The latest edition of the Mayo News football podcast is out and this one was recorded yesterday in the aftermath of our narrow but hugely satisfying win over Tyrone up in Omagh.
In this edition, host Rob Murphy chats with Mayo News sports editor Mike Finnerty who was on commentating duties at Healy Park yesterday and he then talks about the team’s performance with Mayo News columnist Billy Joe Padden. There’s also some post-match audio with Stephen Rochford and Tom Parsons.
Rob and I then have a chat to wrap things up, in the course of which we come up with a novel proposal on who should have the dubious honour of facing Dublin in next month’s League final.
The podcast is available on SoundCloud and iTunes and you can also listen to it here:
After the Cavan match, I saw the result, sighed and stayed away from the com boxes. After all, its only March folks.
Nice job on the podcast WJ.
BJ made an important point on his analysis of the match, one that I’ve observed meself, and its this, why do we persist with kicking the ball wide out into the corners, and having Andy chase out for it? Paul Galvin observed a similar pattern on wooleys podcast in the latter stages of last years championship. Its just madness! Drawing Andy (or any of our guys) out there to the corner, where they can be rather easily contained, gives the opposing back line loads of time to reset their defense. Its almost like they are playing, dare I say it” a soccer tactic…lamp the ball into the corner and cross it in…cept its snuffed out and never crossed in because defenses like Dublin, Tyrone, Kerry etc. easily read this and adjust quickly. Its also very predictable.
The polar opposite of that of course is the tactic that we employed for Parson goal yesterday. From DC, a few kick passes, across the 45, move toward center at speed and all of a sudden the defensive line is exposed. Absolutely more direct. Of course it won’t always result in a goal but putting your scoring forwards, between the 45 and the D, left or right, is the sweet spot for scores. It sure beats the blanket defense and the need for a hot and hope “hail mary” from the corner or wing. Anyways, carry on…
Your criticism of David Clarke on the podcast v harsh willie joe
He has been excellent in the league for us
I don’t accept that, Mayoman – I’m a huge fan of David Clarke (and said so on the podcast). What I did say, and stand over, is that he gets his kickouts off far, far too slowly and too often to players in a static position on our own 21-yard line, meaning we’ve the length of the pitch to go to get on the attack. That’s fact, not criticism but as I said on the podcast it may be what we have to live with.
there is little or no correlation between kick outs and eventual match winners, the greater correlation being turnovers.
the speed of the counter attack bears more relevance than the speed of the kick out.
But a slow kickout and resultant slow build from the back increases the chances of a turnover because the opposition have time to reset their defence. We coughed up several turnovers in this way yesterday (though it didn’t prove fatal to us on the day).
Interesting to hear BJP say we were terrible in the 2nd half. I’d agree that we were poor but I think it was refreshing to see this perspective. Great to win, Loadsa heart and guts etc but when you peel all that away the 2nd half left a lot to be desired for.
Also agree re: Andy burning up needless energy running to the corners…and he hardly won a ball kicked into him in that 2’nd period. He should be rested and also absoluteky agree that Lee should have been ordered to stay away from football for at least a month after Westport’s campaign. Don’t even look at a football. Lee looks drained and sluggish.
I mostly agree with your line of thinking WJ. As a matter of fact, the sequence of play preceding the goal, DC hit a short shot into the corner leaving the CB with no room for error. As it turned out, we lost possession and Tyrone should have punished us but instead hit a woeful wide. From the resulting kick out, came that sequence for the goal .
The point is, Clark has to work on his restarts in general. If that improves, so will our odds.
Mister Mayor,
The whole idea of kicking diagonal passes wide to Andy is to open up the space in front of the goal. Andy is our full forward and being tightly marked by the full back, so a diagonal pass means the ball is travelling away from the goal and the full forward is (or should be) between the ball and the full back and therefore is favorite to win and retain the ball. The fact that the full forward is moving away from goal means the full back is following him closely thereby leaving his position in front of the goal exposed. This move only works if another Mayo player (in this instance Tom Parsons) sees the space left by the full forwards run, and times his run into that space just right so as to receive the ball at speed. This move only works by using quick, accurate, foot passes (in this instance Higgins ball out of defense to Boland, his pass centrally to Cillian in space, and finally, Cillians pass bouncing wide out to Andy) so the ball is delivered quickly before the defense can get into position and set. The diagonal ball also “moves” the oppositions defense across the pitch which helps to open up space for the forwards, e.g. Boland has plenty of time to receive Higgins’ pass, get his head up, spot Cillians run into space and play him in, likewise Cillian had time to turn and play it wide into space to Andy and Andy played it back into the space he had created for Tom to finish. Speed and space are the two things defenders hate most. If you can combine the two (as we did on a couple of occasions in Omagh) there isn’t a blanket in the country that can cope with it.
Compare that move to anything we tried v Cavan or Monaghan where we carried, hand-passed and soloed the ball out of our defense thereby allowing Cavan and Monaghan time to retreat under their blanket defense. By the time we got the ball to their 45 there was no space for our forwards to work with, and so, our attack stalled. Even when we went lateral in those games it was by hand-passing it across the field which was too slow. Andy came wide, got on the ball but it was all too slow and the Cavan and Monaghan defenses had time to plug the gaps with their sweepers. In Omagh, when we went lateral it was by foot passes nearly all the time and so it was much quicker. A perfect example of this was the move that resulted in us creating a 2 v 1 overlap on the stand side when Drake was pulled to the ground for a handy free that Cillian scored.
Pebblesmeller, your post is why I love it here. Better than any newspaper for the likes of me who has never played.
Sinead37, thanks.
I played, but badly, and not for half long enough 🙂
It would be ideal if we had better kick outs but we don’t and will not get Clarke to a Cuxton (neither will Dublin make Cluxton into a shot stopper like Clarke).
The better teams and teams strongly relying on a packed defence will inevitably force a slow build up (and in open play as well as kick outs and sometimes from our own passing) and the trick is careful handling of the ball once approaching the opposition 45 (turnovers up the field is not clarkes issue) patiently moving it from side to side waiting for the space in the centre to be exploited. Then, quick handling at pace through the centre and being able to shoot without a big wind up are key I.e. points from O Gara and Mc Hughs second v Kerry not to mention the infuriating compulsory solo to “settle”, a habit perfected ? from childhood that even county players have not addressed.