Photo: Mayo Mick
It’s a wet and rather windy Monday morning and I’m afraid the papers aren’t going to provide much in the way of creature comforts this morning either. A sense of perspective is, however, important – yesterday was just the first act in what could well be another long and eventful year for us and it’s only to be expected that everything didn’t go according to plan for us on our first outing. Sure didn’t I leave the house myself yesterday morning without the camera (having to rely on my iPhone for that grainy shot used in the match report) and didn’t Audioboo then shut down on me, truncating my post-match audio blabbering when an incoming call came in? Do I expect to be having such screw-ups when, God willing, we’re in Croke Park on August Bank Holiday weekend? No I do not and I expect James Horan to have ironed out a few wrinkles in his team by then as well.
Okay, onto the match reports – Mayo Advertiser (match report, post-match comments from James Horan and Andy Moran), Irish Examiner, Irish Times, Irish Independent (match report, post-match comments), RTÉ, The Score, Hogan Stand, Breaking News.
Highlights from yesterday are available on the RTÉ Player (here) and there are photo galleries from Newbridge from Inpho, Sportsfile and, of course, Mayo Mick, whom it was great to meet up with at the Club ’51 pre-meet in Newbridge.
No time to parse any of the above, I’m afraid – it is Monday morning, after all. Have a good one.
A few observations from week 1 – The black card is taking the physicality of the game which is resulting in much bigger score lines. No doubt it will be the talking point of the summer and will be the cause of a major controvery or two.
The other thing is the growing number of managers who watched the games from a higher vantage point. Maybe the penny is finally dropping that while pacing the side line is more exciting as you feel part of the action, a much better perspective can be got from the stands. Eamonn fitzmaurice admitted as much yesterday. it will be interesting to see if in Croker in particular will managers adopt this or will the lure of the sideline be too much.
Finally – When will experienced players bearing down on goal learn to take the right option instead of going for the pile driver everytime which invariably ends with shot being blocked?
In the O Byrne Cup final, Meath missed 5 goal chances and lost. Yesterday v Kildare Mayo got possibly 3 chances as good and failed to take them. Same result as Meath.
Another observation.
If KEVIN MCLOUGHLIN was playing for Dublin or Kerry for the last 4 years you can bet your life his name would not be ” aiden o loughlin” as stated on some of today’s papers. It’s sheer disrespect, there’s no way that any ” journalist” worth his salt would call Bernard brogan by a name like Brendan O Breslin is there?
His name is Kevin McLoughlin.
Too true, David – the reporter in question was Cliona Foley who you’d think should be experienced enough to remember the name of such a prominent player.
Not sure if the comment will be allowed WJ, but she is a very poor reporter with little understanding of the game. Liam Kelly in the Indo is even worse. Just shows how little interest in the game these people really have.
Coming back to the game itself, I assume we can all understand that at this time of year it’s important for the Horan to introduce new players and also try out existing players in different positions. I would also assume that we all agree, we should try and win every game we play. Despite so many new guys, Mayo had the beating of Kildare yesterday and had the Management team taken action to shore up a defence which was been torn to shreds, we would now have two valuable points in the bag.
It should have been clear to the sideline that we were in trouble at the back from early on and seeing as we were never in control at midfield, this was never going to change. I would imagine some of those defenders were looking to the sideline for a bit of inspiration, but sadly there was none coming. I know the poll taken here last week suggested most of us didn’t expect us to win, and there can be matches where on the day, we mightn’t be good enough, fair enough. But when the game is there for the taking, and this one was, then we’ve got to be more ruthless, as a win against the head is the most satisfying of all.
Does anyone know the Mayo U21 starting 15 against Kildare yesterday, they lost by a few points.
Have seen plenty of Mayo supporters spell Kevin McLoughlin. wrong,some even used a G in his name?
Mayo Mchale – Agreed. Once again, once again!!!
That’s one thing, but calling him A totally different name is making a point.
The journalist knows his correct name or else is a dummy, or maybe both.
Reporters should not make a mistake like that but whats new when it comes to shoddy reporting of gaa in the indo.
Yeah David, I notice that they got his name wrong in the Irish Examiner article as well, Kevin O’Loughlin, he was called there! The Indo must have tried to make up for their mistake yesterday as Kevin McLoughlin was mentioned a number of times in an article they had in the paper today. “McLoughlin’s metronomic free-taking”, were the words used today. The Indo reporters must be checking out the Mayo GAA Blog too! p.s. don’t ask me what that means, “metronomic”!