Photo: Mayo GAA
Following yesterday’s conclusion of the group stages in the county club championship, the race for this year’s title is now down to the last eight. No further matches will, of course, now be played in the club championship until the year’s inter-county hostilities are concluded but before it’s packed away until the autumn I think it’s worth running a quick poll on it. Okay, then, who’ll win it?
Who'll win the Moclair Cup this year?
- Ballintubber (33%, 130 Votes)
- Breaffy (23%, 90 Votes)
- Castlebar Mitchels (20%, 78 Votes)
- Kiltane (7%, 27 Votes)
- Aghamore (5%, 21 Votes)
- Garrymore (5%, 20 Votes)
- Ballina Stephenites (4%, 16 Votes)
- Knockmore (2%, 8 Votes)
Total Voters: 390
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Breaffy for me
Contain one of the form footballers in Ireland, showed outstanding group-stage form and can’t see them being as sluggish again if they make final (nerves no doubt played huge part last time)
Hard to write off Tubber, well balanced side and plenty of quality, but all their main men are pretty injury prone. So for me Breaffy are the pick at this early stage
Ballintubber seem to be the form team at the moment. Any word on the Mayo minors, playing Galway this Saturday. I have not heard much about them, are many of last years squad still playing this year.
Its Ballintubber all the way for me. Have cruised through their group games with an under-strength team. What’ll they be like when they have Cillian and Alan back to full fitness?!
Would like to see draw for qtr finals. Was it done when groups were picked, if not, why not.
What groups are you on about Done Deal?
Yeah I don’t really get why you think they should have done them along with the group draw?
That could well just open up the possibility of teams ‘throwing’ their last group game to avoid a certain team that ends up finishing second in another group?
Wouldn’t be near as exciting either 😉
To just add Done Deal, I didn’t mean to imply you believe they should be more a case of misreading on my part!
But even the possibility of it doesn’t make sense to me, as I say it’s just opening up the unwanted risk of teams giving a token effort in their last match
Say you know Tubber (with a load of injuries) have finished second and Aghamore came first for example, and you’re down to meet that group in the QF. It’s unethical but you can see why a team would easily prefer the latter in the QFand play a reserve team
Wj – What I mean is like the winners of group 1 play runner up in group 2, runners up in 1 play winners of 2 etc. Couldn’t see teams throwing games look at ballintubber at weekend they had nothing to play for and still win.
Ballintubber and Castlebar by far the best 2 teams. Next would be breaffy. Other 5 teams would all be even enough, no chance of any of them winning a county title this year but one of them could well make it to a county final depending on the draw
But what’s the point? It’s much more exciting now, as when it is made you see straight away who plays who. I honestly don’t see any benefit in doing it beforehand, it just strikes me as a bit of a silly concern if I’m honest
I just mentioned on the other thread the lack of excitement this A/B shite brings to the All Ireland quarter final draw which used to be unmissable viewing the sunday before
I know it’s a bad example but sure just look at Champions League and FA Cup draws, and how they engage everyone
Well strictly speaking Tubber did ‘rest’ a load of players in fairness. Their bench was scary. And my example is solely concerning your hypothetical system, which obviously isn’t used, so using examples from the existing system obviously isn’t comparable.
Why even encourage the possibility though of teams trying to avoid pre-determined match ups? It could easily happen, no matter how unethical it is
The tubber all the way best centre field player in the county j gibbons
Just heard James Horan on Newstalk speaking about Dublin’s demolition of Kildare. While he said that there are “a few teams out there” who can match Dublin he was not tempted to mention who they might be. I hope other Mayo commentators keep to the same line.
1st plays 2nd-anyone of 3 teams(or can they play the 2nd team from their own group?
It really is between 3 teams on form to be realistic.ballintubber castlebar and breaffy.garrymore may get to semi.if I was to narrow it down ballintubber are miles ahead of anyone in mayo watched them v crossmolina sat evening and they so strong all over pitch and have strength in depth.have castlebar being slipping since loosing club final? They seem to have same nucleus of players minus king and naughton in goal and on the big they where will there scores come from when really need them they don’t have an o Connor or Dillon type player.breaffy are an up and coming team have sheer power through the centre with 3 o sheas.hennely in goal vital for freetaking and they could possibly be the team that could challenge ballintubber!
Knockmore of course! (I can always dream) 🙂
Is Kilcoyne nearly back yet F’Deelin?
He won’t feature this year anyway. I would tread very very carefully if I was him. He was togged with them on Sunday, but I’d be afraid that he would do damage on it again if he does play again.
quater final draw not until after the connaught final
Tubber and castlebar are the teams to beat, plenty of experience.
Breaffy i think might be third favourites but i’m not convinced, think they might be a bit flakey based on recent history
A lot depends on the Mayo journey this year, a trip to another AI final and the remaining county championship games will be out in October. That’s a while away and some big players might have picked up injuries/lost form or hopefully be drinking full time in celebratory mood
Ballintubber are still out in front and very much deserve to be so. Very settled side with lots of class throughout it. Mitchels are the odd one, lots of good players, but struggle in Mayo, but as they showed two years ago, once they got out of Mayo they flew, could be a mental thing with them.
But this could be Breaffy’s year. Breaffy have the potential to beat anyone on their day, if AOS can come through the rest of the inter-county season healthy, they’ll take some stopping all the same. Apart from the three O’Shea’s they also have Hennelly and Michael Hall involved with Mayo. David Gavin has played minor and u21 with Mayo, while they’ve also got last years Mayo minor midfield pairing of Gary Walsh and Matthew Ruane in their midfield/half forward line. Peter Dravins got a run out with Mayo in the FBD this year too and is very decent club player, while Liam Irwin is away this summer, if he comes back in decent shape is another serious option come the knock-out stages of the competition.
Kiltane for a semi final place and sure anything can happen then.
Was reading in Mayo News earlier county board are to ask Noel Connelly and pat Holmes if there interested in managing under 21s as well next year and clubs are asked to submit nominations to.i think it be a crazy work load for them to look after under 21 as senior .there would possibly be a conflict of interest between the 2 posts.its vitally important that we put the proper management team and structures in place at this level.i don’t know where our county board and delegates come up with the daftest ideas sometimes! Hope it’s not cost cutting!
I think that there could be a lot of overlap between Senior and U21 early next year as 2013 minors begin to come into the Senior picture. It might not be such a bad idea at all, if they can also bring in somebody else to help out in the U21 scene. And it would also help if the U21’s were hearing the same message as the Seniors.
U21s need a dedicated full time backroom team. This year they operated under tactics of drop everyone back n then solo out to the opposituon 40. The tactics n preparations need to help the senior team. Our production line of Division 1 8/10 level performers under the age of 25 is only the two OConnors. Both of whom I would suggest are more self produced. Coen and Durcan are having a lot of finishing n polishing to do yet.
I don’t know who would want the u21 job unless they get full co-operation from the senior management, which clearly wasn’t there this year. With on more than one occasion the former u21 manager complaining that he could get access to players who were involved with both the seniors and u21s, because the senior team wanted them, for both FBD and NFL. You even had a number of lads being involved with senior team in a league game on a Saturday night, when the u21s were out in championship three days later. Not exactly ideal preperation for a championship game.