Photo: Clare Champion
After a three-week gap, the League is back on this day week, with Monaghan coming to town for the first time since we entertained them at MacHale Park back in late March 2010. That’s not the most recent time we played them – that was up in Iniskeen, the ground with those lovely alternating green and red seats, where we met in the final round the following year in a match that was of no interest to us (we’d secured our Division One status the previous week). Monaghan won that day but still ended up getting relegated.
Now they’re back in the top flight, having won the Division Two title last spring and with two points from two matches – they beat Tyrone in the opening round, then narrowly lost to Cork last time out – they’ll be as keen as we’ll no doubt be to clinch their second win of this year’s League campaign.
There’ll be plenty of news and updates over the next few days ahead of Sunday’s match but one bit of news worth letting you know about is that Clare’s Rory Hickey will take charge of the match. He did three of our games last year, the League clashes with Kildare (where he gave Aidan O’Shea a very dodgy black card) and Cork and the Connacht final against Galway.
Retaining our division one status, may very well hinge on the outcome of this match. Win and the sky is the limit, loose and the road ahead will be all up hill. With that in mind, I expect Noel and Pat will have to show their hand and pick their strongest team for this one. Should make for a terrific match, with maybe home advantage shading it for us.
This will not be a day for small light players so it is about time to be beefing up our full forward line and place Barry Moran at no 14 with Cillian and Alan Freeman.Aidan O Shea at 11and the rest of the team on similar lines to the last day with Kevin Keane at 3 and Clarke in goal.
It’s early days but would be nice to see some out of box thinking from the management team. This could another blanket game so another startled earwigs performance from players and management would be unacceptable.
Without a doubt this will be another blanket day. As well Monaghan have more power in their full forward line than Tyrone [afterall Sean Cavanagh put in little time at full forward the last day letting faster players break forward] so our defence cannot go all out attack.
There will be no place for earwigs, startled or not, on the field or on the sideline.
It’s a while since we met them in a competitive outing, but we did play that (at the time) infamous friendly against them in 2013 with apparently neither side holding back whatsoever in the physical stakes.
Should be an interesting game, I’m very worried though. Very dubious as to our ability to break down an effective blanket
Màyo need to play monoghan at their own game to win blanket defence
At this stage last year we were on zero points and facing the mighty kingdom in our third game, if memory serves me correctly. Conventional wisdom would have you believe at that stage we were sinking fast. I think that Jan / Feb has a strange effect of some Mayo football followers. We probably won’t know where we are heading until after Celtic Park at least. I want to see KK again. Also some of the new panel members might have something special to offer against a teak tough side like Monaghan. This will not be a day for U21 players.
Enda Varley dropped it seems. Gallagher released to the under 21s. Hope to see the latter back again.
http://www.mayogaa.com/news/353111/Update_Mayo_Senior_Football_Panel
The Following players have been released back to their respective clubs:
Gavin Duffy – Salthill/Knocknacarra
Enda Varley – Garrymore
Alex Corduff – Ballina Stephenites
Caolan Crowe – Garrymore
Darren Coen – Hollymount/Carramore
Keith Rogers – Ballaghaderreen
Stephen Duffy – Crossmolina Deel Rovers
Peter Dravins – Breaffy
Morgan Lyons – Released to Mayo U-21 Panel
Adam Gallagher – Released to Mayo U-21 Panel
You’d really like to see some more variety in our play against Monaghan, things being mixed up a bit. Against Kerry we kept kicking the ball down the middle even though we were getting well beaten in the air. Against Tyrone we kept taking short kick-outs which again played into the opposition’s hands as they had retreated into their own half, once they had built up a lead. We’ll need a few different strings to our bow to enable us to win this game. Hopefully our shooting will be better as well!
Updates on the panel (and the latest cuts) over on the Mayo GAA website.
Anybody know what newish players are on panel who haven’t featured so far in league or fbd
Danny kirby Conor o shea whoelse
thank you to the released players. lets hope those newer lads kept on will be the extra inches needed to win the big one. theres one or two not dropped, veteran players, that must be very close to it and will be given oportunity to prove they are going to deliver on their potential consistently.
We need more firepower up front. Not sure we have “found” any new talent capable of making an impact in the summer but hopefully a good U-21 seasonbmigjy change that.
On a side note I see the rossies game is moved to 1pm…anything to do with the rugby game at 3? If so it’s a good idea. I know the rugby won’t effect us mad in the head Mayo fans in this site but I know a good few who will be staying at home or the barstool for the game against the Saxons
The headline in the Mayo News sport section tomorrow is interesting – “Croke Park deal to save Mayo GAA €200k a year”. Be interested to read the detail tomorrow – it looks like change is already afoot within county HQ and things are being done, which is very encouraging.
Is that a Mayo bailout Anne-Marie ? Hope the Germans don’t hear about it.
I haven’t read full details but anything that will lift the burden of debt on the county and free up funds can only be a good thing.