23 thoughts on “Monday match reports”

1. Looks to me like the Kerry match is coming to soon for Mayo. Kerry seem to be flying at the moment, while our lads look like there still in holiday mode. No bad thing I would say, so long as supporters curb there high expectations and understand it’s hopefully going to be a long season. One thing for sure, it’s going to be a very interesting year !!

2. mayo mchale has hit on an interesting one there with his/her “so long as supporters curb their high expectations”. My comment is not to take issue with mchale but perhaps to outline my expectations.

   Mine are simple. My “expectation” is that we win this years All Ireland. That was been my “expectation” last year too and any time we have a reasonable team. Mayo mchale has hit upon a very interesting and revealing issue regarding us Mayo people and its this…our lack of real confidence and how we hope to travel kinda unnoticed.

   Respectfully I suggest that for us to progress and we know what that means, then we must stop couching our hopes in this type of thinking. I would assume our “expectations” are thus. We started on the same place on the grid as Donegal in 2011. Two counties with new managers. Donegal I would say were in an even worse state than us, conceding 1-27 to Cork in the 2009 quarter final and shipping defeats to Antrim and Armagh in 2010.

   They completed their project (as AVB or any of those foreign managers in England say) last September. No monkey on the back for them any more. So my “expectation” is simple. That we , seeing as we seem a year behind them, (why Mayo should lag behind Donegal still amazes me,) that we win this years All Ireland. Now that’s a huge gulp for Mayo people to say out loud.

   Why enter a competition unless its your expectation to win it? Then why should the followers not expect the team to do likewise? Again back to mchale and I see exactly what he /she is saying but how do we “curb our expectations?” Do “expectations” change, whats acceptable in curbing those “expectations”.

   Unfortunately those “expectations” take a life form of their own. They themselves make demands. One being that a team that contested two major finals last season and came within 140 minutes of a double coupled with two poor officals decisions are now expected to at least pick up one trophy and progress to the limit in the next.

   If the “project” morphs into a “long term” vague down the line kinda “not this year but definitely …maybe next year or the year after” thing , then we are screwed…again. My “expectation” is this…Mayo to win this years All Ire and. My cold logic and years standing around the barricades suggest different but that will never stop me expecting this great county to achieve its destiny.

   Fogra: This is not taking issue with mayo mchale, this is my own view on “expectations”.

3. I agree John, we should be aiming to win the National league, why not? Most guys on this site spent the entire National League talking about getting relegated, in the end we got to the league final. Why not show a bit of faith in our team. We lost the All Ireland by 3 points. We should be stronger this year, shouldn’t we. Andy will be back, Our young players have a solid year experience under their belt. Their conditioning and strength should be at optimim levels as it Horans 3rd year in charge.
   We have now on board a excellent GAA tacticial in the form of this Kerry guy(name excapes me), this I believe is one of Horans weaker points, as he was often slow to make changes, and made stranges decisions regarding positioning of players. Such as Doherty at centre forward.
   As regards us being behind Kerry at the moment, I don’t agree. In two weeks time when all the collages are finished and we will have a month of collective training under our belt we will be ready.
   If anything its Kerry who will be under presure, as the Crokes lads will probably be unavailable and the new inexperienced manager will try and put his stamp on Kerry. Remember hes dealing with a lot of former team mates, of similar age to himself, this is not easy.
   I can’t wait for the action to begin. Come on Mayo!!!

4. Ara feck it! Mayo for three in a row! (while we’re at it)

5. When someone says curb our expectations they have a point afterall the league hasn’t started and some like John above is talking about winning the All Ireland. Mayo should be there or there about in 2013 but nobody knows what the year holds? injuries can play a big part for a start for example if O’Connor got injury who would score the free kicks regularly? and you can’t go on other years look at Down they only lost the 2010 All Ireland final by one point.

6. The trick is to have such sky-high expectations all of the time that you know they will never be reached, so you don’t need to worry about expectations :p

7. I think we should be looking at winiing the league and trying out a few young players as well as I think we are in a strong enough position this year to achieve this.

   Apart from wining out I would like to see us gain another option at full forward to Andy ,ideally one from Freeman/Connor O Shea/Kirby (is he involved this year?) or maybe, at stretch, somebody like Aidan Walsh.

   Also I would like to see Aidan O’ Shea given sometime at CHF along with Pat Hart( if fit and in form) or Richie Feeny and Donie Vaughan given a go in midfield with Keith Higgins moving out to the half back line for a couple of matches.

   Lastly I would like to see some of the new faces in the forwards like Evan Regan , Alan Murphy , Cathal Carolan , Darren Coen etc.. getting some game time cause we all know we probably need some extra options in terms of scoring forwards. I think Jason Gibbons can build on his form at the end of last year and with Seami O Shea back from injury I think we could have a serious squad of 20 or 22 come the summer.

   While the above is hard to achieve along with wining the league I think Horan & co must aim to reach these goals to assure we are ready to do damage in the championship.

   P.S I think we’ll take Kerry , Mhaigheo Abu.

8. John, the unfortunate reality is that Mayo supporters’ expectations are more reflective of our achievements in Connacht (40+ titles) than of our All-Ireland haul (a pitiful 3, putting us below such football ‘heavyweights’ as Tipperary, Kildare and Wexford).

   To my mind, this means we don’t have any right to expect that Mayo should be winning All-Irelands regularly. Why should we? There’s no history of it.

   Time and again, Mayo have failed to deliver when expectation was high in Croke Park. It was not unreasonable to expect us to win the 1997 All-Ireland final, for example. Nor was it unreasonable to expect Mayo to beat Fermanagh on the first day in 2004. Nor to expect us to give Cork a game in 1993, having rattled them in 1989. And in 2006, surely we wouldn’t roll over against Kerry again?

   But each time, expectation was shredded, usually with a big dose of humiliation thrown in. And any Mayo people feeling low on confidence got no succour from the goons in the RTE studio and the likes of McGee and Breheny, none of whom were slow to kick us when we were down.

   And yet, Mayo keep coming back, and coming back, and coming back. Despite everything, I’ll be disappointed if we’re not lining up in Croke Park on August weekend.

   Personally speaking, I’m starting to see Mayo’s quest for Sam not as one of never-ending disappointment, but as a rising wave that will eventually overpower the psychological hurdles in our way. Look at Cork. They went through agony too. They never gave up, and they got there in 2010.

   And now look at the big picture in comparison to, say, 30 years ago. Back then, we had 1 Connacht title in 14 years. Since then: 13 Connacht titles. 6 All-Ireland final appearances.

   Mayo will win the Sam. And I believe we will win it this year, because I don’t see any particularly brilliant team out there that are significantly better than us.

   I don’t ‘expect’ that we will win the Sam, because history doesn’t give me that right. But I believe that we will.

9. Some interesting points made there by Crete Boom re: team selection and positional changes. And I’m sure J H himself will agonised long and hard over the next few months hoping to find that magic formula.

   For James this year 2013 should be all about having the team in the best possible shape going into the first round of the Connaught Championship. In order to achieve this, he will have to experiment some what during the League campaign. This I have no doubt will effect team performance and in some cases the outcome of matches, maybe not always in our favour, so what! For me it’s all about winning the All Ireland next September, not how we do in the League, see Donegal last year.

   This brings me to the point I made earlier regarding supporters high expectations.
   Listening and reading some comments from Mayo people recently, they expect us to whip every team in the League campaign and without breaking stride, move seamlessly on to the Championship and have Sam in Castlebar before we know it.

   That John Cuffe would answer all our prayers, my expectations and yours, But as I said earlier, it’s a long season and we’ll gladly sacrifice that auld League for our date with destiny in September !!!

10. Forming conclusions about the squad and JH after 3 FBD games would be very dangerous for the likes of the Kerrys and Donegals as I think JH would have used these as a run out while keeping his hand hidden. Losing to Leitrim and scraping a draw against Roscommon is exactly what was needed as all we got for success in this same competition last year was some stinging criticizm in October.
    A case of horses for courses here……..those that excel in heavy going cant keep up to speed when its good to firm and this squad will get better as the year passes. Peaking in January is pointless come September.
    However I think Kerry will see a different Mayo in a couple of weeks than the FBD sides that took the field and I fancy us winning this one. I also agree with John Cuffe that we should stop wringing our hands and worrying about how far we’ll get in this years championship and keep our expectations low. as he so correctly put it ‘whats the point in entering any contest if you dont expect to win’.
    At the end of the day we are Mayo, often knocked,bruised and criticized but we always come back and never stop trying ,thats spirit and with that and the potential and experience that this squad( and fringe) of players have we are more than capable of hoisting Sam come September.Theres no one out there we should fear as we are as good as the best of them and when the league is done I think the rest will know this aswell

11. Supporters expect, and get excited or demoralized as the object of their support peaks and troughs through the season.
    Team members and management expect and plan for a performance at each training session and game they encounter.
    In the month of January I an excited supporter may drive up and down the Main ( only) street in my small village in the pouring rain – middle of the night – car windows and sunroof open roaring MAYO FOR SAM!!!
    JH & co are asleep in their beds…. -none are from my village- they may dream of lifting Sam in September but when awake they are focused, I hope, on performing well at training on Tuesday.
    It is my belief that team Mayo 2012/13 are less influenced by what we or anyone thinks or says so we can be as “supportive” as we like.

12. Jim Mc Guinness was asked in the last few weeks , would Donegal win the All Ireland this year,he replied “I am not looking past the Tyrone game”.Jim Mc Guinness knows how to win All Irelands. Mayo are playing Galway in May that should be the focus of supporters and not September. Public expectations means one thing -more pressure.When will mayo supporters learn?

13. Gerard, If hype has an adverse effect on results then Donegal would have lost by a cricket score
    Our own ‘dumbing down’ of the hype had no effect on the result.
    This year I’m going to soak up every morsel of hype (if we get to the business end),and paimt sheep, house,

14. cont’……..car,bike,wife,even mother in law!!!
    If that doesn’t do it I’ll give up(oh ya an write a song!).

15. Jim Mc Guinness is a sport psychologist, he and he alone was the best equipped to deal with the hype that was in Donegal prior to the final. Mayo have lost championship games in Connacht in 90,05 and 07 after appearing in All Irl Finals. Galway game must be the focus.

16. Is JMcG so much better than Kieran Shannon….

17. Indeed it was amusing to hear and read the emphasis last year on JMG being a sports Psychologist sure no other county would have such expertise on board……..sure they wouldn’t…
    The amount of Psych support available to sports people of all types now in unbelievable its all ” focus, preparation, belief, commitment”, etc the usefulness of this of course is directly related to the extent to which said athlete buys into it and uses it to progress,
    To my mind Donegal buys were buying in 2012 and thats the difference

18. Start,n next sunday mayo hav to put down a marker for the year and who better to start against than kerry and i will be very dissapointed if we dont beat them on our own patch, a good league run is important and win our home games and even goin on to win the league will give the lads cofidence winning a final in croker…Ther,s no doubt galway in salthill will be tough and galway our ole buddies woud love nothing better than turfing us out in the first roung as they,ve done to us before and likewise us to them, so for me up an running next sunday,,, C,mon mayo…

19. Really looking foreward to the league,it`s my favourite footballing time of the year.It`s a chance to see a bit of the country and an excuse to stay over for a nite and sample the craic in another part of the country.I had a very enjoyable nite away in Derry a few years ago my first time in that county{didn`t see that little bollix Brolly though he was going to get it then and worse he`s got since!}.
    The football is usually good in the league fellas will have a pop without any fear and if we loose it`s not the end of the world.You get to see some new faces and fellas in new positions and the night games seem to have an energy of their own.
    We have a great panel of players now nearly two men for every position on the field.Lee Keegan could well slot into the half foreward line.We still don`t have a center foreward a guy who can pull the strings {wouldn`t Pierce Hanly be the man}.I hear Tom Parsons has recovered from injury and is playing good club football he was very talented as an u21 he got selected for Ireland in his first season at senior.
    We`re still short of a guy in the full foreward line who can win his own ball and stick it over 9 times out of ten a Gooch Stevie mc Donald Stephen O`Neill Mc Fadden B Brogan Donacha O`Connor..we don`t have any of that class of foreward.And until we find at least one such player we won`t win an All Ireland i`m afraid no matter what we might hope expect or whatever other way you would like to put it.
    Anyway i`m still looking foreward to the league…!

20. Me too looking forward to matches any floodlight home league matches does any one know I think mayo have a chance on Sunday against kerry

21. Down,Dublin away and Kildare are all floodlight games.

22. @ Cc WJ has all the fixtures listed at the top of the site “2013 Fixtures”

23. Thanks for that have mayo a chance on sun