It’s Thursday night already and our second League match of the year is now coming at us at speed, with throw-in at MacHale Park set to take place in under 48 hours from now. It’s not, of course, the only match of interest to Mayo GAA fans this weekend so here’s a quick sweep of relevant information on the weekend’s matches.
The Mayo/Dublin game throws in at MacHale Park on Saturday evening at 7pm. Parking won’t be allowed, for safety reasons, on the N5 that evening so this will have knock-on effects for parking round the town. Details on parking-related issues here.
The self-scanning machines will be in operation once again at MacHale Park on Saturday evening for season ticket holders. They’ll be deployed at turnstiles 1-8 from 6pm that evening and if you need a primer on how to use them, I did one last year – here.
On the match itself, Mayo GAA announced earlier on this evening that the starting fifteen for Saturday night will be named tomorrow evening. Dublin will probably name their pick at some stage tomorrow too but I haven’t seen any confirmation yet of their plans in this respect.
If it’s chat about the match you want, then the Mayo Advertiser podcast is the place to go, where Colm Gannon talks with John Casey about the fixture:
The ref for Saturday night is Armagh’s Padraig Hughes. He’s an official who tends to court controversy – it was he who awarded Kerry that hotly-disputed penalty in last year’s Munster final, attracting a rather OTT reaction from Joe Brolly as a result – but I think he’s far from the worst official on the roster. We last came across him in last June’s Connacht semi-final win over Galway.
I’m planning to undertake a very rapid trip to the west to get to the game but, of course, there’ll be loads of people heading in the opposite direction to get to Croke Park for the All-Ireland Intermediate and Junior finals. It’s unfortunate that such a clash is occurring but it wasn’t really something that could have been planned for or avoided and it’s not the first time in recent years that we have the county team playing a League match at one venue and a club side playing in an Intermediate or Junior final at Croke Park on the same weekend.
Ardnaree are on first on Saturday, with their All-Ireland Junior final against Kerry’s Templenoe throwing in at HQ at 3pm. Then at 4.45pm Hollymount/Carramore take the field in their All-Ireland Intermediate final against St Mary’s of Kerry. The two Kerry clubs are odds-on favourites to win on Saturday (Paddy Power have both of them priced at 3/10) but it would be great if one or both of the Mayo clubs were to spring a surprise at Croke Park.
Both finals will be shown live by Irish TV, which is accessible online and via satellite – details here.
If you’ve any energy left for more football action when Sunday comes around (I have to be back in Dublin before midday that day so that rules me out) then you could do a whole load worse than take in the ladies’ League Division One match against Dublin. This takes place at the Swinford Amenity Park where throw-in is set for 2pm. Regardless of how the lads do on Saturday evening, it’d be great to see the women follow up that marvellous win over Cork with a second victory in this League campaign.
As a complete aside…absolutely disgraceful the GAA fining that club in Longford for holding a soccer camp there in the summer. Clubs need all the help they can get not a 2k fine, How ironic reading about that today and then hearing that matches are to be moved from Croke Park for the Bruce Springsteen concert. Breathtaking hypocrisy from the GAA.
Looking to the match itself, can’t see us winning this one but hopefully we’ll be competitive, could do without a similar beating to last year. Need a win against Dublin though soon, haven’t beaten them since 2012.
Does anybody remember the Dublin Derry league match last year. It finished 8-4 in favour of Dublin. Derry played a very defensive game and were ahead at half time, Dublin got some late scores to win the game. I would like to see us play a similar game on Saturday even though it would be very boring to watch.
Might not be a bad idea DD.It would be practice in preparation for the trip to Donegal!
Mmm I’d much rather Mayo to play catch kick football rather than adapt to a different style just for the sake of preparing for donegal. Traditional play over modern defensive tactics any day of the week.
Given our injuries John it will be about damage limitation on Saturday.
I wouldn’t be sneezing at two points gained in Donegal and I’m thinking there won’t be much point going there with the hands in the pockets!
I did state that in my comment on “vote” done deal. But I’d much prefer to play catch kick football rather than that old shite in the north.
We’ll take what we can get after Saturday and hope other results go our way.
The old saying goes that the most time you expect nothing from Mayo is the time they will win.Our lads won’t need any motivating for this one.Hope Freeman is playing he loves sticking it up to the Dubs.With the odds of 10 to 3 it’s worth a tenner and you’d never know!
Very best wishes to Hollymount Carramore I think they will win the team is full of characters and they can play a bit too! All the best lads
I want to see a proper “performance” by whatever starting 15 and subs. No throwing in the towel and letting this owl shower walk all over us.
Cut out the silly wides too and dropping the ball short into Cluxtons hands just under the crossbar. We need to put away a much higher % of chances. Was below 50% last time i think which is absolutely killing us.
Mayo were employing a defensive system later last year with Diarmaid especially, Kevin Mc and Doherty all coming well deep. We also tried the sweeper but it fell on Drake a newcomer in the first game. With that system we were very competitive against the Dubs. What we didn’t do was fine tune it in the league ala Tyrone in Castlebar who showed a defensive system actually yields more scores.
It works better in the league when teams not 100% fit whereas come championship 1 v 1 almost works. Don’t forget Tyrone made a decent Monaghan look poor and got a rake of goal chances v Kerry. The system nearly took them there.
Also sending on a player like Andy Moran who really goes for it shows the value of impact attacking subs. McMenamon does same for Dublin. The middle period of 2nd half very important to be attack focused. It’s too early for winning team to play keep ball.
Anything could happen.
Remember we were very pleased with ourselves having beaten Kerry away in the first game of 2015. Tyrone had been hammered by Monaghan at home and I seem to remember Mickey Harte describing it as their worst ever performance. They came down to Castlebar, and we came of second best in that one.
Similarly Dublin were in a bit of trouble when they came, having lost to Cork and Kerry; we were smug with four points on the board. I’ll pass over how that turned out.
So, defeats and victories the previous week can have perverse effects.
Can anyone help?
this is my 3rd year with a season ticket and I have never yet received my jacket. 🙁
This is despite sending emails etc to secretaries etc, never get an answer.
Can anyone point me the right direction. It is cold on the stand!!!, especially when playing the dubs
When you say season ticket hold are you are Caidre Maigh Eo season ticket holder (i.e the 200 EUR one)?
if so you had to collect them at MacHale Park over the last 3 years or so…was always well advertised. This year they seem to have stopped giving out “goodies” to Cairdre Ticket holder….
Thanks Yew Tree
Yes the 200 one, I live in Meath, sort of out of the loop!!!
Is there no jacket this year??
Best of luck to all our teams at the weekend,but I think we need to give the team and management space to get up to speed, we started very late,we have a lot of players missing due injury and club commitments,I am very confident that come the championship we will be ready,that is not to say they will ignore the league,but it will take time
Yes jacket is on the way, to Cairge Ticket holders, plus a hat and scarf,
As far as I know. Hope we get them , before the cold weather goes.
The scarf may be a bit warm in june.
Looking forward to a long season, wearing the colours.
Up Mayo
good man Ed
I’ll pop into the sportlann in the morning.
Maigh Eo abu
For what it’s worth, I think Kerry were like mayo last week, Very heavy legs, and the dubs were very wasteful. Conor O’shea showed very well and Regan can pick a pass.
Maigh eo by 4 points.
Looking at Ryan McHugh for Donegal flying the other night from the half back position put me in mind of our Shorize Akram. He seems to have great ball control along with great willingness to go.I think it won’t be long till he’s moving up.
Any word about that replay?
Any sign of the team being announced yet? I am very hopeful for a big improvement on last week I will be there roaring the lads on anyway
I picked the team earlier backdoor sam
Hennelly
harrison
cafferkey
O hora
Drake
Boyler
Nally
Parsons
Gibbons
Crowe
A O shea
D OConnor
Regan
C O Shea
Doherty
What do ye think of that team boys?
Obviously it might change before throw in lol
Four newbies in backs,three in forwards. T’would be giving them great exposure. And they re not misplaced.
However I’d swap AOS with COS.A is in no condition for out there!
And later on I’d be thinking of Crowe with Parsons,Gibbons CF and CoS going to the wing.
But you re the boss Toughnup!
I was thinkin of droppin aiden back to do a bit of stoppin at chb. Let him sharpen up or ship out lol
It’ll be interesting to see what team the Dubs will pick. Will they go for the strongest team possible to try and give us another hammering or maybe they might play some of their fringe players seeing as we will have a weakened team out.
HopeSpringsEternal, they could go either way!
If i was Jim Gavin I would start with the strongest team possible and try to inflict a humiliating defeat on Mayo and try to damage them psychologically for later in the year when the real business starts. Having secured 4 points Dublin could then afford to experiment for the rest of the year with fringe players.
Then again you never can tell………..footballs a funny game!
Yeah diehard, you just never know! The thing is though, some of their second choice players would make most other team’s first 15. A player like Cormac Costello scored something like 2-6 in one of their O’Byrne cup games. That’s the killer for us at the moment, in some positions we are playing our third or even fourth choice players. Players who only have a few weeks of county training behind them. For us it might be best to try and play players who have been part of the squad for at least one year. We might get away with maybe 1 or 2 at a stretch newbies. Padraig O’Hora could be one of those. We should remember for this game as well, we had one less day to recover. Dublin played on Saturday evening at home, while we had a long trip back from Cork on Sunday.
dublin will go for the kill tomorrow against Mayo, as diehard said, its a great time for dublin to leave a mark on the Mayo minds. If I were rochford, the defense would be chock a block and keep the score ultra low, no goals allowed and leave aos and the brother parked in cluxtons front garden, even if they dont catch a ball the first number of attempts, leave them there and keep hitting it in high, This is not a game I can see us winning, but, ya never know.
After everything thats been said about our injuries/club games and how it effects team selection I feel its a bit of a blessing in disguise. If we had a fully available and fully fit squad some of the guys we’ve seen the last week and in the FBD league probably would have got ten minutes at the end or something like that. Instead the new fellas get to play against the reigning champions in an important game. This is invaluable experience. For sure we dont want to get a drubbing and neither do the guys playing. I really dont want us to get relegated either as I would fear how the backlash would sit with the established players but being almost forced to play with the new and less established players will auger well for the summer. By that time the boss will know exactly the workings of his squad. There ya go…….every cloud and all that!!
I don’t think it is in Dublin’s interest to humiliate/eliminate Mayo.
They would not mind them in the September shake up.
Less to be feared than Cork, Donegal, Tyrone, Kerry????