No sooner had we got some welcome clarity on the qualifier draw, I’m now hearing that the Round 1 qualifier draw will NOT after all be made this coming Monday morning and that it is instead being shunted down the road for a further week.
The reason for this is, so I gather, the GAA’s desire to give more airtime to the Tailteann Cup draw, which the GAA today confirmed is going ahead on RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland show on Monday morning at 8.35am.
At one level, this is understandable. The GAA has probably been stung by the criticism voiced about the new competition and its prospects before a ball has been kicked in anger in it. Giving the Tailteann Cup draw a clear run on Monday morning should, then, help to raise its profile, as otherwise all the focus would have been on the Round 1 qualifier draw.
But here’s the rub. As noted in the previous post I did on this earlier on today, should either Westmeath or Tipperary win their respective provincial semi-finals this weekend, then a preliminary qualifier round will be required. In that scenario, my understanding is that this draw WILL be made on Monday morning, which it would have to, seeing as the preliminary round would be played on 21st May.
If it is what happens and if it results in a Mayo v Tyrone preliminary round qualifier tie then it’s safe to assume that it’s that draw and not the Tailteann Cup draw is where the media focus will be. Because of this, it won’t just be those counties – as well as ourselves, this group comprises Armagh, Clare, Louth and Tyrone – who might end up in a preliminary round, who are likely to be rooting for Kildare and Limerick this weekend.
Kildare should be too strong for Westmeath. Limerick v Tipperary harder to call but i believe Tipperary are down on a number of players from their 2020 Munster team so Limerick having played in the higher division and earned promotion should have the edge and no preliminary round qualifier required.
I wouldn’t be so sure about Westmeath, they were probably the second best team for a lot of the decade that Dublin were dominating and are a bit sore as they feel any other period they would have picked up a couple of provincial titles. Now that Dublin have come back to the pack I feel they will be fired up for this year.
On the limerick!
Limerick won by six, 2-10 to 0-10. Unless Westmeath emulate their hurlers and pull off a major shock against Kildare tomorrow, there’ll be no preliminary round in the qualifiers.
Kildare win by 3, no preliminary round
No preliminary round, is blessing for us. Gets us more time to get our house in order. Hoping for a home draw,
Neutral venues
@Kieran – its home game round 1 ? Neutral games against provincial losers.
That’s everything sorted so. Straight draw between Tyrone, Armagh, Monaghan, Meath, Louth, Clare, Cork and Mayo.
Would like to avoid Tyrone in the first round but wouldn’t fear anyone TBH. We should have a stronger team available than what lined out vs Galway so there can be no excuses!
First team drawn out gets home advantage in round 1. It’s neutral venues for round 2.
In terms of hardest to easiest for Mayo
Tyrone
Monaghan
Armagh
Meath
Clare
Cork
Louth
I don’t see Mayo losing to whoever they draw to TBH but better to get a competitive game than a cakewalk.
Round 2 will be against. Kildare, Limerick and the loser of Derry/Donegal and Galway/Roscommon.
With so many lads just back from injury, and a few still touch and go, plenty of benefits in avoiding a crunch game this soon. Match sharpness will be improving with the A vs B stuff over the break (for some) but nothing like a few games to get it where it needs to be, especially with no club action available to help like other counties.
Avoiding Tyrone, Monaghan and Armagh would be helpful but even with those we’d have to go in fancying our chances.
I agree, i think the way things have worked out if the draw falls right for us we have a great chance of making the 1/4 finals. If we end up on the Connacht / Ulster side of the draw there is no team we should fear. Injury’s and discipline will dictate our season, keep both of them to a minimum and we are in a good place.
Does anybody know when this draw will be made? The communication from the GAA is as good as always!
Deel River – my understanding is that it won’t now be done until tomorrow week. Which makes absolutely no sense – there’ll be zero talk about the Tailteann Cup draw after tomorrow so they could easily have done the qualifier draw this week but it that doesn’t appear to be the plan.
Wideball, wouldn’t fear anyone tbh
Mayomagic I don’t see Mayo losing to whoever they draw tbh
Tsudhonim, Avoiding Tyrone, Monaghan and Armagh would be helpful but even with those we’d have to go in fancying our chances.
SeanieCH goes one better and plots our path to the final.
Is it that time is a great healer or is it collective amnesia?
Jesus lads were ye not in castlebar a few weeks ago. We need the easiest draw possible and even then as we’ve seen before we can struggle against teams ranked far lower than ourselves. We are on a cliff edge here and in every crevice there’s a banana skin.
Tyrone lost to Derry by 11 points.
Monaghan lost to Derry by 4 point.
Meath lost to Dublin by 13 points
Cork lost to Kerry by 12 points
Armagh lost to Donegal by 7 points
Louth lost to Kildare by 16 points.
Clare lost to Limerick on penalty shoot out.
Mayo lost to Galway by a point.
Lot of teams, has too be low on confidence, from heavy beating. IF we can get guys like Paddy, Jordan and Oisin back into team, I would think we have a better than 50 50 chance of getting thru qualifier round 1. Round two, I would say Limerick and Kildare will be in that pot. Both could take a heavy defeat. Of the other Ulster and Connacht Final. Should be good games. And I think these ones be better to avoid
That sums it up well @Mayotillidie. Everyone in the qualifiers has their own problems. They wouldn’t be there otherwise. I’d be very confident facing 6 of those sides. Tyrone are well capable of turning around that Derry hiding. Having said that, we’ve a decent record of knocking out the reigning champs.
I saw Jordan Flynn had up on Instagram the other day a video of him in the gym using an assault bike. That surely means he no longer has a cast on?
@Ahnow you seem to have amnesia yourself. Connacht championship exits to Galway in 2016,17 and Mayo recovered to be a whisker away from winning the AI. This group of players have reached back to back AI finals in what was knockout championships the last two years. Mayo switch on to ready mode for knock out football and will have Paddy,Rob,Jordan etc back and more weeks of training under Cillians belt will have Horans team primed to take on and take out whoever they face in round 1. Trust me all 7 teams will be hoping to avoid Mayo.
Mayotilidie
Agree, even though galway only beat us by a point, it was a poor performance and we probably should have lost by more. But yes they only beat us by a point. However the elephant in the room is the kerry defeat. That’s where the damage has been done. We need a win, any win to begin to get back on track. Hence my hope for the easiest draw on paper possible.
Mayomagic
16/17 teams far better than what we have now and yes came within a whisker. But we also came within a whisker of being knocked out earlier too. If we get a run like that again, I hope my heart can take it. Agree that everyone would want to avoid Mayo and Tyrone but equally no one this time round will be coming in with any great fear of either.
Look, I suppose my point is, is that whatever about anyone else, with our current form, injury problems, our predictable one dimensional style and our crushing defeat to kerry, I’m not anywhere near as confident as some of you. Hopeful of course, but not confident.
Anyway only another week of whatifs and whataboutery ahead of us.
Ahnow, I agree the Kerry defeat was damaging. But only thing could say, is that missing a third of team that day, while Kerry missing Sean O’Shea. On saying that, even with full strength squad, Mayo need a lot of players to have 9 out 10 performances. While Kerry forwards to be down a couple of percent. That getting way too far down the line. You are correct, on the day against Galway, could easily been a 5 point loss, as totally did not show up for majority 2nd half. But I seen enough that day, to suggest we well capable to getting to quarter final. Still hope draw will be kind, as confidence need rebuilding. Mayo always struggle, historically, during first few rounds of qualifier,
No big elephant in the room from the Kerry defeat for me. We were dreadful.
We didn’t have nearly enough energy to stick with Kerry’s hard running game. That would be very worrying if we didn’t know why but when we’ve heard first hand accounts from Enda McGearty of the heavy training session the lads carried out the Friday before the game we know exactly why they were sapped on energy. Plenty of questions on match ups (Loftus on White and Coen picking up Clifford were poor selections) and tactics (Enda’s sweeper role was questionable at best) besides the energy, or on how we ended with just 7 fit defenders on a panel for a national final… 1 of which seemed to be held for a crunch u20 game, but when lads have dead legs match ups against an expansive mobile side won’t work out too well regardless. We were well beaten at the middle 8 not just one or two poor matchups.
Fair questions to be asked on the injury risks of hard training 2 days before a national final, the decision to deprioritise the competition or the psychological impact of such a heavy defeat in advance of the Championship opener but none of those relate to the talent of the squad of players and their potential to bounce back strongly in the qualifiers. It was a choice made in the final (and against Tyrone previously) to prioritise fitness levels and the championship rather than any big mystery. A choice I neither agree or disagree with strongly, personally. The management team and players have been through the rigors of a years championship action to understand what they’d need this year to be competitive far better than I could ever hope to theorise.
The Galway defeat was very different.
We weren’t miles off the pace or had game altering poor match ups, we failed to break down their tactics on the day. At half time I’m sure the vast majority of us expected us to push on and win it, I know I did. Sadly a combination of poor shot selections, poor execution of shots within range, a lack of urgency, poor tactical execution of creating space for forwards in better positions, poor tactical setup for preventing Galway working their shooters in the scoring zone and a lack of lads winning their 1v1s (James Carr one of the few that clearly came out on top) all contributed to us putting up a poor account of ourselves.
We lost by a single point but Galway were deserving of a 4 or 5 point win in truth. Having said all that for us to be outplayed tactically, had lots of lads have a shocking poor day at the office (not sure I’ve ever seen Matty Ruane miss so many shots within his shooting range), give up a terrible soft goal from an unforced error and us still to only lose by a single point says a massive amount about that squad of players. A really poor day out but more than enough there to help keep heads up going into the qualifiers. I don’t see that result changing where we stand this year, without Tommy I think we’ll struggle punching through defenses and certainly not expecting an All Ireland win but we’ll be competitive, and I go into whatever draw we get in the qualifiers with confidence.
We do need to play better than we did against Galway… but we absolutely can.
Personally I’d like to see an easy draw in round 1 and a tougher team for round 2 assuming we were to progress to the quarter finals. @mayomagic I think I’d rate Cork 4th definitely ahead of meath and possibly ahead of Clare. Fully agree that it’s daft not to make the draw at the latest a couple of days after the tailteann draw and give teams time to prepare.
So much for giving the tailteann draw its own time for some exposure. The 2 o’clock sports bulletin I listened to didn’t even mention the draw.
Im in the easy draw camp aswell. Look at the runs we went on in ‘16 and ‘17 once we got over the dodgy first rounds. Louth would do just fine, another blanket defence to break down, but we’d get there. If we get through this first round I see us in a Quarter final where anything could happen. Round 2 of the qualifiers appears far easier on paper than round 1. Nothing to fear from Limerick, Kildare or even Roscommon (I think Galway will beat them with a bit to spare) in a neutral venue in knockout football. Newbridge was one thing, but a croke park game or neutral against any of them 3 and we are into the quarters. The loser of Derry/Donegal will be the one to avoid, but you still wouldn’t be too fearful playing either after an Ulster final loss. All this brings me back to my first point, get through round 1 and things can seiriously open up for us….fingers crossed for Meath/Louth/Clare.
Mchale park first round or away venue , hard to know which would be more beneficial?
@No doubt. Cork for the last two years was lucky to avoid relegation to Div 3. They currently have a caretaker manager over them if drawn against Clare, Meath I’d expect the latter two to win against them.
Sean, here are the away options:
Cusack Park, Ennis
Pairs Ui Rinn
Navan (Meath or Louth)
Athletic Grounds Armagh
Clones
Omagh
Catcol…Pairc ui Rinn ??? surely you mean Eds pitch!
CT reporting that we not only have injuries to the known list but add in ryan o d and james carr to the list ,ffs man.
I give up.
Sean, CT are hit and miss with their sources and then look at how Mr Henry stated it, “may not start” so that doesn’t say they don’t feature and its pure guess work by him on whatever knocks O’Donoghue, Carr has.
At the end of the day its about getting the strongest team out for the business end and Mayo have enough cover/ strength in depth to come through the qualifiers.
So much for keeping things within the camp but things are going from bad to worse this year if we can believe this report.
Have they included any further updates on Cillian making the match day 26 for last years All Ireland final?
Journalists and newspapers should have a duty of care on what rumours they’re willing to publish as stories. Sadly some of them don’t seem to feel that way.
I see whoever comes through round 2 of the qualifiers has barring injuries an ideal 2 weeks until the quarter finals while all the provincial champs have to twiddle their thumbs for 4 weeks.
MichaelinCork – a p** on predictive text!
Mayo GAA is great for rumours but the number of players getting serious injuries in the last few years in a matter of great concern. Players are well protected with no club football (maybe they may be better off playing with their Clubs ) and have the best of everything medical diet and everything else they need. So what is the problem ?
i do’nt agree with the consensus on injuries, i just don’t bye into the rhetoric its down to setup/medical or that were cursed.
just look at the major injuries:
tommy – sigerson match
flynn – tackle vs kerry
cillian – league match
Harrsison (first) – vs rosscommon i believe
Harrson (latest) vs kildare.
years gone by:
andy moran – vs down
parsons – vs galway
I can keep going,
but we have played at highest level (similar to dublin), dublin have got by as they had a larger squad of top level players.
I spoke with a existing member of the panel last week and the feeling i got is that the mood and energy in camp seemed a lot more positive compared to what i am reading on here and twitter.
In fairness, JKEL88, that’s a fairly low bar! In particular, the latter where the usual trouble-makers continue to stir the pot, while also claiming to be “supporters”. Good to hear that the mood is positive all the same.
Maybe they are channelling the negativity. A blog full of praise and back-slapping is that last thing they need.