Photo: @brennynestor (via Twitter)
It’s Friday evening and a weekend borrowed from summer appears to be stretching ahead of us, which is a nice enough prospect. Galway claiming the Liam McCarthy on Sunday – which RTÉ reckons they’ll do – would make it a great weekend and would, I reckon, embolden us further as we hatch our own plans for All-Ireland glory.
The Donegal lads are still on the ropes PR-wise, with Letterkenny Chamber of Commerce forced to go public with an apology for the ructions they caused earlier in the week about where the homecoming should take place. Local Councillor Jimmy Kavanagh, meanwhile, has issued a public appeal to Letterkenny Town Council to spend some cash decorating roundabouts in the town in the Donegal colours. Without a trace of irony, Jimmy reckons that this use of taxpayers’ money would be a great opportunity to “show off our town”. I wouldn’t worry about that, Jimmy, if I were you – sure haven’t the Chamber made a holy show of the town already?
Anyway, enough about the opposition. On our side of the fence there are two articles today that are worth mentioning. The first is John Maughan’s column in the Mayo Advertiser in which the man who brought us to within an inch of the All-Ireland back in ’96 pays handsome tribute to James and the lads. The second is Noel Connelly’s column in the Mayo News where the captain from 1996/7 looks at the key factors that led to our win last Sunday and then goes on to provide an interesting insight into the rarified atmosphere that the players are currently inhabiting and what it feels like.
Speaking of the Mayo News, the lads have done their semi-final review podcast, which is available here. I have to confess that I haven’t had the chance to listen to it yet myself but you know and I know that it’s always worth a listen to. In this edition Mike Finnerty, Seán Rice, Daniel Carey and Edwin McGreal chew the fat over last Sunday’s epic win and look ahead to the final.
Finally, the County Board have announced that a fundraising concert featuring a host of country music luminaries is set to take place at the McWilliam Park Hotel in Claremorris on Tuesday week (18th) where the doors will open at 7pm and where throw-in is set for 8pm. Admission is €20 and there’ll be a raffle where prizes will include tickets for the final, signed jerseys and footballs. Michael Commins will act as maître d for the event.
my Dad got a mention in the Mayo news too … In Willie Mc Hughs fantastic ‘sketch’ and if I have to wheel him up the m50 I will to get him to that final …. 🙂 … On another note does anyone else think Kevin Mc Loughlin is our most underrated player I did mention here before the Dublin match that he was going to have a fantastic game and my worries about Donal were proved too what is going on with him still not the Same player since that league final and all Brollys s..t talk now he did a lot of good things on Sunday too hope he has a small chat with himself and gets back to being the amazing player I know he is …. Up mayo wherever you go 🙂
Agree with you100% about Kevin Mc. He does an awful lot of work around the middle, but goes about his business quietly and has IMO, been Mayo’s most consistent player this year, if not for the past two. Class act really. Jimmy Mc will have taken note of his consistent form and his understated influence on Mayo’s ability to grind out wins.
Time to take stock.
The amount of stuff on mwr is sickening. No analysis just hype and exaggeration.
Here are some truths.
1.we are not favourites for a good reason. Our collapse last week was shocking. If we don’t learn lessons we will be well beaten ..if we do who knows.
2 several players did not play well. Jason got one great point .did little else I could see except give O Carroll a dig and fair play to him for that.Vaughan was better than mos,t people give him credit for but Varley Freeman and eveln Barry need to maintain form longer.
3 where was back when Brogan got one on one. Not good enough.
4.Horan slow to make changes.
5 are we too soft when skirmishes break out. Time to stand up.
6.it was a good performance but not worth a damn if we lose the next day.
Don’t agree we should celebrate now or enjoy run up. Time to be focused and realise only winning enough now. None of this we are improving. It is now or never. We have so much work to do and then we will still need luck. We have too long enjoyed nearly runs. Too many losses. Now is the time and stupid songs and hype and exaggerated biased analysis do no one any favours.
We all agree Shout that we have to bring it up another notch-as we have done for every game,but we don’t need to be going around in sackcloth and ashes.Team Mayo are very aware of what needs doing.I am as passionate as the next man,but there’s a difference between hype and enjoyment.I was down in Kilkenny this time last year and you could hardly get through the place with flags/bunting/painted cars etc-it didn’t effect them too much!.Look I think we should embrace the next 2 weeks-32 other teams would love to have our problems
If a fella can’t go home , open up a can of paint and daub it over his favourite ewe there’s not much point in putting in the hard yards all winter
Shout, quite right..but still we overcame alot of unforseen & unfortunate loss’s of key players before & during that game!–I taught that for 20 minutes David Clarke kept kicking the ball long to the middle where we were beaten by Michael Darragh, only when Boyle came on showing well for the short kick out, & at the same time McLoughlin came back on winning breaks a delivering long good ball to the inside fowards! Still the way we coped with adversity has to be admired. Where the challenge lies is that Mayo play controlled risk football compared to Donegal’s low risk football. I dont think we can change too much now, we have got to make our game work & keep playing it. Alot depends on the weather another fine day will suit us, where as a wet windy day would not upset Donegal’s style too much!
Fair points from all.and well taken.
We will just dispense with the mad country songs though and the painting of our unfortunate ewes!