Mayo’s Connacht U17 Championship campaign continued in a positive vein this evening. In a high-scoring encounter at James Stephens Park in Ballina, Seán Deane’s charges made it three wins from three outings as they overcame Sligo by 2-21 to 3-10.
This latest win secures Mayo’s place in the knockout stages of the provincial Championship. They’re guaranteed at least a place in the semi-final but can go one better and qualify directly for the final if they beat Galway next weekend in their final round-robin match.
For the third week in a row I was unable to catch the U17s in action myself as once again I was on a cross-country drive when the match was on. This means I can’t say a whole load more about this evening’s game, although I gather that Ronan Clarke and Niall Hurley once again played puck in the forward line for us.
As I neared the city on my drive from the west tonight, the ‘Final Whistle’ podcast that Mike Finnerty recorded after this evening’s game, in which he chatted with Nigel Reape, dropped into my Patreon feed. It’s an excellent, informative listen and will provide club members with all the detail they need on this evening’s match and on how the team are going more generally this year.
Well done to the lads on tonight’s great result – now it’s onwards and upwards for the clash against Galway this night week.
Anyone know the story when it comes to the All Ireland series at u17. ?
Do the 4 provincial winners go straight to the All Ireland semi finals ?
Or is there 1/4’s and the provincial runner ups join in ?
https://mayogaa.com/news-detail/10075278/
1/4 finals on the 18th June.
Semis on the 2nd July.
Final on the 23rd July.
Doesn’t specifically mention the provincial runner ups qualifying for the quarters but you’d have to assume it couldn’t possibly be anything else.
Thanks TsuDhoNim
@TsuDhoNim.i presume the fixture for 4th v 5th shouldn’t be on the list or am I missing something?
If you mean on the list specifically for the Mayo side? No. These fixtures have been up since the start of the league and haven’t been updated to account for what’s possible for our lads now. Roscommon have lost 2 and drawn 1, Leitrim have lost 1 and drawn 1, Sligo have lost 2 while Galway have won 2 so even if we lose our final game against Galway next week giving us 3 wins and 1 loss we’d be guaranteed at least 2nd place to Galway no matter how the other results panned out.
If you mean in relation to the Quarter Final…. yikes, you’d hope not. I couldn’t imagine any scenario where you’d punish a team for finishing 2nd or 3rd or even 1st by giving 4th or 5th an easier route to a Quarter Final. That’d be insane.
You’d have to imagine it’s just a World Cup style 3rd 4th place playoff with nothing on the line except to give teams one last game before breaking up for a few years and pushing again at u20. It guarantees each team 5 games minimum, which is a decent number to get returns and development for the work put in with a group like this, with the winner of the 2nd 3rd semi final managing 6 games total including the final.
1st goes straight to the final..Mayo/Galway
2nd and 3rd plays a play off to play 1st place
Im not sure if the losers of connacht are out or do they play an AI quarter final
Judging by the Connacht GAA website, which isn’t very clear, there appears to be semi finals(plural) at the end of the month followed by A+B finals the next week . That would mean only one team eliminated at the end of the round robin.
@TsuDhoNim.i was referring to the fixture on the link you posted it gives a date for 4th place team v 5th place team but game is down for the same day as the semi finals so I’d say it’s a mistake. On another note sligo are making a game of this in the 2nd half. 9_6 behind on tg4
Whoever tops the minor group is straight into the connacht final. 2nd v 3rd play to decide who joins them. 4th v 5th is a shield final. Loser of the connacht final also goes into the All Ireland quarter finals. That’s my understanding anyway!
Not sure where you’re seeing the plural semi finals @Albanyend?
https://connachtgaa.ie/fixtures-results/
(You’ll have to manually filter to “Connacht GAA Minor Championship” as they don’t appear to have any URL parameters available to link to it directly)
Semi final is on Friday 27th with 2nd place playing 3rd.
Connacht GAA Minor Football Championship 2022 Cup Final is on Friday 3rd June with the winner of the semi final playing the top team from the group.
Connacht GAA Minor Football Championship 2022 Shield Final takes place on 3rd June as well with 4th and 5th (the teams that missed out on a semi final or final) getting a 5th game too before breaking up for the year. You’d normally think of this as a wooden spoon match but with any two of Roscommon, Sligo or Leitrim filling those spots it should still be a cracking game.
Can’t find anything on the GAA site or any of the provincial sites detailing who qualifies for the All Ireland quarter finals or how. You’d have to imagine it’ll be provincial winners and losers, as has happened in the past and would logically produce the best results, but very odd that isn’t specified anywhere explicitly where a quick Google can turn it up and give details on if it’s an open draw or set predetermined matchups.
Based on previous years winner of league straight into Connacht Final. Second and third play in semi final with the winner getting into connacht final. Both teams that qualify for final are also guaranteed a place in all Ireland quarter finals. Winner will play a loser from another province and loser will play a winner from another province.
That was interesting @Just a thought. Hadn’t remembered this specific format before but it appears to be a perfect match for the 2019 setup. Funnily enough one where we won Connacht after winning a semi final.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2019_All-Ireland_Minor_Football_Championship
The ’18 championship breakdown details that the teams are on 3 year rotating cycles for semi finals so draws wouldn’t be required. Wasn’t sure what might happen after the covid interruptions in 2020 but last years looks to have matched 2018 matchups so looks like we’d be matching the pattern of the ’19 championship again.
So most likely:
Winner Connacht vs Runner Up Leinster (vs Winner Ulster or Runner Up Munster in semi).
Winner Leinster vs Runner Up Connacht (vs Winner Munster or Runner Up Ulster in semi).
It looks like there’s a few future senior quality players in this group, in particular forwards.
If Mayo don’t have the resources to develop the full group to u20 maybe it’s about time to think ‘development panel’ for the obvious standouts.
You have three years of development to 20.
We have too many players even in 2022 reaching age 20 with them not being particularly athletic above norms.
I think last nights game proved that there is only one real big difference in the top teams v the also rans , Cork were every bit as good as kerry till the s&c started to show in last 20mins or dare i say it financially backed counties v those who have only a fraction of their resources . Cork management did very well tactically , curtailed cliffords influence , set up very good defensive structure till they ran out of gas , powters role was key .
Crazy how we can never set up a comfortable working defence like that with an actual plan .
Sean – why would Cork be a team that have only ‘a fraction of the resources’? They are probably the most powerful county in the country. The question is why haven’t ‘they’ delivered on that since 2010? And, even at that, wouldn’t we like to be in a position where our last All Ireland win was 2010? Don’t forget also they are U17 and U20 champs from two or three years back.
Why , I dunno but they don’t . I’d guess it’s a lot to do with hurling been number one in Cork .
Watching that cork v Kerry and the under 20 now , has the use of the elbow become acceptable?
@catcol: The refurbishment of the Pairc down in Cork has been a bit of a drain on their funds, from what I hear. Certainly both the footballers and hurlers are going through unusually long drought periods. There also seems to be a very fractious relationship between their county panels and the county board in recent times.
Sure, it would be great to have won Sam a decade ago, but it’s only ourselves to blame that we didn’t. Cork have plenty of underage successes without having linked it all together at senior. Football being second fiddle down there can’t have helped, losing the likes of Aidan Walsh to the hurlers etc.
That canavan buckeen , my god he’s some footballer .(Tyrone beat Kerry under 20 semi final )
Sean Burke, Tyrone v Kerry
Amazing how Kerry haven’t even reached an All Ireland final at U21 or U20 level since 2008, despite an unprecedented run of minor success.
Ruairí Canavan looks a much better finisher than his older brother.
Tyrone were impressive, really tigerish tackling and once again, Kerry wilted in the face of it. The Ulster men really have their number, by the looks of things. Someone’s coaching well up there.
The funny thing is, I don’t think there’s necessarily a huge gap between Mayo and Tyrone footballers in terms of ability. But they seem to have thrown off their mental baggage and seldom fail to rise to the big occasion. They also seldom leak preventable goals.
I think there’s an obvious physical gap at least at u20. There was one at senior also, Padraig Hampsey is the prototype Tyrone build.
He won’t win any 1k metre time trials but he’s powerfully built but still fast over 20 metres.
We’re blasting stamina work into lads and it’s all too slow twitch once we try and make them explosive seniors.
Is that really the case JP? I would say we’ve loads of “fast twitch” players on the senior team. Padraig Hampsey wouldn’t strike me as one of those either. He’s a tough physical corner back but struggled with Tommy Conroy’s pace last September.
Cavan well on top of Donegal here. A win for them would guarantee at least 1 preliminary qualifier.
Donegal no great shakes today, irrespective of the two late goals. Would fancy either Monaghan or Derry to take them if they played like that again.
I don’t suppose our manager will pay any heed to the success of the long ball by both teams in the donegal cavan game
Would I be correct in saying that we will know all the provincial final pairings by this time next week , will the draw for the qualifiers take place next Monday or at a later date ?
I think that’s right, Sean. As far as I know, the draw is on tomorrow week, possibly on Morning Ireland.
Of course Tipperary could put a spanner in the works, if that happens what teams would be in that draw, mayo Tyrone armagh Louth, anyone else?
@wide ball, I think we’ve a handful of quick players. We thought Hampsey would struggke with Tommys pace, Hampsey stayed with him on a footrace along the endline in the first half, granted Tommy had the ball, he usually burns defenders.
JP – I remember a few occasions in the second half when Tommy burned his man for pace. Fairly sure it was Hampsey.
I think the ability to produce fast, athletic players is the biggest reason we’ve been thereabouts in All Ireland finals/semi finals over the last decade.
At the moment I would say Mullin, Durcan, McLaughlin, Ruane and Conroy are among the fastest around in their positions. Keegan and Kevin McLoughlin would have been in that category. James Carr has the pace/power to beat most defenders too.
Anyone manage to catch the team announced for this evening?
Spotted the tweet alright but the MayoGAA.com site seems to be throwing 500 errors at the moment.
Finally resolved for me.
Mahedy back in for Conway the only change listed for tonight.
Looking forward to this one. Could be a cracker if we can hold up around the middle.