You’ll probably have got word by now but just to confirm that it was announced a bit earlier on this evening that the venue for Sunday’s FBD match against Roscommon has been switched again, this time to Castlebar. Throw-in at MacHale Park on Sunday is unchanged, with the match due to get underway at 2pm.
The venue change isn’t a massive surprise, to be honest – Hyde Park is a pitch best traversed in wellies at the best of times so it’s not the greatest shock in the world that it’s not in a fit condition to host Sunday’s game. Given the size of the crowd that’s likely to want to get to the fixture – it wouldn’t surprise me if there were upwards of 5,000 at it – then MacHale Park is the only logical alternative. Hurrah for logic winning out on this occasion.
UPDATE: The Roscommon County Board have tonight issued a statement (here) detailing the sequence of events and reasons behind the shift in venue for Sunday’s match.
It was also announced this evening, by the way, that Saturday’s U21 North-West Cup match against Donegal has been switched from Ballybofey to Letterkenny. Throw-in will still be at 2pm on Saturday. ‘Tis, clearly, the season for venue changes.
I hate to be a party pooper but is it a phscological ploy be the Rossies trying to get a win under their belt in Castlebar? It seems a bit odd that they’d move it
Kiltoom venue has hosted NFL games,Connacht club senior final and probably would have catered for the crowd Sunday so i’m surprised Mayo have got this due home Rossie game fixed for MacHale park however the switch means more Mayo support will now travel than ever was to travel to Roscommon.
Lets hope there is a better set up than for the NUIG game and they actually get the crowd in on time for 2pm. I wonder who will be counting the attendance on Sunday? We will have the stadium paid off in no time at this rate.
The sheep that were grazing in Dr Hyde must of organised a protest against the match going ahead.
Theirs a good blanket of snow in most parts of Roscommon at the moment (with more to come tonight). Im presuming the Hyde is covered aswell as kiltoom, so that probably why its switched to Castlebar.
It’s a good job roscommon didn’t have to take the snow tyres off the bus last year, it’s ready for off again
Mayomadness,
This would be a Connacht Council fixture so they would be collecting the gate, even though it will probably be mainly Mayomen doing the actual work. And yes, I do hope that they are organised for a big attendance. The days of small Mayo attendances are over, for the present at least. Regards Kiltoom I do not, as I said last night, think that it would have the capacity to handle the possible crowd, and the GAA must err on the side of caution regards capacity. A Roscommon NFL crowd would probably not be in excess of 2000 in recent years.
It’s just a pity that we’re playing them last in the NFL rather than early on, they might struggle to have the Hyde ready for their early home league games at this rate.
Where will they play their league games if Hyde Park is unplayable. U21 game is still down for going ahead in kiltoom on Saturday so I take it the pitch is playable but just doesn’t have capacity to cater for a large crowd. They cannot keep postponing games or it will mess up the fixtures Calender.
Maybe the Hyde isn`t as bad as we think. I`m nearly sure that Roscommon`s first NFL match is against Monaghan in the Hyde, injust over 2 weeks time. They`re probably saving it for that, and were prepared to sacrifice an oul FBD game to do that. Wouldn`t put it past them.
Backdoor. The Rossies won the FBD in a rough one on Castlebar last year
Under 21 match moved to Letterkenny done deal. If I’m not mistaken Declan we play Down in our final fixture in the NFL in Castlebar.
Hope weather does not affect match on Sunday.
Hello all and as this is my first post of 2016 I would like to wish WJ and all the posters a happy new year.
Delighted to see that the mere mention of a Mayo V Roscommon game gets some peoples temperature raised by a few degrees. Thats not a bad thing on these cold days. I see Kiltoom was offered as a venue but the Connacht council reckoned it couldnt cope with attendance so match move to Castlebar. Now given that this is the Connacht council and its only Thursday yet I wouldnt be surprised if the match is moved to Salthill yet.
As a Rossie now having recently move to the east of the country the venue switch means I wont be at the game. A quick trip down the motorway to Athlone and short hop to Ros town would have suited me great but Castlebar too far with family commitments. Im sure this is the same for many Rossie and Mayo fans living in Dublin KKildare etc. Its a pity as I was looking forward to the atmosphere and banter that goes with every time we play.
Anyway best of luck to both teams on Sunday and for the year. I hope to post on here during the year and enjoy the comments even if some are completely anti Roscommon. The GAA brings that out in us and I wouldnt change it for the world. Lock up the sheep on Sunday as the stealers will be about.
Chat soon posters
Good man, Shane – welcome back and Happy New Year to you too.
Ah now MayoMadness you couldn’t really blame the GAA for the delay at the NUIG game. (and I do give out about them as much as anyone else, but couldn’t this time) I was in around 1.10 and there was only a handful of people in. It was 1.40 1.45 before the majority of people arrived. I’d say the large crowd surprised a lot of people!
I am a tiny bit disappointed this game was moved to Castlebar (look, I know I’m weird don’t judge me). I love an away game and mainly I was looking forward to outnumbering the home crowd, having the craic plastering the place in Mayo flags (it’s never too soon) and spending half the match happily giving out about the state of the pitch 😉 Plus I have to drive to Dublin afterwards, which is the real reason. On the positive side the extra hour or so means I can now fit in a spin on the bike on Sunday morning, weather permitting. There had better not be feckin’ snow.
Welcome back Rossie Shane! Great to see you back here and looking forward to your input throughout the year, and particularly as you navigate the qualifiers in July 😉 (I’ll stop now, in case this comes back to haunt me!).
Genuinely though, yourself, Cantini from Sligo, Martin the Dub (and that Donaghy fan Kerry who loves Donaghy and whose name escapes me right now), are some of my favourite contributors on here, aside from all us wonderful Mayo people of course … it’s good to mix it up a bit in here.
Roscommon footballers conceding territory to Mayo in Castlebar. Rossie hurlers conceding home territory to Mayo Saturday from Athleague to Bekan. And on the other side Monksland being taken over by Westmeath County Council. Poor old Rossies. Torn apart like the Gaza Strip..
If I was Ross management I think this is a win win situation. One more game in the potential Connacht Final Venue, and one less game for Mayo in our venue before the league game Easter Sunday. Maybe I’m raving but I can’t see any loss. I hope Mayo win and Galway too. They could play out a hard game as a worm up to the league without showing your hand to much and play from there full panel.
Rossie Shane,
Welcome back and don’t worry about any switch to Salthill. MacHale Park will be able to cope, barring a heavy fall of snow.
I’d be more worried about another Donegal switch, this time perhaps to Carndonagh, as they’re going in that direction.
Game was shifted at behest of Mayo county board. Having read some of the comments of Mayo followers on the Mayogaablog re venues and the reluctance of their followers to travel to far flung regions like Belmullet and Charlestown the co board held an emergency meeting.
Not having the stomach for a second major battle within a few months , the board offered Roscommon a deal. Switch the FBD match and the Mayo board will give Roscommon the venue of choice come the summer when hopefully the better weather will be more suitable for their followers. No need for conspiracy theory folks.
I doubt that’s the case John cuffe , why would they give up home venue for a championship for a silly winter league game ?
I don’t know what you’re smoking there, John, to come up with that proposition but you might pass it round!
Jazus, but we love the auld conspiracy theories!
I’m with Anne Marie – for those of us living on ten East coast the Hyde is by far the handiest ground to get to.
I’m also glad to see they are finally getting round to digging up up the pitch. Having walked it to get to the Nestor presentaion last year, I couldn’t believe the state of it.
Playing in Castlebar in Jan & July are completely different animals. Lets not forget about Galway the same way as Ross forgot about Sligo.
John C,methinks your attempt at humour has fallen at the first!
Jeeesus! This is an FBD match. What exactly is the fuss about?
Rochy wants to (presumably) keep trying new guys or old guys in new positions and see how they fare. Why should we give a damn about the result, as long as it’s a learning process and guys begin to show signs of promise?
catcol, i’ll tell you why , because the rossies cannot be bet often enough or by enough , whatever team the rochmeister puts out on Sunday should be putting these fellas away and building on that for our next meeting in the NFL and potential meetings after that .
The blood is up! Up Mayo!!
With all the support we have on the east coast we’re starting to sound like Man Utd perish the thought! Let’s play the match in the ‘ally pally’, there’s a big crowd there already from Roscommon. I know because it’s so quiet.
Pictures of the Hyde park pitch this afternoon has been posted on social media it’s looking in decent shape with no flood puddles on it. So it seems the pitch was playable but for some other reason this game has been switched to Castlebar.
I said it yesterday, and I`ll say it again. They`re saving it for the opening NFL game.
I`m less than a year on this blog, but have noticed something that puzzles me. Even though many people regard Galway as our biggest rivals, quite a few posters here seem to have a “thing“ about Roscommon. Why is this?
Good question . I think it may be down to the very bad behaviour of the roscommon crowd in the 2011 connacht final. I have mixed opinions of the rosssies some are genuine supporters however a lot of them are simply anti mayo hence mayo being anti roscommon. For me Cork , Meath , Kerry , Donegal and Dublin will continue to be my rivals until we win SAM. ( I’m still a Galway hater).
Observer 2, I see Roscommon as by far our biggest rivals in Connacht, even though I see Galway as our biggest footballing rivals 😉
I would put it down to the contrast in supporter behaviour between the two, but I’ll say no more, because sometimes we are no saints ourselves.
I will say though that there is a certain satisfaction in beating Roscommon that is rarely found elsewhere!
Dubs ?
Observer 2 and John Jennings
If I may be so bold as to offer an opinion from a Roscommon point of view.
Not sure John what behaviour your talking about in 2011 final. From what I remember that day it was one of the wettest days ever. Mayo had a very small crowd at the match as the fantastic run they are on at the moment had not started. There was a protest on the day against the closing of Roscommon A&E and Enda Kenny was afraid to come to the match due to the huge anger there was in the county.
Now back to the question in hand. Roscommon and Mayo would be very alike as in they are both football counties. Their passion for GAA mainly is geared towards football. Galway only ever have a certain core of football fans but half them dont bother as much due to the hurling strongholds. In this regard there is always more passion and tension at Mayo v Ros games. I always prefer to get a win over Mayo than Galway and im nearer to Galway.
Also it depends where u live. Like we all know that the whole Ballaghderreen issues adds extra spice to Mayo Roscommon relations. Im from south Roscommon and wud always shout for Mayo once they get to an All Ireland semi or final. I know people from both counties who are much closer to each other and they hate each other. Like they literally cannot stand to see each other do well. This is truth of both counties. Alot of posts here go on about Roscommon peoples behaviour at matches and im sure there are certain nutjobs from my home county. I have been at matches and witnessed the same type of behaviour from Mayo fans. Its just the way it is. I would be much more focused on a good debate with a genuine Mayo supporter than concentrate my my energy on any negative people or comments. This is why I never go near the Mayo GAA Banter page. You wont change opinion so why try. Just get on and support your team.
I love Roscommon ,they are my second team .
i don’t know why there’s such great rivalry between Mayo and Roscommon – some of it unhealthy at times. Because the team I would most like to beat (and out the gate at that) is Kerry and preferably on the third Sunday of September in Croke Park. Now that would really excite me and give me more pleasure than a night with ah….em!.. …….(Oops I better not go there!)
I’m afraid beatin Ros doesn’t come near. That said I’d hate to lose to the fckers at the same time.
Mayomagic,
There’s playable and then there’s playable. What I mean is that a pitch which might have been considered playable twenty years or so would not be considered playable today because of an all round rise in standards. You don’t need puddles of lying water to make a pitch unplayable today. I was at the Castlebar Clan game last November and walked across the pitch afterwards. From the stand it looked quite good but walking it showed it to be quite soft. A hell of an amount of rain fell since without much drying so I imagine it would be very poor now. I don’t think that Roscommon spent too much on it in the last couple of years – the Co Board were in dispute with Roscommon Gaels over ownership up until last summer.
Let’s all love Roscommon ,, awful sound supporters ,, suppose we might not like them if they were dominating Connaught for 5 years ,, so can see where their jealousy comes from ,,,,,,,,
Andy D you would do well to find any pitch in the winter that isn’t soft under foot. Apparently treatment on the Hyde pitch was done which included verti draining so maybe they are minding their pitch for opening NFL game as the Observer states above.
Mayomagic,
There’s soft and then there’s very, very soft.
It would have to be very soft altogether if it were not able to take games a fortnight apart. Which it apparently is.
The Hyde is a bit soft like most of the land in Mayo these days, and they have 4 league games to play on it over the coming 2 months.. Kiltoom for Div 1 crowds, I don’t think so. For Div 2 games last year.It was under pressure. Reminder of course that all this is a temporary situation for the Rossies. With the funds rolling in like never before and major strategic plans afoot the much criticized. Hyde will too soon be one of the premier venues in the west.I am not making any predictions on their football since last year, but they are setting themselves up for an extended run in Div 1 for starters .
John Cuffe Great story which agree fully with of course, enjoy the smoke.
Rossie Shane I was referring to the throwing of toilet paper on to the pitch as well as flair lighting, booing the mayo team when announced and above all not singing Amhrain na bhFiann by preferring to hold up protest cards against the A and E . I know a lot of mayo people who can’t be called fans jue to there behaviour at matches towards the opposition. However it’s a connacht final not a political protest March. I sat beside a lovely rossie at the match and she referred to the behaviour of the roscommon supports as ” letting the county down ” . I just wanted to outline a few points of observation from that wet day that mayo won there 42nd connacht tittle.
“With the funds rolling in like never before ” is there proof of this or is it just a wild guess ?
“Setting themselves up for an extended run in div 1 ” fair play to them , I hope for their sake it doesn’t end up like their expected run to the Connacht final last year .
Major strategic plans began 10 years ago when they won the minor all Ireland . None of them buckeeens have ever beaten Mayo or Galway and most likely never will now at this stage. I honestly think they completely over do the underage emphasis , of course it’s vital don’t get me wrong and they have a handful of useful footballers brought through now but they lack a vital ingredient for senior success ,experienced croke park type players to blend with the youth .
It’s where we have a mighty upper hand despite the lack of success at 21s these last few years , we have a grand few coming through and we do have the experienced croke park ers
Regards major plans for the Hyde there were major plans about 25 years ago when Connacht Council opted to go along with promptings from Croke Park to develop one major venue in Connacht. Roscommon, Sligo and Leitrim opted for Roscommon, which was a signal for Roscommon to sit on their arse and do damn all, waiting for it to be done for them. OK, there were new dressingrooms and a new stand was built without any other facilites. There isn’t even place to get a cup of tea in the new stand and for some reason they will not allow mobile caterers use the vast empty space behind the stand or provide more than a small shop themselves. While Salthill’s new stand is similarly limited they do allow Supermacs to bring in their artic catering facility. But then, as they never knew who actually owned Hyde Park perhaps they were handicapped.
I’m told that some years ago they spent big money developing training facilities at a club near Roscommon town only to then discover that they had no rights to use that same facilities. Perhaps some Roscommon poster can confirm or correct me.
Now Croke Park is apparently thinking along the same lines, and, even though Castlebar already fills all the criteria for a top provincial grounds there is again talk of developing Hyde Park to cater for Connacht Final crowds.
Can’t understand the “you can’t beat Roscommon often enough” comments. Are we a big team with a small time mentality in some of our fans? Should it not be “you can’t beat dublin or kerry often enough”? That’s the way Id be thinking. When not playng Mayo, I like to see all connacht teams do well – love to see Mayo, ross and galway make the AI quarters this year and the tribesmen to join us in div 1, would all of you not feel the same? Haven’t we had enough disrespect towards connacht football in the last 100 years from Leinster and munster in particular? Maybe some Mayo fans are getting Stockholm syndrome towards kerry in particular, after all the beatings they have given us in the last 20 years.
Mac’s Left Boot:
Ros and Galway as oppositions may be likened to slight irritations that have to be dealth with quite regularly.They’re like an itch that you might have at the back of your head or a bit of deposit up your nose or like that early morning schraum in the corner of your eye that’s calling out for neat dislodgement .
They are conditions that we all have the facilities to deal with and always their resolution brings a small modicum of pleasure.
However,when we have to consider the more serious afflictions like Kerry and Dublin and some others,we are a bit out of our depth where we re dealing with matters of life and death and invariably more the latter than the former. These conditions are more deep seated and experience has shown us that we need a more professional approach in our resolve to overcome them.These are no mere pet hates but life threatening conditions and as such demand the utmost respect.
I’m reminded of D’Unbelievables in the church,waiting for the’Peace be with you’ hand shake….all great craic until things get serious!!
These days I find it hard to get excited about meeting our neighbours in league or championship. The ‘great rivalries’ in Connacht have been dampened by Mayo’s complete dominance over the past 5 years. Gone are the days you could pack Tuam Stadium on a wet and miserable July day and have a situation where people couldn’t even get into the ground. As for teams that you couldn’t beat often enough, for me that applies to our true great rivals from recent times – Kerry and Dublin. Both of which we owe serious beatings – Dublin we haven’t beaten since 2012 and Kerry since 1996! We have bigger fish to fry than the Rossies so… meh
Following on from the great full-back debate on here a few days ago, I see the Independent (it’s Breheny unfortunately, but you can’t have everything) have a list of the top 50 full backs over the past 50 years.
Mayo have 3. Ray Prendergast at 17, Kevin Cahill at 34 and Peter Ford at 47.
Pretty much in line with our long held belief that we haven’t had a consistently dominant full back since Cahill 20 years ago.
For me anyway I don’t get this Roscommon thing. Even when the announcement was made that the FBD game was switched to Castlebar, some of the comments etc. on twitter were just so childish. If your 5 year old son, made those comments, you’d tell him to cop himself on. Last summer when the Connacht final was fixed for Hyde Park, again you had loads of people giving out and this time when the game is going to be played in Castlebar people still give out about it, so you can’t win really! I suppose that is just the way Social Media has gone…
For us we seem to get caught up way too much in this kind of rubbish talk. We probably have about five areas that we really need to focus on, rather than talking about the cost of the Roscommon Bus etc…. Who cares about that anyway, for me its all about the 70 minutes on the football field. The areas where we have to improve are as follows:
1. Stop conceding sloppy goals
2. Stop giving up healthy leads
3. Our forwards should be scoring more from play
4. Have a defensive strategy ready to go for the championship
5. Develop a winner’s mentality (i.e. forget about the Roscommon Bus etc…..)
Thats where our energy should be focussed on, I think anyway. Roll on the next game!
But surely the whole defensive strategy of Gaelic football has changed dramatically , I’m sure we all agree on that .
If AOS was put on the square in the 80s/90s he’d destroy any full back one on one ala bomber Liston style . How many balls did we put into him against Dublin and there was three men covering the zone around him . We tend to overthink these things , I still can’t understand why we left him so isolated at times , when simply a couple of scoring forwards off each side would of been sufficient to do damage . If my memory serves me right we did it arseways as per ,when we were four up we had a three man ff line and thus leaving ourselves open at the back by falling back to a traditional defensive set up, when it was time to crowd it out.
And right you are there Sean! That episode hangs around like a rotten smell never to be eradicated.And the air will not sweeten up until we have a proper balance in our forward/ defence strategy. I refer you to the JP x Hope Springs formula for clarification and comfort!
Too much air time given to this “rivalry” with Roscommon. Its Dublin and Kerry who boil my blood, their the fish i want to fry…hopefully this year. Rossies get a little kick to think they may get under our skin, but to be honest they don’t register on my rival radar, of course its nice to beat them, i want Mayo to hammer every team we play, be it I.T Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon etc. But they are a small time team for now, need to start reaching quarters/semis before id even consider regarding them as a major rival.
U21s lost to Donegal 1-9 to 1-8. Quite a switched around side we put out.
Fionan Duffy not playing for example.
Liam Irwin reportedly played well. Meant to have got a great goal.
Irwin Reape Duffy would be a top class full forward line.
meaths Mike Lyons famously said that playing fullback was like being in the mafia, kill or be killed.
Eh lads let’s concentrate on beating Kerry once , something we haven’t done since Moses wore short pants .
My point about Roscommon is that we have mastered them recently and need to keep our standards up by continuing to do so.
We have no real rivalry with Kerry, we’d have to beat them first . Kerry and Dublin is a real rivalry.
We have the makings of a good one with the dubs , we need to beat them to Sam some year to to cement it
Very much a weakened under 21 team, but it sounds like they came back well and almost got something from the game at the end. Hopefully Irwin can come good again, he showed so much promise at minor level.
I wonder will some of the U21s who didn’t feature today be added to the senior squad tomorrow. I know that we have named a 23 man panel for the Roscommon game, so I’m not sure if that can happen. Usually the match day panel can contain up to 26 players.
I can verify that Liam Irwin’s goal was a peach, skilful pickup, quick turn and bang. Goalie didn’t see it.
Overall we played too much of our football around midfield, not letting the ball in to the forward line quickly enough. Incidentally Irwin was a sub, introduced in the second half if memory serves me right.
Once again there was no program and there was a very small attendance. Sometimes one wonders whether the powers that be care whether anybody turns up to watch.
A good comeback by Mayo from 0-6 to 1-8 down to level it 1-8 each. Donegal won it with the last kick of the game. Depending on the Sligo,Fermanagh result (was called off) Donegal v Mayo will likely play again in the North west final.
Hard luck to the under 21 am bit confused with this competition who gets to the final. Also looking forward to Ross game today up Mayo a draw maybe.