On this week’s Mayo News football podcast, we once again have to come to terms with another Connacht Championship defeat for Mayo. For the fourth year in a row, the Green and Red won’t be in action on Connacht final day after a one-point loss in a breathtaking clash with Roscommon.
Host Rob Murphy was joined by John Casey and Kevin Kilbane in the main stand to review a pulsating and error strewn game where Mayo’s old failings at their home venue of MacHale Park came back in an alarming manner. Edwin McGreal of the Mayo News also chimed in before we cut to the post game interviews.
Underneath the main stand we caught the post-game thoughts of Mayo manager James Horan before Edwin and Rob were joined by Ger Flanagan for the post-game section of the podcast. If that’s not enough, we got the thoughts of former Mayo manager John O’Mahony once the dust had settled at MacHale Park.
This latest episode of the Mayo News football podcast is now online and is available to listen to on iTunes, SoundCloud, Podomatic and Spotify. You can also listen to it directly on the Mayo News website as well as here on the blog using the SoundCloud player below or the one on the right-hand side.
The Mayo News football podcast’s championship coverage this summer is proudly sponsored by J Streicher. “When it absolutely, positively has to be financed on Wall St.” Visit our website at www.jstreicher.eu.
WJ – Have you noticed the volume of comments is so much higher when we lose?
The Dubs are having great fun at our expense on social media.
Looking back, it just doesn’t look right to lose a game by missing in effect a 21-yard free.
Point to note; we may have to accept that the team isn’t as good as two years ago when AM was POY and TP was flying in midfield.
Not too sure bout that spotlight. Two years ago Derry Cork and Roscommon all could have beaten us fair and square. I personally don’t give two highland hoots bout what the dubs are doing. How we respond to this set back is priority right now. You make your own luck sometimes and we did not take the chances we created for ourselves. Bad day at the office overall
Early, in the Podcast the surface of MacHale Park pitch was mentioned as a possible reason for Mayo’s poor record at home recently… Rubbish.. the surface was never better than it was last night!
It’s not always, Spotlight, but it’s certainly the case at the minute. The hit count is very high right now too.
I couldn’t, to be honest, give a flying fuck about who’s saying what about us on social media. Anyone going looking in that direction for stuff to get offended about needs to find a new hobby.
Willie joe. I have read most of the posts over the past 24 hours. It is unfair to single out rob and Kevin and Diarmuid for so much criticism. IMO no player could be happy with his performance last night Not even d Coen I saw this team in the league match against Dublin and concluded no one except our keeper would be happy with their game. I saw them in the league final and in the first half I thought they all played poorly. I saw them in New York and to be honest they played poorly again against a useless team. We have come to expect too much from this fine bunch of lads who try hard and certainly don’t deserve the criticism which they get on this blog. Incidentally I was at the point to point in inchydoney today and met a bookie who told me mayo was very rewarding in his line of business. Ye are the eternal optimists he said
I don’t think there would have been too many takers for Mayo last Saturday at 2/9 but I’m sure some cute rossie punters had a bit of the 4/1
We need to start moving on here, Imo, what’s our policy going forward I like most posters feel it’s time to go with the youngsters…
Keep going with this team – keep believing in what they are doing. They will get better – they scored 17 points and had 15 wides so they must be doing something right. Roscommon were fitter and sharper and more riled up on the night but Mayo always improve as the championship progresses. Give them a chance – the time for “going with the youngsters” or tearing it up and starting again is when we are actually out of the championship.
Don’t know if I missed this in previous comments but why was Carr not in the 26? Injured again?
Small and big things bugged me about the game – for the first 10 min hennelly had no 2nd ball at the goal and was running around after the one ball trying to get a fast restart, a small thing but…!
Ros ran their bench early and ok nearly paid a price but in a game of high intensity its crazy not too.
The biggest fear I have is that Horan’s in game management has not improved.
Brolly is feasting on our ineptitude and why not, it’s what he does but he’ll be singing our praises before the summer is out!
We have to solve the free taking and wides. We got more frees than Roscommon more possession and more chances and we didnt put it on the score board.
Also you just can’t give away goals like that and expect to win. It didn’t work in 2012 and it won’t work in 2019 either
Great win for Roscommon but I have no doubt
Mayo will regroup and will most definitely will be in the semi finals & hopefully final ,I thing it’s totally unjust
blaming individual players for this loss ,If Mcloughlins free went over & ye won in extra
time then they all would be hero’s, We would all
love to see Mayo go all the way,
Blame has to be squarely left at our preparation for the actual game day. As others have mentioned no 2nd/3rd ball behind the goal for Robbie, players screaming for gloves when the mist started and the backroom team frantically rummaging through bags on the sideline to get them. It’s the little things like this that show that organisation behind the scenes maybe isn’t what it should be. Also out warmup seemed very low in intensity compared to what Donnie used to have them at.
Very clear to see that the bunch last night wasn’t rated by management. Also it was very clear to see that J Doc was running in one leg before halftime after one hit too many, Coen was also out of puff after about 50mins. The Rossies recognised this and got his man to attack at every opportunity.
The stats from Cian Mortimer tell a bizarre tale, notwithstanding the two goals.
We scored twice as many points from play as Roscommon yet still ended up losing. Our fourteen against their seven.
We scored fourteen out of a total of seventeen points from play. A high percentage from play for us as we, like most teams nowadays, rely heavily on points from frees. On another day we’d be lauding the lads for their contribution from play. In fact we have won many games in the recent past where the opposite was the case – scrapping through with the number of scores from the placed ball masking a low return from open play. You just can’t win sometimes…. in this case literally! The disappointment will pass but all talk of AI finals, even the Super 8s should be put on hold. Let’s try and enjoy the qualifier route and see where it brings us, one game at a time. Steady as she goes.
Job number 1 for Horan should be to stop goals going in. 4 in the last 2 competitive matches(not counting NY).
This should be the easiest of the issues to fix, Clarke back in goals and a sweeper nominated who will be staying there the rest of the championship, Vaughan Or Coen potential options as they both have a bit of height. cannot continue conceding goals at this rate and have any hope of contending.
No other successful team plays man to man nowadays.
Sean Ross, thank you for your kind comment. It’s nice to see this graciousness and goodwill at a time where we’re a little on the tetchy side : ) Thanks also for the nice thoughts about individual players. I wish ye the best of luck in the Connacht Final & have every confidence in your team’s ability to deliver a strong performance there. Onwards for ye & onwards for ourselves too.
Seamus Thornton, ‘steady as she goes’ – I like it!!
Very disappointed after last night. Still can’t figure how we lost. But when I read some of the comments made after the game I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Its only a short number of weeks ago when we were falling over ourselves congratulating the team on winning the league, marvelling at our amazing strength in depth and looking forward to stopping the dubs drive for five. Now suddenly, for some at least, we have become terrible. We praised the courage of JH to go man for man at the back v Kerry but lambasted him for doing likewise v Roscommon. We admired Hennelly for his performance v Dublin and his wonder save to win the league v Kerry, now because of one, admittedly bad mistake v Ross, sure we all knew he should never be on the team in the first place. Suddenly after one bad Saturday night all the older players are passed it so they should be disgarded . I could go on and on. A guy here posted that JH was a disgrace. In my opinion anyone who says that is a real disgrace. JH took over our county team at its lowest ebb and made them into a really formidable force. Sure he didn’t cover himself in glory last night but if one or two little things had gone our way we could have sneaked a win and people would have a completely different perspective on the game. Small margins K Mc dropped an easy ball on ten minutes. Ros went straight down the field and score a point followed by a goal after Robbie’s kick out. Following two throw ins on their 20 metre line Ross went straight down the field and got points from each. Their late point followed a block on Andy’s shot and of course I could mention any of our dreadful wides any of which would have resulted in a different full time score. So despite everything we were not absolutely horrendous last night. What was good was to see the performance s of a few of our younger lads and the continued excellence of AOS. There was nothing wrong with the work rate or attitude either. So all is not lost. We need a couple of favourable draws preferably away from home where the team will be supported by its more passionate fans who will get on the road and really back the team like they have done in the past. There are plenty of problems to iron out and despite the opinions of some experts who stated that we had to win Connacht to have any chance later on, the road trip might be good for us. Up Mayo.
To win just once, good post. Positivity needed – we are on the road, not out. Let’s get on with it and back our team. What else are we going to do?! We live and breathe football in Mayo. We didn’t respect Roscommon and now we are where we are. We are not gone anywhere yet so let’s cop ourselves on and not let this negativity seep into the Mayo based players like the overconfidence and complacency towards Roscommon got in.
Away we go on the Mayo rollercoaster. I’m sure we will all be ready to jump aboard in a few weeks time.
Puckout, agree totally. Was unbelievable that we did not have a 2nd ball at our goal and Robbie running around to get quick restart all the time. Why was this not spotted, it was very obvious from first couple of kick outs
An excellent post to win just once! we know the drill at this stage! the media bookies & ex pundits have been building us up since the league win & probably would have anyway! the supporters then get blamed for getting carried away or being deluded! Not even the the best team in our generation (Dublin) gets as much attention negative/positive as we do ! we lost a game by 1 point which we should have & could have won by so much more blaming James H & backroom team is ridiculous he cant score from the sideline! as for blaming Rob H even more bizare ! watch the league final back again especially the first half!! usually the team that wins plays better & scores more that was Roscommon on Saturday night! Our lads got more than enough chances to win that game ! we are in transition like it or not! and I for one would much prefer losing by 1 realizing what work has to be done than sneaking it by 1 and thinking of All Ireland’s . The league is always different to championship we know how JH works no point in peaking fitness or otherwise for June/ July is there? I did hope/think we might make the connacht final at least too ! but we are where we are as they say ! we know the drill at this stage it doesn’t always have to be shit or bust with us supporters so let’s get behind the lads as we always do ! like the team & management we’ve no choice but dust ourselves off & go again! Let the media & everyone write us off ! does that really matter? what difference will it make what they say about us ? it’s one game at a time it always was! Up Mayo!
Finally at the very end of the podcast someone mentioned the fact that we were utterly exposed at the back, Edwin I think. Our system of play of our half backs pushing forward, us then being swallowed up by a massed defence and then then hitting us on the break with acres of room in front of our full back line is a major reason for us losing. Firstly I can’t understand how we were so naive to set up this way and I’m very surprised this was not one of the main focus of debate nor a question posed to Horan at interview.
Lauding Anthony Cunningham for coming up with a great plan?! C’mon seriously. Any manager with a brain setting up against Mayo will drop his team back to snuff out the mayo forwards (few of whom are top scorers from play) and make it too crowded for our wing backs and running players.
If we get our defence set up right and snuff out the opposition then we’ll beat most teams. Yeah, it might be a bit more dull because for once we’ll have more players in our own half but we have to play to our strengths. The current tactic and set up is just plain dumb.
Separately, why was James Carr not involved???
to win just once – great post.
Fair play to Roscommon, they took their chances when they were presented to them and we simply didn’t. As regards Frees, any of the ones Robbie took were long range and to be fair on days he’ll get 3 from 3 and others none from the same spots. I’m not a fan of having to rely on a Keeper fro the longer range shots – this sort of thing should really be managed as a set play in training.
His Kickouts are strong and despite his error for the second goal, I think he did alright between the posts. We won around 70% of our own kickouts and I’m not going to get into the goalkeeper debate but I just don’t think we’d get that return from David. It’s also not that long ago since we were lauding Robbie for an excellent performance against Dublin and also in the League final.
On frees in general – we need Cillian back, it’s as simple as that. I was a bit puzzled as to why Regan was taken off when he was – I thought there were others that perhaps deserved the curly finger ahead of him at the time but I don’t have access to the stats and sports science that the sideline does so I’d hope it wasn’t a tactical switch as it’s one that didn’t work, particularly when it was obvious that Jason Doc was struggling a bit already having gone over on his ankle earlier.
I’m disappointed to see us returning to the game that leaves our full back lines as exposed as they were on Saturday. At least Ger Caff can’t be lambasted this time around.
Too many players were not at their best and I have to say some of the substitution decisions on the sideline as well as some of the smaller aspects of game management (second ball for the quick kick outs, delays in getting gloves ready) are things that we have to learn from and know to prepare for in a better manner.
Very few of the panel or management can have come out of that game without a learning experience or something to work on for improvement. A bad day all around but as long as we learn from it and work on making the changes needed it might not be all the doom and gloom.
Personally I’d love a route to the super 8’s like what Monaghan had last year (Waterford, Leitrim and then Laois) but I won’t be hanging my hat on that, we’ll just have to take what comes.