressed the hope that game management from the sideline would be better this time around. Last night felt reminiscent of many other games in the first reign unfortunately. As other posters have rightly pointed out though, Darren Coen had given it his all when he was called ashore and seemed to be spent. But we had a bench and to see it pretty much unused until he game was nearly beyond us was disheartening.

     I will admit I felt a twinge of nervousness when I saw Hennelly named to start. The world and its mother knew that Roscommon would target us for goals, and I felt at the time Clarke would have been the better option for this particular game. But Hennelly had a very decent league, and despite a poor performance where even his kickouts didn’t go to plan, does not deserve to be singled out in the way he has been for the blame when his full back line were not protecting him. That said, his inconsistency is a concern and on balance, I’d rather a good shot-stopper – with proven consistency – between the posts. But that’s just my own opinion.

     It’s remarkable that a team hoping to contend for an All-Ireland would have have their free-taking strategy – and contingencies – agreed and communicated ahead of time. Kevin McLoughlin is not renowned for his free-taking and should never have been placed in that position. Conor Loftus would have been a better option, but ultimately ensuring that there was a nominated free-taker on the pitch at the end of the game is fairly basic stuff surely? Obviously it should never have come down to that kick regardless, but still.

     The atmosphere was at best insipid last night; if the team was looking for any inspiration from the stands they would have been a long time waiting. Mind you, it was hard to get excited about much given what was happening on the field. It’s also hard to get excited at the prospect of the qualifiers but as time passes the appetite will return; a win on our next outing will restore momentum. And a loss will ensure that the Mayo economy will benefit again this summer!

     I think the last few years has hardened a few of us. The swings from high to low are pointless and wearing. Win or lose, it’s only a damn game. Life will go on It is what it is, we are where we are. And if we go no further, so be it.

     But I don’t think we will collectively underperform like that again, and I have a funny feeling we’ll stay standing longer than Roscommon will.

201. Nothing has changed we have given away goals go le or down the years, 2012 all Ireland to name one, what I saw of the game in the first. 15/20 mins most of the breaks were going our way, why with the wind didn’t the kick outs go long and rob can kick long, Andy came on as blood sub, it was clear to me that he was not the andy of old, a brilliant servant of mayo, having said that he got a great point when he came on later, WHERE was Carr, why was treacey not on at or soon after half time.
     By the way we will be going further than the rossies, any team that concedes 34 scoring chances will not be winning silverware.

202. Thanks very much WJ and thanks to Cian for those stats and all his other great work.

     A day later and reading through this evenings comments, I think there is hope yet and plenty to look forward to yet this year. I think the team will have to be rejigged a little but no major surgery required.
     Possibly with a sweeper we might have seen a much different outcome.
     The result of course was very dissapointing and some mistakes were of the glaring type, but there were some great scores and a few very good individual performances. Coen and O’shea for examole I felt were really impressive.
     Peter Canavan made the point, that actually now Mayo could be dangerous for any opponent and this was due to last night’s result and that all the pressure is now off. I hope he is right.
     Personally I would prefer the pressure and prove we can handle it.
     I don’t believe our year is anywhere near coming to an end, but we 100% have to change the structure of how we line out and a few positional switches and we will be back in business again.
     I know KMc is a brilliant player and had a great league further forward, but in a game that pans out like last night did, I think he would have been far better utilised much further out the field.

     The championship is by no means over for us. We just have to get it right for our next challenge.