It’s football all the way this coming weekend, with three matches involving the county down for decision, all of them being played on Saturday. Two of them are crunch National League Division One fixtures against the All-Ireland champions so we’ve a fairly big day of action coming up.
Before those two matches involving tilts at the current holders of the Sam Maguire and Brendan Martin Cups respectively, the U20s are back in Leo Murphy Cup action. Their Round 2 match is against Derry (not Donegal as was reported yesterday) and it takes place at the Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence, where throw-in is 1pm on Saturday.
The U20s enjoyed a positive first start to this development league tournament yesterday when they had six point to spare over Sligo. They’ll obviously be aiming to follow that up with a victory over the young Oakleafers on Saturday, before then taking on Donegal a week later.
Next up are the women. They face a tough away assignment as they travel to Páirc Tailteann in Navan to take on reigning League and All-Ireland champions Meath. Tickets have gone on sale already for this game and the link for that is here.
This is proving a tough Division One campaign for the women. With matches against Dublin and Galway still to come, it’s not one that’s going to get any easier for them either.
What’s encouraging, though, is that although they’ve lost all three League matches they’ve played to date, they’ve all been close results and all of them could easily have gone the other way. Concession of goals has been a constant theme so far this year and, if this can be sorted, favourable results could well follow.
Then on Saturday evening, it’s the turn of the men with All-Ireland champions Kerry rolling into town to take on our lads under the lights at MacHale Park (throw-in 7.30pm). TG4 will be showing the game live but, despite this, I’d say there’s a good chance we could see a crowd of 15,000 or more at Castlebar for this one. The link for ticket purchases for the game is here.
With both counties on two League points – procured in different ways, as we’ve drawn twice while they lost one and won one – there’s an opportunity for one or other of them to push on in this Division One campaign by claiming a win on Saturday night. I wouldn’t, though, rule out another draw either. By the way, Tyrone’s Seán Hurson, who refereed last year’s All-Ireland, is the man with the whistle for this one.
There’ll be team news and more on all three of these games as we draw closer to the coming weekend.
I think it’s time for Jack Carney to st as d up now and start producing performances. He seems to be out of position and should now be tried in midfield, his natural position, or perhaps CHB.
Time to put out the best available team, with a few subs that will strengthen the team for last 15 minutes. Mayo are slow starters and need best team on second half.
Spotlight ,how exactly does he start producing performances if he is being played out of position, you never see the likes of Cillian being thrown in at corner back for example. I think you need to cut him some slack
Jack Carney was massive for kilmeena in the early part of 2022 and played league and championship for mayo all summer, then produced more sterling performances for his club on autumn and winter. I’m my opinion , what he needs, is about 6 weeks of rest to recharge the batteries and get the appetite back. It would have been better to rest him for the first 2 league games as championship time is not too far away now. No one can keep their form up every month of the month. Kerry management recognized that the Clifford’s needed some time off too.
@rober
Roscommon game is in 7 weeks.
New format doesn’t really give us the option to give players a decent rest.
For what it’s worth, I’d keep him on the bench for the Kerry game. I felt we were lacking someone of his build to come in off the bench late on against Armagh.
But I have no idea about his personality and how he’d react to this. Management are in a better place to make that decision.
About been played out of position Paddyjoejohntom, while be great been able to play everyone in natural position, the reality is that at intercounty at least 1/3 of a team be playing out of position. Look at last year, Lee and Oisin played in Full back line, at one of those possible the greatest half back of his generation, but could play well in full back line, due to need of team. Again we had numerous half back in last 10 years, that would walk onto any team in country, but only fit 3 in that position, so either move someone, or they sit on bench. Ideally you correct play him in natural position, but depends on need of team
I think Jacks best position is in midfield but in reality he would be behind Jordan, Mattie and Diarmuid in the pecking order at the moment.
In which case there is no harm in trying him in the half forward line as they have done with Jordan.
We need back up for each position and now is the time to experiment and see who can potentially play where if the need arises. Often though it is a case of playing your best 15 players and that means that some will be out of their natural position.
It feels like we have a depth to our panel this year. Our strength could be off the bench if we can avoid injuries. I was thinking last night about the defence and we have Robbie, Paddy, Eoghan Mc, Michael Plunkett and O Hora still to come back in. You could argue that they are all first choices.
Jack Carney played midfield vs Armagh from what I saw. He was wing forward vs Galway.
He’s still only 21 so I wouldn’t be worried about him. Mattie R and Jordan Flynn weren’t guaranteed starters at that age either.
If o’shea is back for Kerry that will be good for seeing how our plans for half back line look going forwards.
What’s the word on Tommy conroy, will he be available soon ?
McStay said they were targeting Kerry game for Tommy C and Durcan, so hopefully see both at some stage, but wouldn’t be expecting much from Conroy especially other than get through 10 mins safely.