Photo: Inpho/Donall Farmer
I’ve had no time today before now to get to the reports on yesterday’s heart-stopping All-Ireland U21 semi-final win over Dublin but better late than never. Here’s a quick selection of the coverage that’s out there on the game that saw us qualify for our first decider at this level in ten years:
Match reports: Mayo Advertiser, Sunday Independent, Irish Examiner, Irish Times, GAA, RTÉ, The 42, Hogan Stand, Breaking News, We Are Dublin.
Match trackers (as it happened): Irish Independent, The 42.
Post-match quotes: Mike Solan (The 42), Diarmuid O’Connor (Hogan Stand).
Photos: Mayo Mick, Inpho, Sportsfile.
That’s the lot – enjoy!
Hi All,
Apologies for being a day late but many congratulations to the Mayo U-21’s on a great win. It was a close game in the end but to be fair we spent a huge amount of energy trying to get back on level terms after such a poor start. That’s not to take away from Mayo’s success and probably just goes to show how close the talent is in both counties. Congrats again and I hope the lads enjoy the win and follow up now and win the final…best of luck to Mayo as always.
Kind Regards,
Martin the Dub
Thank you Martin, true we did get a few dodgy frees near the end but we luckily have the forwards to score those frees and that’s a great thing to have.
Be honest please Martin, do you think Dublin have any unfair advantages in the senior football championship? Croke park, warming up into the hill, same dressing room, Bernard brogan never having played a championship game outside his home ground? Are these advantages or not?
How can 1.3 million not have a massive advantage over a place with 130,000?
Or am I reading too much into it all ?
Still basking in the afterglow of a wonderful, wonderful day while watching a re-run of the game in a critical and analytical mode and, this evening I notice that we did as most GAA teams do. During the first twenty minutes of the second half we were battered at midfield. What did we do? We took off a corner forward.
I dont really think playing in Croke Park is an advantage to Dublin. There is no real evidence that it is to be honest. Croke Park is really a GAA home ground and Mayo love playing there. I definetly think the population thing is massive though. Sheer weight of numbers tips the balance over us for sure
On the 48th minute we were fortunate that our goalkeeper’s impression that he was Shane Curran didn’t cost us a silly and stupid goal. We need to eliminate this nonsense and pseudo bravado before the final.
Martin, gentleman as usual. Hope to get another similar message from you later in the year.
Thanks for the good wishes Martin. I have to say that it was one of the most enjoyable days of football that I have been at in a while. Football was the real winner. All four teams played their part in making the day what it was. The splendid venue added to the occasion as well. We have another season of GAA to look forward to, where would we be without it, may the best team win!
Hi Dave,
I hope I can answer your question and I am going to be very honest but this is just my opinion. I was brought to Parnell Park in the 70’s by me Dad to watch league games and Championship games and I always loved the atmosphere there. Then obviously the old Croker on the big days was awesome and the atmosphere was electric. We had 74,76,77, 83 and 95 and I remember travelling down to Portlaoise, Tullamore, Newbridge and Navan during those years and to be honest at that time most of the pubs would close in those towns because they thought the Dubs would cause mayhem. I am going to be honest there are good and bad on all sides but most of us were sound. In short Dave the ones crying out for us to play out of Croker probably don’t even know their towns didn’t want us years ago. I would go to watch the Dubs play in any county as I will when we play Laois or Wicklow in Nowlan Park in June so its not the Dubs choice Dave its the County Board and I guess its all about money in their eyes.
Kind Regards,
Martin the Dub
Lovely to hear from Martin the Dub genuine as always. Wonderful lift from this U 21 team. Stuck with it to the end as real champions do. So proud of these lads and looking forward to a great summer.
I think this obsession with Dublin having it all is over played. In the 90s and 00s they were almost a laughing stock over hyped by the media and always beat when the chips were down. Now it’s almost the opposite with the unbeatable Dubs. Etc
We are a top team and have been knocking on the door just like they were up to 2011 and then they made it over the line
Are we next in line ?
Hopefully so starting in 2 weeks time with a repeat of 06 and then 6th connaught and who knows after that.
Ps 1916 was our first AIF so maybe 100 years on our time will come.
Maigheo Abu
I think some people and counties get too hung up on Dublin and maybe the media spotlight on them has something to do with that. If population was the reason for success what the hell are Kilkenny and Kerry doing leaving the roll of honor boards by a mile?
Counties need to focus and plan on what they need to do to challenge. The state of counties like Kildare and Meath are quiet frankly disgraceful.
In fairness to our neighbours Roscommon have done very well at underage the past 10 years. Tipperary football have shown what can be done too.
Dublin do have advantages but being honest sport never was and never will be a level playing field. Do we have an advantage over Leitrim and Sligo…..yes most definitely we do.
Thank you for that answer Martin. I hope you are back to congratulate us in 2 weeks time and maybe another time not too far away. Best of luck to you in the league final, 8 games 8 wins so far in 2016 from the same bunch of players that won all last year is some going in any mans language.
Martin, you are a gent through and through.
If anything Dublin should have more of an advantage at under age than Senior level- the relative population of 17-18 and 18-21 YOs in Dublin relative to rest of country, don’t have to travel far for training, they pretty much all go to university/college in Dublin and so on. These things would surely play a bigger role in underage where mgmt teams don’t have as big resources to play around with
I don’t see Croke Park as being that big an advantage at senior level myself, Mayo/Kerry have more or less played as many big games there as Dublin since 2011 (the Leinster champ is a cakewalk).
They do clearly have advantages though and if they sweep up All Ireland after All Ireland in the next few years which I can ominously see happening, rightly or wrongly the calls for “splits” and so on will certainly grow
Martin a gentleman as always, I think the population of Dublin is the biggest factor and the fact the dubs are doing well at the moment will generate a lot of interest from kids so the conveyer belt will keep churning out good players. let them play away in croke park, if any team are good enough to beat them and I think we are on our day, we will beat them wherever we play them
“During the first twenty minutes of the second half we were battered at midfield. What did we do? We took off a corner forward”
Amen!
To be fair Carr did super when he came in, but it really is the cop-out call taking off a corner forward and no ball going into him. That said every county/club team is/has been guilty of doing this!
The ends justify the means and all that though! Like Gavin winning an AI in 2013 despite emptying his bench ridiculously prematurely and finishing with 13 players
Martin the Dub
You and your attitude are part of what is great about our wonderful organisation. As a leader at grass roots level I admire your dedication and honesty. Having a relative on yesterday’s heroic panel I want to say that, accounting for Dublin, makes our path to the final all the more noteworthy.
Stay in touch.
Dave dont blame Dublin for playing all their matches at Croke Park the other counties in leinster have year after year voted for this system more revenue for them in my opinion a very shorts sighted view if only they had brains to see the big picture.
I honestly don’t think the Dubs will be as dominant as the media leads us to beileve, in my opininon if you take Cluxton, Connolly, McCarthy out of that team, they are nowhere near as dangerous. Cluxton cant go on forever and Connolly is nearer 30 than 25 at this stage (granted he has a few years left). Brogan does’nt seem to be as intetested in football as he was a few years ago so that core bunch of top class players are pushing on!!. We all hear about this conveyor belt of talent coming through, but, with the exception of Costello, they’ve no players anywhere near as good as the 3 mentioned above. I think they’ll be bet sooner than we think, especially with McCaffrey and O’Carroll gone this year.
Martin the Dub your a gent as always on here, hard luck yesterday.
Nice to think that way Juan, let’s hope you’re right.
Martin the Dub.
Pure class there from you as always. A great representative for your county.
Not easy to come on here and write that a day after you lost a thriller to Mayo.
Fair play to ya.
A big thank you also to the gentleman from Dublin who saw my Mayo jersey, and unprompted, came up to me in the M4 Apple Green on Saturday evening, shook my hand and congratulated us on the result.
More people like this needed!
I’m surrounded by Dubs at work [mostly Vinnies stalwarts] and they are the very same as us – totally committed to their team.
There’s no doubt they have a level of comfort/advantage in terms of Croke Park but to be fair the stadium is where it is. We all want to play there so it’s a little unfair to place that gripe at the feet of the Dubs. I would take far more issue with the unrelenting bias from the GAA itself to ensure ‘revenue’ from the capital is maximised.
Anyway – we won on Saturday so why are we still talking about the vanquished?
Martin. thanks for your kindness. The Dublin has scene is backboned by people like you and I from all over Ireland. While they are getting money and resources now it is well spent on the young men we watched on Saturday afternoon. If only we could say that about our country in general.l have always been a Dubs fan and I probably always will. I remember places closing down when the dubs we’re on tour and so do you.
How good was that win the weekend, excellent stuff .
A point I made a few weeks ago about temperament, confidence and youthful exuberance of this group of lads well now you can add win at any means and put everything on the line.
This is one hell of a group of lads and regardless how they do against Cork we need an injection of what these lads have into our senior team.
I mean Diarmid OConor where do you start if he was a Playstation FIFA Player he would rate 100 out of 100 in every category, what an excellent young man he is.
In addition to him, Coen and Hall and Loftus who are already with the seniors I like the cut of Ruane and Reape , Irwin and Duffy.
Loftus got some stick after the Ros game but class is permanent and this lad is a special big game player, he has nerves of steel and well done to him , a vital cog in the team and only few weeks ago, we were complaining of no free taker outside Cillian, well in Loftus and Irwin I think we have two upcoming lads.
Again it would be my opinion to put these lads in the senior setup and allow them to become familiar with Senior game speed etc.
These are our future and with their skillset I would far prefer to turn to any one of them when were two points down v Dublin and say go get me a score rather than players who have never won an All Ireland Final and are meandering around the senior squad for the past number of years, with having any meaningful contribution.
Im not being disrespectful to lads who have done well and being part of the squad over last number of years but in my opinion the U-21’s lads are ready and have all that winning mentality you cant bottle.
Say our starting attack line was;
Parsons__SOS
_____AOS
DOC__KMC__Higgins
__Regan___Cillian
Then subs of
Andy – inside line
Carolan/Conor OShea – halforward line
Loftus – Inside/Playmaker at 11
Reape/Duffy – Goals threat/direct replacement for Regan
Barry Moran – Midfield
Ruane- Midfield/ halforward to close game out
Freeman – Inside line
I would prefer it to our bench which we had against Down
There is no one meandering around, its an amateur sport.
All contributions are contributions, as long as they’re not negative!
Ya cant say to much about the dubs and playing in croker. It comes down to money and the GAA’s policies at the end of the day. On all Ireland Sunday it’s 50 50 in there. As for the hill, we’ll given the history of the hill and everything I say it’s their home town that got hammered them times so why shouldn’t they have it to themselves on the big day.
Dublin have always had the bigger population and that hasn’t changed but how that population and it’s talent is used is maybe what has. If it were as simple as numbers then it’d be Dublin, Antrim, down, cork, Galway etc with a load of all Ireland’s. again it all points to resources and how talent and players are looked after by the county boards.
That’s a good post there Outside of boot, but I’d hold fire on the hero status just yet. For sure a lot of these guys are winners and have proven that at minor level, but a bigger test awaits them in the final v Cork. Our recent history as we all know is littered with broken dreams on the big day, and we don’t want another generation of very young talent to be burdened with the same ‘chocker mentality’. Getting to the final is some achievement for sure, but now we must go on and win it, or these lads will become just another statistic of gallant losers. Regardless of how good Cork are, we can win this one, but we must bring our A game, and that will be the big test, will these guys perform to their maximum? – fingers crossed they can.
I agree MayoMcHale. We need to go easy on the hype with these lads. If we came out the wrong side of the result in Tullamore, which nearly happened, what would the conversation be? Someone in the past said that you’re never as good as they say you are when you win or as bad as they say you are when you lose. These lads have shown some fantastic characteristics and a few flaws as well. Every half decent opposing team will have a spell when they dominate the play – it’s rare to be fully on top for the whole hour. The trick is when the opposition get on top to limit the damage they do on the scoreboard. Our lads haven’t been able to do this so far against Ros or the dubs. Great teams manage to do this even if they have to cause a row to disrupt the momentum (think of Meath in the past).
If our lads could learn to improve on this aspect of their game then I would be very confident of beating cork.
Oh agreed 100% Mayo McHale, it easy easy to get carried away but I guess im trying to say is I think its better to turn to a confident and a guy with a All Ireland winners medal in his pocket than someone with emotional backage of 5 or 6 Final losses .
Cusack Park, Ennis Sat 30th at 3:00pm.
Yew_tree has that been confirmed?
Well done Mike Solan and the lads.
Hopefully some supporters will travel to the final. Only diehards in Tullamore.
Saturday afternoon in Ennis is a bit crazy. Guess it would not suit GAA for this to be a popular game. A 5 or 6 start would be much easier for travel
no location confirmed yet per the GAA website
http://www.gaa.ie/football/gaa-football-all-ireland-u21-championship/
Might be going by the placeholder on the Club 51 Facebook page?.
Upon closer inspection – that might actually be by the Mayo GAA Banter page, as opposed to Club 51.
Ann Marie – Saw it on Facebook on the move earlier. Back in office now and don’t see any official conformation as what other posters have said.
It’s on the GAA website now – if you click the U21 football championship link and go to fixtures it’s in there for Ennis, 30th April at 6pm.
I think Cork might be a bit better than Dublin and certainly look more threatening going forward. The fact that they got all their scores from play in their semi-final is a worrying statistic, from a Mayo perspective. Mayo are going to have to up the ante again to beat them.
Thank WJ just saw your updated article here. Venue was correct….6pm is a better throw in time though.
Well done, lads,. But we need to hold off on the over hype. I remember going to Croke Park on the 17th March, the atmosphere from a Mayo/Castlebar point of view before the match was over confidence. Let’s not get giddy like a kid waiting for Santa and Santa not to come at all. Before the All Ireland club final I spoke to a Kilrenny man in Croke Park.We talked about our polar opposite experience of All Ireland finals. We came to the conclusion in the end that a Kilrenny team goes into an All Ireland finals with about 5 point advantage, such is the level of belief and success Kilrenny enjoy on All Ireland final day. EG Kilrennys opponents need to be 6 points the better team to win by one. Speculation I know, it can’t be measured by it exists for certain, the opposite exists for Mayo teams, Imagine any of our opponents they must have that feeling that Mayo will lose despite the possibility of Mayo being a slightly better than than themselves. When Mayo go into battle in an All Ireland final they need to be battle history as well as their opponents. Now don’t want to be all doom and gloom. This U21 team has history on their side having won the minor final in 2013, and I’ll be there shouting them on, hopefully to victory where ever the match is played. We have to be realistic, we can never get to where we want to get to if we don’t know where we are at.