It’s clearly team announcement day, with details published today of the three Mayo teams in action this weekend. I’m in a bit of a dash myself at the minute so I’m going to do this one the short way.
Details of the playing panel for this evening’s Connacht U17 clash with Sligo at James Stephens Park are as follows:
This game gets underway at 7pm this evening in Ballina and, for those who can’t make it, it’s also being streamed live by Connacht GAA on a PPV basis – details on that are here.
We’ll also have a ‘Final Whistle’ podcast up soon after the game concludes this evening so club members should watch out for that in their Patreon feeds later on tonight.
There are two hurling matches involving the county on tomorrow. The Christy Ring Cup match now looks set to go ahead for definite at James Stephens Park at 2pm and details of the team and subs we’ve named for it are here.
Later on tomorrow, at 7pm in Tooreen, the U17s have a Celtic Challenge quarter-final tie against Longford and the match day panel for that one is here.
Best of luck to all the Mayo teams in action this weekend.
A, 2.21 to 3.10 win for Mayo over Sligo.
A decent bit of scoring but a fair bit of leaking too.
Great scoring by both teams. 27 points for mayo is a positive return, it looks like we have a good team at this age grade based on results to date.
Leitrim also drew with Roscommon. Its great to see both Sligo and Leitrim competitive at underage.
Very entertaining minor game this evening. We were well deserving of the win. Could be wrong but I think Sligo scored all 3 of their goal chances, while we hit the crossbar twice, hit one wide and another was saved.
Niall Hurley was a constant threat. Would remind you of Tommy Conroy with his directness.
2 big midfielders had some great high fielding and got forward for scores too.
The pitch in Ballina was like a carpet too 🙂
What about style of play. Was there any quick movement out of defence for Mayo and occasional long foot passing to target men…
Very entertaining game. Mayo much the better team but were opened up and the counterattack for all 3 goals. In young David Dolan his kick outs are on a different level to what I’ve seen in any up and coming keeper. And niall Hurley don’t want to get to carried away but what a player and combination of Hurley and Ronan Clarke of Moy davitts if there is a better inside forward line in connacht I’m looking forward to seeing it. Got a bit disjointed when we ran the bench but the balla lad Oisin Cronin looks a real baller. Sean deane deserves great credit for the way he as the team playing.
Interesting one again from the young lads.
Worrying we collapsed around the middle 6, 8, 9 again for a 15 or 20 minute period of the match and got blown open when they ran at us in that space, while also dominating that area for large periods of the game. Similar to patterns of both the Leitrim and Roscommon games but where Sligo had the personnel, especially in Dillon Walsh, to punish us. Interesting to watch Rio Mortimer getting a bit of a dooing in the first half, especially without any changes or swaps made, but thankfully he did a better job taming Eli Rooney in the second who looks a real prospect for Sligo along with Ronan Niland and Walsh.
Niall Hurley, Ronan Clarke, Zac Collins and Paul Gilmore all lit up the pitch at times. Clarke hit 9 points, man of the match on Connacht GAA stream…. and I think he had an off night. Two missed goal chances, a missed point or two and a few 50/50s lost he’d normally have snapped up. He’s a beast. That said Hurley man of the match all day for me. His direct running, vision, eye for goal and all around game smarts to pull the strings are a joy to watch.
Off the bench Oliver Armstrong, OisÃn Cronin and Sean O’Dowd along with a couple of solid scores from Dylan Gallagher all played a big part in the win which was great to see. Cronin had shown well against Leitrim and Gallagher had shown well at times starting both of the other games but it was the first time Armstrong and O’Dowd came to the fore like that which is great for the strength of the panel.
Was great to see the character in the lads manage to see out the game well after Sligo managed to pull it back to just 4 points with their third goal. Though had we not missed a few of 6 or 7 relatively easy points on wides or had any of 3 further great chances hit the net (Clarke pulling one slightly to the right after a great one two between himself and Hurley and both he and Hurley managing to crack shots off the crossbar) it also could have been a far more comfortable win so plenty of both pros and cons there. Lots of big things to work on but a novel worth of positives to take from the game too.
We’ve looked like a team that has the potential to blow even a strong team like Galway up for 5-25 when things click up front and we take control around the middle while also looking like one that could concede the same at the other end when we get opened up with runners and lose control around the middle. Can’t wait to see which one happens next week. Again, probably spells of both. Can’t wait.
Well done to the hurlers. They are going very well which is great to see after a strangely subdued league. Up Mayo