I had a few last night – as I’m sure many of you also did – but, along with the thick head, as I came around this morning it was to the delicious thought that something special had occurred yesterday. We didn’t, did we? We couldn’t have, could we? Feck me, we did – we did! Welcome to the morning after, hombres.
Before I adjourned to the local last night, I watched a fair bit of The Sunday Game and I dunno about the rest of you but I was left fairly underwhelmed by their coverage of our match. No Brolly so no mention of ‘wiping the floor’ and then Spillane had the brazen cheek to declare, after all he and others had said beforehand, that our win was “no great surprise”. And there was McStay sitting beside him like a great big fucking dummy, failing to call Spillane out over his ‘junk status’ jibe of a few weeks back – at least Tony Davis had the balls to take on Brolly last weekend. To cap it off, Des Cahill then summed it up by saying that “Joe Brolly was right”. Sweet Jesus: the sooner TV3 relieve these idiots of the entire TV rights to the championship, the better.
Anyway, onto more important matters. As you’ll imagine, there’s a glut of newsprint to get through so here it all is, all stacked and ready for your perusal.
The Irish Times has four separate pieces on the game. Here’s the overview, the after-match quotes, the match report and analysis from John O’Keeffe (who in Saturday’s paper said that Donegal were the only provincial champions in danger this weekend before then predicting an easy win for Cork).
I loved James Horan’s cool-as-you-like post-match comments, which are carried in that piece above. Here’s what he said:
We’re delighted with the win. Our aim today was to come up and play as well as we can and work as hard as we could. Fortunately we outworked and outfought the opposition and that was the bedrock of the game. We’re delighted. We won the game and are looking forwards to moving on to the next step.
The breaking ball was eight to one after 15 minutes. Cork were dominating even though the guys were catching some clean ball but in the breaking ball we were getting beaten. We adjusted that and it seemed to work; we got the majority of possession around there and that enabled us to get the ball into Andy and the guys inside, who did a lot of damage. That was a huge part of the game.
Roscommon two (Connacht final) and Galway one (semi-final) so we must be doing something right in the second half. You saw the tackling and the work rate there today; whenever a Cork player got the ball there were two or three guys around him. The work rate was superb today.
Fitness is important but the discipline in some of our tackling today was close to the edge, but very good. We were aggressive in the tackle and got the hands out when we needed to and conceded very few frees in the second half. The discipline and the set-up we have is very strong and the guys are working so hard that we’re getting results.
Amen, amen and amen again. What a man.
The Irish Independent has the same glut of coverage. Here’s the match report, the quotes, Uncle Eugene’s assessment and their game-at-a-glance thing.
Aidan O’Shea has a nice quote in that Indo piece about facing into his parent’s people the next day:
I’m looking forward to it. I only played them at minor and we had the bragging rights for a few weeks after that so hopefully there’ll be the same result.
You big monster, Aido. If you do to them at senior level what you did to them at minor in ’08, we’ll be half way there. And that’s before our other Kerryman gets cranked up.
The Irish Examiner have a wonderful shot of Sheamie soaring above Aidan Walsh to claim the leather in their match report. Plus, try as they might to pretend they’re a national paper, the report is written from a Cork perspective so that makes it even nicer to digest. Yum, yum. They also have plenty of post-match quotes.
There are obviously loads of more reports from other sources to feast on if you want to, such as RTÉ, GAA.ie (which has a cracking photo of brothers-in-arms Donie Vaughan and Ger Cafferkey), Setanta, Hogan Stand and Eircom SportsHub (match report, post-match comments from James Horan and the very gracious Conor Counihan and Ciaran Whelan’s analysis – can’t wait to see Ewan McKenna’s updated ‘Power Rankings’ in due course too). And that’s before the locals go to print.
For now, though, there are hangovers to be nursed and matches to be watched all over again. And dreams to be dreamed. Yes, folks, we’re back in that territory again this morning.
Have a great Bank Holiday.
I didn’t see the sunday game or any tv last night/yesterday, was hayes on tv3?
Wow, i still can’t believe that performance, really well done lads, never in my life as proud to be a Mayo man.
I will have to keep up the “an beal bocht” though as it’s worked all year. Kerry will destroy us, they are a far better team, if we get within 10 pts of them we will have done all right.
Fair play WJ, great service at this hour of the morning for your constituents.
I too had that warm glow of satisfaction this morning on waking, but my over whelming feeling is that it will mean nothing if we dont now beat Kerry and then win Sam.
I know we had a poor start to the year and the last 3 years have been largely, despite some joy in Salthill last year, shite, but there is no reason we now shouldnt be targeting Sam. forget about building, and a young team and the future, many great great things are achieved in a managers first year in charge, there is alot of energy and belief that might not be there again. You have to take that opportunity when it comes and we need to take it.
I purposely went in early yesterday to watch the kerry limerick match, I was bullish about our chances against Cork and seeing Kerry have no reason to not have the same opinion of them, we can beat them. Remember Kerry in a semi are a completely different proposition than a final. Other teams besides us have been caught by Kerry in finals but many have caught them in quarters and semis.
What also helps is they again will be underestimating us, yes, they’ll make all the right noises but deep down they wont rate us. The bulk of this team is made up of lads who took the field against us in 2006, shook the jersey and went home with Sam. I guarantee that wont happen this time but they wont believe that until there is 15 minutes to go, the fat is in the fire and the game isnt won.
Have no doubt lads, there is alot of pressure on Kerry, their fans now believe they are in a final. P Shea was right those years ago when he said Kerry people are fucking animals. What he meant by it was that they will eat their own when it comes to their football team not performing. Those Kerry lads are celebrities when they are on the team, but with that comes a price. Underperform or lose and for the rest of the year when out and about your fellow countymen wont be long telling you about it.
Thats more pressure on them for this particular game than on us, we need to use that. But to use it we have to give ourselves a chance and be in the game at the business end of it. Kerry are capable of steamrolling us in the first 25 minutes, just as we are capable of hanging in there and beating them
So if we are still in it at the business end of the game, it will put savage pressure on them, We have to put them in the position and be very smart right from the start.
I think we should consider, if Ronan Mc Garrity is fit, having him man marking Kieran Donaghy.
Donaghy hasnt been great this year but Kerry WILL start by hitting high ball into the FF line, Jack O’Connor beat us twice with high ball in, so we’d be fools not to assume thats what they will do again. Even with Donaghy not at his best, he will catch ball, and break ball and layoff ball. Hard to stop that legally,as Cork showed when they were moving the ball fast in the middle of the field in the first 20 minutes yesterday (taking off Noel O’Leary really helped swing the game for us). McG would be well able to contain Donaghy I think, even if he was only able to get us through the first half that would do it.
I felt we should have done it in 2006 and we could have made a game of it.
Anyway I’m sure plenty more will be written about this between now and then. We HAVE to focus on winning Sam now, enjoy yesterday, park it and move on. Believe we can do this, because I have no doubt in my mind that we can. think of the feeling then if you think this morning is good. We’re only around 150 minutes away from it, with the right focus, same workrate and heart and of course a bit of luck we can do it.
So I’m off into Midleton now with the Green and red car flag still flying, to get the Examiner. How sweet it is to live in the Rebel County today! Is Paddy Power open today? Might collect my winnings on the way in ? 🙂
Having ahem …been lukewarm to put it mildly about our chances I feel a bit of an interloper this morning.I for one read the tea leafs wrong.
McGee is no lover of Mayo, never was never will be. I find this comment from him typical mealy mouthed. “Mayo often do well in quarter-finals or semi-finals”
Surely that should be seen as what all teams want to do? Very few teams actually achieve this, Mayo do. Four finals since 1996 and Dublin have none, Kildare have one but who nationally in the media has higher street cred?
A few years ago McGee said this about a Mayo defeat “Mayo have done what they have done over the last 50 years…come to Croke Park and flattered to deceive.” So Eugene in the words of of Willie Shakespeare from Stratford on Avon….f*** off.
Des Cahill is another begrudging person in regards Mayo. On the radio on Saturday he read out a mealy mouthed smart assed text comment about Mayo and Limerick. In fairness to John Maughan he didn’t let it slip and stood for us. Cahill is seduced by the Kildares and Dublins of this world.
James Horan rightly has damped down our expectations. Playing Kerry we will go in with nothing to lose. Lets enjoy our moment and our Resurrection. Nobody is harder on Mayo football than Mayo people…we therefore don’t need smart alecs like the article penned in last Friday nights rag Herald putting in the boot by so called writers who would get a nose bleed if they strayed west of Leixlip.
Lets cherish the moment, lets not beat ourselves up and lets give thanks to the PEOPLE of Mayo who championed James Horan NOT the county board who would have gone another direction until they smelled the wind and backed the people’s choice. This site and the Spailpin among others deserve credit for championing James. Well done men.
All the kerry bucks were smiing like they’s just got the cream yesterday, well watch the highlights lads, its there for us in 3 weeks. Here we go…..
great day yesterday, just shows with a bit if hard work anything is possible…
We haven’t a hope against Kerry, we will be hammered by the kingdom as per and then the whole country will be coming out with almost cliche ” typical Mayo” all the good work yesterday will be forgotten about and just put down to Cork having a bad day and missing Goulding. Kerry will destroy us, we are not good enough.
LOOK, CREDIT IS DUE TO THE MAYO FOOTBALLERS FOR THERE FIRST CLASS DISPLAY AGAINST CORK. YES WE HAVE BEEN HARD ON THEM EVER SINCE THE LONDON GAME. NOW WE NEED TO GET BEHIND THEM AND GIVE THEM EVERY SUPPORT WE CAN. THIS MAYO TEAM ARE WELL CAPABLE OF BEATING KERRY AND THERE IS NO REASON THEY CANT WIN THE LONG AWAITED SAM. ALL THEY NEED IS TO BELIEVE IN THEM SELVES, AND PLAY WITH THE CONFIDENCES AND MATCH THE PHYSICAL PLAY THAT WE EXPECT FROM KERRY. ” CAN WE DO IT YES WE CAN” ALL THE VERY BEST TO MAYO AND I HOPE THAT THEY DONT SIT BACK AND BREAK ALL OUR HEARTS AGAIN.
What a game, great win, Real Dogs of war stuff. Mayo looked really hungry for it yesterday. hopefully we can kick on and improve for the kerry match, we will have to if we are to beat them. Could not believe what i was hearing on the sunday game last night, Spillane praising us? he is just being a cute kerry hoor trying to big us up before the kerry match, expect more of this shite over the next 3 weeks.
Can empathise with your state of mind & body. As an exile in primrose and blue country I feel a bit proud this morn. We dont need to backbite just yet, just take all the plaudits that are coming our way. Give the lads all the praise and respect they are entitled to today. J H is as cool as they come and his backroom boys are just as important. Seer how James Nallen ran to Robert H as he was about to kick out a ball in first half after we lost 4 or 5 in a row.
Anyone know where the full game can be watched again online for those of us who were there and probably missed things you would pick up on tv. If it is not available would someone consider putting it up on Youtube or maybe even through this site – hopefully it wouldn’t break any copyright rules if it is not available anywhere else.
One thing we don’t need is the bandwagoners jumping on now that we are winning. I have seen a few ‘it means nothing if we don’t beat Kerry/win sam’ comments which I don’t think are helpful.
It’s Horan’s first year in charge, he’s building a squad and we have an average team age of 24 with a load of quality young players coming through. Even if we lose to Kerry this is just the beginning, the next 4 or 5 years could be great but people need to keep the expectations for 2011 where they were before yesterday so that we can go into the Kerry game with ‘nothing to lose’ like we did yesterday.
Hi lads anyone know if match is being repeated on Setanta. its not on schedule for taping. On yeah …….what a beautiful day. ha ha ha.
Declan was looking for the match as well. Setanta at 4.40pm tomorrow was the first showing I could find. TV3 don’t have it on their player
positives —— almost everything- heart,courage,fight,belief – this has got to be put down to the change in management.
not too many bad wides either
negatives—- they are for another day 🙂
yesterday was one of the greatest Mayo days at Croke Park and I chose it to bring the young lad for 1st time ever and now Mayo have another fan 🙂
i hope there is at least 1 more of those performances in us
Maigh Eo Abu
What a day, what a performance, don’t really care so much about the result. They played a good game, stood up when asked questions in the first half, played controlled football in the second and never let up when the finish line in sight, if they had lost I would have been just as proud. I am a proud Mayo man today. The win just made it all the sweeter.
I think we should forget about building for the future and just go for it now, live in the present, give it our best shot and if it comes up short so be it, not much you can do if you meet a better team. If not Sam might be winging its way west.
All we can ask is that they give it their best on the day, make themselves proud, from No 1 to the kit man and all in between.
Up Mayo
The one thing that impressed me the most was McLauglins reaction to scoring the goal. He just turned on his heels and sprinted back up the pitch. He practically pushed his team mate out of the way. Focus my boys-FOCUS
What a great day in Croke Park yesterday. On the way up from Mayo I was very disappointed to see how few fellow travellers we had. We should support our team through high and low expectations. Pat Spillane took the biscuit last night, saying it was no surprise!!! Surely when a “junk status” team beats the All Ireland and League champions, it has to be at least a little surprising. All the so called pundits, including our own on the local papers, confidently gave Cork to win.
It was a great day yesterday. Fantastic, well done to all involved.
Spillane is a twisted sad whingey blind miserable begrudging Kerry arsehole!!!
Could 2011 be the year to end the famine? I have a strange feeling it very well could!! 😀 If you believe, you achieve people – lets get behind the boys and show them the same belief that they showed us yesterday! Maigh Eo Abú!!
Am I right in saying this feels a bit different. This team are writing their own headlines. Maybe its rubbish but feels like we can beat Kerry, we can win Sam. And why not. Why the Fuck not. Let’s go for it lads. Fuck the past. Fed up with it. This team are good enough. No superstars just a team on a mission.
AS FAR BACK AS I CAN REMEMBER THAT FOOL SPILLANE HAS BEEN VERY ANTI MAYO. I JUST HOPE WE PROVE OURSELVES ON THE PITCH AND RISE ABOVE HIM AND THE OTHER BIGIOT BROLLY. OOOOOOOOHO THE GREEN AN RED OF MAYO.
Must say thanks to the media including RTE and even Paddy Power for writing us off since the draw for the Q/F was made. We could never have won yesterday without you. Brolly and Spillane deserve a special mention. Its imperative now that the talk switches to a classic final looming on the horizon between Kerry and Dublin/Tyrone. This will help us no end in our semi final. Great to hear that O’Se buck from Kerry yesterday saying they had done their bit against Limerick and were preparing for Cork next. Exactly what we need. On a serious note, news just in from Reuters saying that Moodys has down graded Pat Spillane as a pundit from “Junk Status” to “Gob Shite status”. Joe Brolly is downgraded from “Shite Hawk status” to “wipe the floor status”. Kevin Mcstay remains a “silent partner” in the “yes mens association”.
As for the semi final with Kerry. Our finals in 2004 and 2006 were lost in the dressing room. We were beaten before we took to the field. Afraid of them. Too much respect. Kerry have been found out several times in the last 10 years by the likes of Armagh, Tyrone and Down just last year. The hungrier team should win this semi. A county trying to end a 60 year famine versus a county that doesn’t know the meaning of the word famine. Which County wants it more?. No contest really. Kerry are nothing special. Remember the semi final of 1996 when we stood up to them for once. Enough of that now. Lets look forward to the dream final in September between Kerry and Tyrone/Dublin. Cant wait for that.
There is a gobshite called spillane, to be honest not much of a man’
A kerry joke he is for sure and with it a slippery hoor.
Put speal-anne into a barrel and tell him to piss in the corner.
At last Mayo have turned a corner and have left behind the misery of Sligo / Longford 2010. I put my hands up and declare that I did not expect them to win and I would have been very happy with a good performance full of honesty and pride. But boy this was special!
What about the Kerry match? How good are Kerry? Well as always we must presume they are very good – they rarely are anything other than that. However, it would be a huge mistake for us to over-estimate them. We need to have a realistic appraisal of their strengths and weaknesses. (Horan did brilliantly in this regard!)
One thing is for sure – we absolutely must restrict the supply of ball to their forwards. If we do that then we will win (I cant believe I just said that!) – if not they will murder us as oft times before. And that is not to run down our backs – they are as honest and hardworking as you could ask for but in fairness the Kerry forwards are unreal when they get the supply.
However, I think it is quite possible to overcome Maher and Sheehan and I think our half forwards could cause problems for the Kerry half backs and stop them setting up attacks. Top class forwards are f*** all good if they havent got the ball. This is the key to the game in my opinion and I think we could well pull this off. I am far more confident today than I was before yesterday – and with good reason. Up to yesterday I hoped we had a team capable of competing at a high level – today I KNOW we have and I am one delighted and proud Mayoman.
Pride restored! Thanks lads – ye have brightened up considerably the most miserable of summers.
Now that there is a lot of excitement about the mayo team. can i suggest that we have a brand new anthem for all 30k odd fans to roar on the day. it goes to the tune off the johnny cash song. try it for your self i think this would really stir up our team and send the kerry men into the hills.
WE FELL INTO THE RING OF FOOTBALL FROM MAYO
THERE WAS NO WAY OUT.
THEY WERE ALL GO GO,GO,GO. WE HAD TO TAKE COVER IN THE RING OF KERRY,
FROM THE RING OF MAYO, THE RING OF MAYO.
The best performance by a mayo team that Ive seen in 40 years, against dublin in the semi 5 years back we had a good day but gave kerry too much respect as we had a habit of doing when reaching croker……….yesterday , however every man in that team showed belief and fight and werte in no way overawed…..there was an hour of class football there,,,less hand passing and more accurate kicking, letting the ball do the work and good to watch………..cork on the otherhand reverted to short (energy sapping) handpassing and thats what made them tired (nothing to do with 2 hard years on the road)…the constant pressure from mayo left them with no option . That was by far the best football ive ever seen by the men in green and red and Yes they are capable of beating kerry and the rest if they play like that………kerry cant cope with a team thats in their faces and if mayo put it up to them like they did to cork yesterday then sam is for the taking……….140 minutes more of what we seen yesterday will lay 60 years to rest………..Well done lads and the management, you made all of us mayo people abroad very,very proud again.Thanks.
Left the house at 5.30am. Climbed the reek. Went to Croke Park. Hugged some strangers. That is all.
Great win for mayo from a cork fan.
Now lets do the same again against kerry !
Digits I think that is my favorite post EVER 🙂
The “song” five or so posts above is what makes us a laughing stock through out the country. Lets stick to the football.
Kerry will be delighted with the result from our match. I remember meeting a few Kerry fans in in NZ ’06 who told me they celebrated our semi win more than their own as it was a guaranteed all-ireland.
Hold up “ontheroad” your taking yourself to serious. just to remind you, its because of the quality of our football style we became the laughing stock. lighting up.
No no no no no no no , please no, leave the songs till the day we have that cup back in Castlebar. We’ve done the songs, the t-shirts, the tears,.
Support in numbers is needed, i agree with that and bring the flags and the roars but no silly songs and daft notions. Please please, lets do this right.
A worry for Mayo is the club matches next weekend are due to go ahead.we shoud be wrapping the lads up in cotton wool not sending them out to battle even one injury will reduce our chances big time against kerrY ..(A motivational tool for J Horan) If anyone heard Tomas O Shea after the beat limerick last Sunday. which was before the Mayo Cork Match he said they were glad to Have the Limerick game out of the way and they could now focus on Cork..Wel Tomas you go right ahead and focus on Cork you go right ahead
Spot on Sean.We have had 60yrs of Songs,shite and dodgy coloured sheep without the main protaganist.Winter is long for any budding Stock,Aiken,or indeed fukin Waterman!!
Alot of people reckon that Cork had a severly weakened forward line against Mayo. Anyone notice that the players who took part in the match v Mayo scored 2-19 of the 2-20 the previous week against Down?
i am not a kerry fan and i wish mayo all the very best. i can see kerry putting a stamp on this game very early, which will be a disaster for mayo. once kerry achieve this from there vast experience, then the mayo team are defeated. the mayo team unless theve have changed are not able to cope with this,
anyway this is my verdict and i hope i”m proven wrong.
Good man John Joe (sound like another Mayo management deliberate)..whatever about the Kerry ‘stamp’ Mayo will come like this blog…FREEPOST!!!