There are many ways a team can lose an All-Ireland, as well we know. But when a team performs well below its potential and makes basic errors from start to finish, then defeat is guaranteed. And that’s what happened us today.
First off, though, it’s only right and proper to salute Tyrone on their All-Ireland victory. They were the better and far more composed outfit for most of the seventy minutes and they fully deserved their five-point win over us. Congrats to them on their well-merited Sam Maguire success.
From our perspective, though, we have to recognise that our error-strewn performance made Tyrone’s task far easier than it should have been. We gifted the ball to them repeatedly in the first half – most of their turnovers came via this route – and then we missed a penalty that would have put us back in front, following which we lost our composure completely, butchering chance after chance for scores that could have kept us in the hunt.
It had the feeling of a home game as we strolled down the Drumcondra Road in the bright afternoon sunshine. Most of the colour was of the Green and Red variety and the same was true inside the half-full Croke Park where we outnumbered them by at least 60:40.
We made one change before throw-in, with Oisín Mullin, as expected, lining out in place of Enda Hession.
We started very brightly. Tommy Conroy won the first ball in and swung it over with just 16 seconds on the clock. We got the next score too, with Ryan O’Donoghue popping over a close-in free after Kevin McLoughlin was fouled.
It was the perfect start for us. It gave us an ideal platform to go at them in a serious way but our failure to do this was just the first of a series of failures on our part in this game.
On the 8th minute, they were back level and four minutes later they took the lead for the first time. A few minutes after that we made a mess of the first goal chance that appeared for us, with Bryan Walsh seeing his shot blocked after which Conor Loftus kicked at it in only a half-hearted way.
Tyrone took a one-point lead into the water break, the contest at this stage conforming to the pre-match expectation that it would be tight and cagey.
We were all-square when our second goal chance appeared. The ball into Aidan O’Shea from Ryan O’Donoghue was superb, as was Aidan’s fetch but a shot he should never have taken was blocked. Tyrone went back up the field and pointed. This time it was a lead they’d never lose thereafter.
By the half-hour mark, Tyrone were three up and we were starting to bail water. Morgan belted over a ’45 to put them three clear but this came from a glorious goal chance that Tyrone missed. McCurry was in a great position and could have gathered possession but he shot soccer-style and Robbie stuck out a leg to divert it behind.
Another Ryan free cut the gap to two at the break. We’d played very poorly in the first half but I wasn’t overly concerned then, as we’d been equally bad at the same stage against both Galway and Dublin. A rousing second half and victory could well be ours.
Enda Hession came on for the second half, replacing Michael Plunkett. The intent was clear – we were going to up the gas on them as we’d done after the break in both our previous Croke Park games.
We resumed with intent too and for the first few minutes of the second half we were the ones asking all the questions. Tommy Conroy was, though, off target with a shot at goal but a better goal chance appeared soon after when we were awarded a penalty after Burns handled the ball on the ground in the midst of a goalmouth scramble.
Ryan went for height and aimed for the corner but his spot-kick was slightly overcooked and it shaved the outside of Morgan’s left post.
This was a crucial turning point in the game. Had it gone in we’d have been back in front and it was easy to imagine that we’d finally have caught fire then.
Instead, we conceded a dreadful goal at the other end five minutes later. McShane wasn’t on the field long when he got on the end of a long ball in from Meyler, getting between Oisín and Robbie to flick it to the net. Oisín’s positioning was all wrong and Robbie, perhaps sensing the danger, found himself caught in no-man’s land as McShane connected with the ball and directed it to the net.
Four down now but we still weren’t out of it. We were, though, starting to panic when chances opened up, with Bryan Walsh smashing wide from a good position when he could maybe have put it over with the hand.
Three down at the water break, we cut the gap back to two soon after. It was still there for us.
But then we conceded the second, fatal, goal. We got caught out by Morgan’s long-range restart, Kilpatrick took a superb fetch past midfield, with McKenna setting up McCurry for the palmed three-pointer.
We knew going into this final all about our past record in conceding goals and how we needed to prevent this. But this we failed to do and that, ultimately, cooked our goose today.
There was no way back for us after the second goal. Our composure now completely gone, we messed up chance after chance, as yet another final defeat hoved into view.
The changes that were crying out to be made in our misfiring attack came way too late, with James Carr not getting onto the pitch until three minutes into injury-time. It looked for all the world that we were malfunctioning off the pitch as well as on it.
The contest petered out in crushing disappointment for us. We were never going to get the goal we needed to at least give us hope and we knew this one was gone – gone like all the other ones before it – before the clock went into injury time.
Mattie Ruane’s match ended early when he got a straight red following an incident with Kilpatrick. The loss of the Breaffy man didn’t alter the result – we were already beaten by then – but it capped a miserable display all round for us in this decider.
Now’s not the time to rationalise too much about this latest final defeat. This one hurts in a different way to the others in the last decade because this time we didn’t perform at the level we needed to in order to win the game.
Why this happened is one for another day. What can be said tonight, however, is that we’ve just blown the best chance of the lot to win the bloody thing and it’s hard to know if or when such a good opportunity will come our way again.
Mayo: Robbie Hennelly (0-1, a free); Padraig O’Hora, Lee Keegan (0-1), Michael Plunkett; Paddy Durcan (0-1), Stephen Coen (0-1), Oisín Mullin; Mattie Ruane, Conor Loftus; Diarmuid O’Connor, Aidan O’Shea, Bryan Walsh; Kevin McLoughlin (0-1), Tommy Conroy (0-2), Ryan O’Donoghue (0-8, seven frees). Subs: Enda Hession for Plunkett, Jordan Flynn for O’Hora, Darren Coen for Walsh, Aiden Orme for Loftus, James Carr for McLoughlin.
Who was our MOTM against Tyrone? Pick your top three performers
- Lee Keegan (39%, 1,299 Votes)
- Ryan O'Donoghue (17%, 563 Votes)
- Stephen Coen (15%, 500 Votes)
- Tommy Conroy (5%, 168 Votes)
- Paddy Durcan (5%, 167 Votes)
- Padraig O'Hora (4%, 124 Votes)
- Robbie Hennelly (3%, 95 Votes)
- Kevin McLoughlin (3%, 88 Votes)
- Oisin Mullin (2%, 71 Votes)
- Aidan O'Shea (2%, 65 Votes)
- Conor Loftus (1%, 33 Votes)
- Aiden Orme (1%, 31 Votes)
- Matthew Ruane (1%, 26 Votes)
- Diarmuid O'Connor (1%, 24 Votes)
- James Carr (1%, 23 Votes)
- Enda Hession (1%, 21 Votes)
- Darren Coen (0%, 13 Votes)
- Michael Plunkett (0%, 9 Votes)
- Jordan Flynn (0%, 9 Votes)
- Bryan Walsh (0%, 8 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,681
Loading ...
Can’t read any more. Twas a poor enough performance but bloody hard to swallow, again. I’m sad for us… just us Mayo folk who wish with all our heart to cross the winning line in first place. I know it will come and it’ll be sweet when it does. But these losses are shite.
Well done Tyrone…you thoroughly deserved your win. Fair play to them. Thanks to our lads for such a ride… I’m hurting for you and all of us just now. Hang in there. Mayo heart…always. Maigheo go deo.
Thanks Willie Joe.
As a Galwayman who pops in now and again I have to say I fully believed today would be your day…
I never saw as much support here in Tuam for ye..
The last sentence above is very true, today was a glorious chance, but like us all Mayo will come back, but there will be a lot of soul searching over the winter from players but definitely management.
This one very hard to take.
Tyrone good team not not a great team. Went long periods in the second half without scoring (26 minutes at one point).
But we missed far too many chances. Missing four goal chances won’t win you any games.
Lee was an absolute warrior but the game passed by too many.
They kept trying but just not clinical enough.
Really missed Cillian today. The wides were a killer. Loftus has played well all year and kept trying but Christ, he hit so many wides. Not the only one, to be fair
Ah look, we’ll come again but tonight really feels like they’ve missed the best opportunity of all and it’s hard to see when they’re going to get as good a one as any.
It doesn’t get easier.
Fair play to our entire panel, players, full squad & background team, another fabulous year of football & how blessed are us mayo folks to get such great days out for semi finals & finals year in year out. Cheers to them all & chin up folks, there’s always next year! ?
No complaints here WJ.
Beaten by a better team.
Their backs were outstanding, putting our forwards under pressure, leading to turnovers, poor shots from us and wides.
In contrast their attackers got the better of our backs.
Perhaps we beat a Dublin team in sharp decline and fooled ourselves once again with the terrible hope.
No complaints today. Beaten by the best team. This was our best chance in many years. We can’t expect to make a final every year. Hard to know when the famine will end. Its definitely the hope that kills you. My father whose in his mid 80s this morning said that this is one of his last chances to see mayo win Sam. Hard to disagree with him..Will we ever learn from our mistakes?
They’ve only themselves to blame on this occasion. The chances prestel themselves but they didn’t take them…simple.
Thanks to people like Olive Kerrigan, Catcol and Louis Gunnigan who were trying to get me a ticket.
Wasn’t at the game today. It’s been a great weekend.
Will cap it off tomorrow hopefully kicking football with future Mayo footballers.
Everyone, get home, go to bed 🙂 Tomorrow the sun rises.
Confidence sapped, best take players off, didn’t happen andcyet could still have. Mayo will be back, from another Tuam star!
Let’s all face it, why is the semi final always the best game played by Mayo teams, only for the same old traits to emerge in the final.
It’s 11 defeats in a row going back over 32 years.
We may never ever see this win, I expected to be in Castlebar for the homecoming.
Something wrong when the players are not finely tuned for the final today.
I prefer not to say what I really think.
To put it more bluntly Mayo88, it’s even worse…….13 non-wins in 13 x AIF matches…..Your second last point makes sense but you’d have to ask, if that’s true how the hell did it happen to be ?
Cannot see why O Hora was taken off
When our midfielders and half forward line didnt score that speaks for itself. As usual JH putting on a sub in injury time just shows he has learnt nothing. I wont even talk about the captain. I feel sorry for Keegan, McLoughlin for the effort and work they did today I feel gutted at the way we lost but hats of to Tyrone they don’t carry passengers.
Really didn’t see our midfield getting wiped out so badly. Ruane and loftus especially both had stinkers.
Even more so when you think they were matching up against a couple of no names that most GAA fans had barely ever heard of. Tyrone number 9 was very good I thought.
The lack of composure up front was awful. Conroy is good but every score he gets is very physically taxing. Usually slashed wildly over the bar with 3 men hanging out of him. That kind of football is not sustainable in all Ireland finals and predictably dried up in the second half. There’s few “easy” points created, Tapovers a la Dean Rock and others with Dublin because of the build up play not being good enough to create those chances in space. It’s all 100 mile an hour stuff in front of goal.
Bryan Walsh slashing a ball wide from 8 yards out when a simple fisted point would have been fine, only for canavan to show him how it was done a few min later was just the perfect example of the difference in the end.
Ultimately it is the goals that have killed us again.
Tyrone had 3 goal chances and put 2 away.
We have had 4 chances and put none away.
I was banging on all week about minding the house at all times. That first goal of McShanes was such a poor one to concede. Sickening
WJ, your match report above is an absolute credit to you. It’s an accurate, honest, no holes barred reflection of the game. How you could produce that within a few hours amazes me.
Agree that, why this happened is for another day.
Hope other contributers think twice before they post tonight, with emotionally and alcohol fuelled comments. Let’s dissect the game rationally like real supporters once we all calm down.
I don’t want to be harsh or disrespectful or cause any offence. But I think overall we are bottlers when it comes to playing in finals.
A bang average Tyrone team who simple took their goal chances beat us.
I ain’t gonna mention any players individually for criticism but only Coen, Keegan and ROD turned up today.
I think the line lost it too changes should have been sooner/quicker.
Very disappointing but we gifted Tyrone their fourth title.
In the words of the Looney Toons, that’s all folks!!!
We may never see it. We had nobody to win the ball and kick it over.
If Wicklow ever make the final, I think, they will hope to play Mayo.
How many chances do we need. Ref very favourable to us in the first half, missed two goals, two more chances in the 2nd… Bad wides. It was there….
It’s so hard to take. There will be departures… Other teams are coming… Underage is weak… Maybe things are gone too close in management…. Is it time for a ruthless outsider to come in….
Something has to change… Heartbroken
This ranks with 1997 as the worst performance from a mayo team in an all Ireland final, how could we play so badly
Why was Padraig selected to come off ?……Thought he was having a decent enough game at that point……Maybe sideline was nervous because he was already carded…..
Better team won. End of story. No one to blame. Not even the ref. We played better in first half than we did in Galway and Dublin games. Lovely to meet so many nice people from home after the match. No doubt we will be back. Keep the blog going Willie Joe. Tiochaigh ar la . Maigheo Abu.
Gone through alot of emotions, since match. Anger, denial, pints. Pints not a emotion, sorry. But I know we will say again conceding goals our downfall, but to my amateur analysis it not correct, it not scoring goal. We had 4 goal chances.
#1 penalty- have to score a penalty, and while sympathy goes to Ryan. And I actually thought he had decent match. Have to score a penalty.
#2 Tommy miss. What this would have done for team. Treated all day, this would have kick started him and team.
#3 split between what was best chance Aidan or Bryan, when with Bryan, think snatched at it, and then follow up missed double whammy.
Like to add the three guys really, young, and been super impressed with them all year, and hopefully they go on to play for mayo with distinction for years to come.
#4 Aidan miss, imagine if this when in, while this guy has been our spiritual leader for 10 years, again another final goes by him. Took the shot for goal, but if I was a bulldozer, then I would bulldoze.
Think James, had lack of movement on sideline, but on saying that. But we got no bounce from bench. And they got super return from bench.
Absolutely disgusting to see the abuse our captain Aidan is getting on Twitter tonight. It’s the number one trend in Ireland at the moment. Keyboard warriors abusing an amateur sportsman who tried his best today.
Beyond awful to see that kind of crap. Why can’t people just lay off him?
Larry. Twitter is a sewer. Delete
Tyrone had more composure, well done to them. I think man for man maybe they are better. Certainly better game plan. The hard bit for us were we had some good chances especially for goals. We probably had 4 or goal chances, one sent over for a point Bryan and Conor between them, AOS telegraphed his one and Tommy in 2nd half could have gone another solo as well as penalty chance. Both their goals were brilliantly executed especially 2nd one. Penalty was a turning point. Still all said they were better overall with a few missed goal chances of their own. Management had an off day too. Maybe pressure got to several players, Tyrone definitely more steely in their application.
Larry Duff, hope Aidan and you stay off twitter. He seem to be a scapegoat for all Mayo failures. That not the case. Warrior, leader. But was left on field, and while getting on ball near the end, of game, it was in his own 45 yard line, where he made little impact. Think Management should have taken him off, at 45/50 min mark. But on saying that, sub did not give any really momentum.
A few things that were evident in 1st half.
Mullin was not fit.
Matchups didn’t work, should Hession have started on McCurry ?
McShane goal very similar to Bernard Brogan in 2013 final.
Why were 2 guys left on so long when they had to be taken off on 50 minutes?
A few guys from the same club didn’t perform all year, I watched this closely at the Dublin game, yet they were selected at corner back and 2 in half forward line today.
Somebody pointed this out earlier this evening, the Mayo half forwards were very weak.
Mayo man in the Midlands
These lads have given us incredible service and a year of enjoyment especially beating Dublin. Every team has a below par day and unfortunately ours came in the all Ireland final. Young team who will be back, need to learn from today and move on. There will be very few retirements and if we can get Cillian, Eoghan, Harry and doc back and keep Oisin here we will be a force to be reckoned with next year. The dream lives on. Today was Tyrone’s day but ours will come too.
“Life a journey, not a destination” Ralph someone said that. But what a journey we been on for 10 years. Memories flashing back, Kevin McG goal vs Cork to start it off. The hammering of Galway in Salthill. Hammering of Donegal in quarterfinals. The beating of the Dubs this year. Cillian equalising point vs Dublin in all Ireland. Running thru the Rossie in quarterfinals replay. While I might that one year that we beat everyone, for all these great days. We still very lucky. Does not feel it today, but still very lucky
Full rebuild job needed.
Mayo88, while Mullin might not be 100%, would have gone with James Horan with starting him. We needed him on pitch, especially with Eoigain missing. That not to say agree with James sideline tactics today. James had 5/10 day
Mayo had a terrible case of the wideditis today. Tyrones shooters on the other hand were fantastic!! We looked like we had a lot of baggage, we looked overcooked. We had more chances than Tyrone , we had six goal chances, we had them on the rack for the first 20 mins of that 2nd half and took only 15% of our chances. Tyrone players seemed much more natural and assured when they came on the ball and they played with intelligence i.e their two goals. Cillian O Connor was well missed today. I don’t think it’s a case of not showing up. It’s a case of lack of quality scoring forwards. I can’t fault them for effort. The only fault today was poor shot selection and diabolical shooting. Unfortunately we couldn’t pull it out of the fire today when it was definitely there for the taking. We need to develop better forwards and players with greater scoring ability. Simple as that!!! We need at least three quality forwards. That is not something that you can just make happen. We need to develop young lads to be attack minded forwards who can take their scores especially when a game is in the melting pot and the pressure is red hot! It has the main reason why we have not won a final since 1951. Just an awful day at the office.
I believe we lost simply because Tyrone know how to win final, we only know how to loose finals.
But it has been a great year, pity the heartbreak finish.
There will be soul searching for next few months both with players and particularly on our sideline.
I fear we will not be in this situation again for some time.
Full rebuild job needed??. Bit harsh, we have blooded good 19,20, to 23 year olds this year. That stand toe to toe with what o other team that have aspiration of winning AI. While we have 4 guys over 30, on a goalie
As ordinary as we had been Robbie knocked one over after the missed penalty to get us within a point. There was plenty of time left and we had a bit of momentum. We were missing chances but at least we were still in it.
That Mcshane goal will haunt me. We all were aware of the danger he would possess.
We had to be more vigilant. The penalty miss was a setback but Mcshanes goal killed us from a straightforward high ball.
Now we’re cursed. It’s a dark day for Mayo people, not just for Mayo football. It feels like we have lost a war that has been raging since ’89. 13 finals and no success…13? This must be unique in the world in any type of competitive environment? We were unlucky in a couple of those finals, ’96 game 1 and ’16 game 1. But the hurt has been done. The psychological damage on this group and the former groups of players (and on us as Mayo people) must at this stage be a real thing. This is a sort of PTSD that we are suffering. It’s a real trauma. We need to look inward as a people, maybe it’s where the answers lie. And we need to heal the collective Mayo psyche. Unfortunately I don’t we will ever get to the promised land otherwise.
Exact same scoreline as 2020 final.
Where is this goal scoring threat that Horan mentioned back in 2912 ?
Time for ruthlessness this winter. When you’re presented with a glorious once in a blue moon opportunity to finally bury your demons and you squander it, how the hell can we say we’re building towards something? I’m Sorry to say but we are semi final juggernauts at best under Horan. He’s done a stalwart job to get us dreaming in the first place.
There’s no place for sentiment at this level. Look at Tyrone. Less than a year after Mickey Harte says his goodbyes and they close a 13 year drought. But who would come in and finish the job? Could we nick Jack O’ C before Kerry inevitably do? What’s Jim McGuinness up to? What would Jim Gavin do with this group of players? Ponder on that. Just throwing out names.
Surely the idea of bridging lengthy gaps, ending losing streaks and breaking the most infamous “curse” in sport would make any manager excited. 1 AI win with a Mayo team and you’ve climbed the “Everest” of coaching achievements.
If we’re going to conquer a final we have to be ruthless, we could do with a winning mentality.
Apologies but I have not read any of previous posts.
I met a former All Ireland hurling winner yesterday’s and he said that it might not be the team that plays the best that wins but the team the makes the least mistakes…
Best team won on the day
Some people here are saying it will come, I don’t know if it will, a friend of mine died last week, he was born in November 1951, died September 2021, Nothing. I was born 1977, will I ever see then win it, I am starting to doubt it. 2015 I saw Mayo storm back against Dublin, get level and the players started celebrating,…. let that sink in, celebrating getting getting level. I knew there and then they would not beat Diblin that year, nor any year after. Mentally / emotionally not strong enough to do it, players breaking every year, getting sent off, black carded, taking wrong shots, wrong pass etc. It always a Mayo player, never the opisition, who cracks, weak mentally, not able to deal with the stress, same today…..Don’t get me wrong I love this team, just ask my wife, she reckons more that her, but tonight I dispare, and I dispare for a long time to come.
Lack of experience told on the young Mayo players today. But as poor and all as they were, posession-wise, they had Tyrone on the rack in the third quarter. A bit more composure, they’d have won it. Best advice for penalty kicker – pick your spot – don’t change your mind, or over think it.
I felt like once Tyrone got 3 points up in the first half the game was over. We never looked like winning after that. Too many lads looked sluggish and heavy legged, even normally athletic players like Durcan and Ruane.
It was promising to see Orme bright on at the end. What age is he?
A 6 ft 3 fullback would be a useful addition to the team next year too.
Thirteen finals. Wtf! We need to have a bit of a Roy Keane attitude about us. Spain hammer us (Ireland) in the Euros and our fans are singing at the end of a game. Roy was having none of it. Mayo produce some of the best footballing talent in the country year in year out but we still keep losing. Get angry people, question Horan, question everyone and ask why we don’t have the winning mentality. Does everyone really want us to look on the bright side & congratulate ourselves for an unexpected Connacht title in 2029 when we’ve lost final no. 15? Aido has given great service but he didn’t show up & should have been taken off. Keegan legend!!
Beaten by an an average Tyrone team. That’s a fact. We didn’t show up. I’m beyond worried about Mayo football now. Not matter who we play against, no matter how good a team we have, you just get the sense we’re never gonna get over the line. No excuses today. We had ample chances. It was a collective collapse, bar a couple of Mayo warriors.
We make All Ireland legends out of opposition players, be in Donegal, Dublin, Tyrone etc.
Tyrone were the better prepared team today full of confidence & believe,, Mayo lacked composure & believe as the game wore on having now lost one
third of all finals since 89 , To conclude I think they were properly prepared for Tyrones flow of the game today ,
Devastated but not gonna let this one ruin my winter as usual. We’ve all had a shite 18 months and finally things are looking up on that front so that’s a major plus.
Calls for a change in management are frankly ridiculous. But…. Horan does need to get a sports psychologist on board ASAP ala someone like Caroline Currid: denying you have a psychological weakness doesn’t mean you don’t have one. We evidently do and like an alcoholic, the first step is admitting you have a problem – we have a mental strength problem in finals and fold too easily. This needs to be rectified before we can win Sam. It’s no coincidence folks that our best all Ireland performance came while Niamh Fitzpatrick was in the back room team as sports psychologist in 2017.
Secondly I’ve always been a big fan of Aido’s but it was painfully obvious today that his style of play does not marry with Horan ball. That is also probably why we had such a good second half against Dublin when aido was subbed off. Our team had a tactic and everyone played to it. Anytime aido got the ball today he held it up too much. We have to be honest here, I love him, class footballer but his style of play does not suit our teams style of play, simple as. Nothing to do with his ability or him as a person – people who attack an amateur footballer online are the scum of the earth. Let’s be honest with ourselves though about what we want tactically
Tyrone game plan was no surprise. We need a more structured defensive set up. Another flicked goal a la Brogan. Then another Dublin type finish with ball palmed to the net. We still had enough chances of our own to win but our finishing was horrendous. A really disappointing day after allowing ourselves a bit of belief that this was the year.
Tyrone played the Covid card brilliantly keeping Kerry 5 weeks without a game and us 4 weeks. We were definitely off the boil and never got going. Really hard to take this one as we did not do ourselves justice. Where to from here??
With all due respects, Liberal, and you are a more knowledgeable football person than me, that is a strong Tyrone team who are capable of adapting play to suit different oppositions (Kerry, Mayo).
They beat Kerry and I think they’d have beaten Dublin too if they played them.
I think they’re in the mix for the title next year too – who would you fancy ahead of them? Maybe another Ulster team. Donegal are in the wings. Kerry might get it together and maybe not. I don’t see Dublin being ready.
Given our decent performances earlier, I believe key factors in our loss and misfiring management today were:
1) playing a counterattacking team (we hadn’t banked on that this year; we often struggle with this; our young players mightn’t have lots of experience with this. It was a curve ball for us). We got the jitters over the game.
2) Cillian’s loss, or the absence of another dangerous forward. Cillian’s loss told. We hadn’t reckoned on this earlier in year.
Those are not excuses. We lost fair and square but I’d say they were factors in our misfiring compared to Connacht Final and AISF.
Were not properly prepared for Tyrone open football
releasing the ball fast & taking their scores ,great to watch if you were a Tyrone fan,
To bed Bogman and sleep it off and then wake up in the morning and have 2 seconds of normality until the disappointment hits again.
So disappointed, hard believe. Feels like a dream/nightmare.
I’m not advocating that we change managers James Horan has brought us a long way and has made us very competitive but when he eventually decides to step down I think we need a manager that has actually won Sam a few times to take over someone that can go into the dressing room and say lads this is exactly how You do it. It will never happen but I’d love to see Jack O’Connor or Jim Gavin in charge of Mayo. We’ll probably beat Tyrone in next years semi final only to fall to Kerry in the final again. Im glad we weren’t playing Kerry today cos they would wipe the floor with it that was a very ordinary Tyrone team and yet the cleaned us at midfield and scored two goals. Imagine what David Moran, Clifford and O Se would do to us.
I used to worry about Oisin mullin going to Australia, now I wouldn’t blame him he is a young man with a chance to become a professional athlete plus he might win something out there
Whatever about jim gavin, you have to be joking about jack O’Connor glory days. A man who won titles when GAA was in a different era. He’s shown to be tactically inept in the modern game. A man who left Kildare high and dry when there was a sniff of the Kerry job. No you’re alright thanks, I’d rather have someone who has only the best interests of Mayo GAA at heart – James Horan
I’ll try not to be too harsh here but how is it Mayo never learn from their defeats? It’s fascinating in a morbid way.
For example – How many players took absolutely ridiculous shots in the 2nd half today? It’s happened in every final I’ve seen Mayo in.
Now my question to Horan is – are you coaching that or are you allowing it?
It’s baffling to me.
What worry me is that I still think Dublin and Kerry are better than both mayo and Tyrone, this was a great opportunity for us but we didn’t take are chances on the day
It feels like the Donegal final again
WJ, thanks as ever for the time and effort you put in to the blog. It’s an amazing facility/community/therapy or whatever best describes it, all the more wonderful considering it is for free. Not too many comments on the wrong side, a pity you have to police that but I guess emotions are raw.
Having had a few hours sleep, two things are forefront in my mind:
1) Tyrone’s unwavering belief in their system.
2) Our inability to mix a running game with quick foot passing to transition.
Looking to next year, the question has to be, is the current set up good enough to deliver us an All Ireland? That is not a question I intend answering here tonight, but that has to be the debate and the root and branch analysis starts there.
Off the field what areas need to improve?
Are the best 40 players in the county involved in the panel?
Are James Horan and his back room team the best to a) bring the best players to their maximum potential; and
b) the best management tactically to deliver on the big occasions?
Is everything in place to provide the psychological help needed for the players?
Does strength and conditioning need a fresh face?
More intelligent people than me can frame the questions but you understand the gist of it. This isn’t the blame game, we need to coldly analyse what we do to alter our losing pattern. If we sleepwalk into next year expecting a different result off the same approach well that’s the definition of…
Have to agree with Swallow Swoops above. Tyrone are top quality outfit and had stars all over today; they had a hard road this year and beat everyone in their path. Tyrone didnt let Mayo play, got their tactics right and executed better & were betyer team by some distsnce. No complaints, need to give them full credit.
All is broken. Its horrible. I know we all (or most of us) feel it tonight.
Out thought on the sideline
Out fought on it
Disappointing but we move on
Can’t wait for the season ticket renewal , FBD and league and a normal year
Glorydays. We did have a manager that won all Ireland’s with another county.
O’Mahoney managed us. Went and won all Ireland’s with Galway. Came back to us and that didn’t really finish up too well.
But we did look off the boil today. Ryan, Lee and Steven Coen were very good.
A couple of others played okay but it was an off day for 8 or 9 of the lads.
The sideline didn’t seem to believe in their bench today.
I thought the likes of James Carr could have been brought on with 25 minutes to go.
I don’t know if we won a ball in the air all day. We just seemed flat for some reason.
It’s going to be in incredibly hard for some of the players to commit to another rigorous training regime again in a few months after today.
I cannot understand how Lee Keegan can consistently come up with the goods and so many others seem off the boil.
As poor as we played, if we had taken just 2 of our goal chances, that’s all we needed.
I actually thought the ref had a great game and was very fair today.
Error strewn, on the sideline and on the pitch.. When will we ever learn.. how many times have we conceded Goals like that today in All Ireland finals? Another thing that cost us today was the absence of Cillian.. who injured himself playing Clare earlier in the year, of course young Eoghan McLoughlin was out due to injury in the Dublin match…. But how many Mayo player’s are out due to injury in training?.. Too many, and it hasn’t been confined to 2021, it’s been an ongoing problem., dosent seem to happen the other top teams half as much as ourselves. Tyrone by far the best team won today, and the best managed team as well, but we could easily have been so much better ourselves, .. We made the same mistakes Kerry made v Tyrone 2 weeks ago,.. Lee Keegan by far the best player Mayo ever had, and number of others who turn up for All Ireland finals. I would also include players like Cillian, who wasn’t playing today, Kevin McLoughlin, Paddy Durcan and Stephen Coen in that ilk.. We have to dispence with sentiment, and be cold, object and ruthless.. Too much of the same thing, that was wrong in previous All Ireland finals was wrong again today, and it shouldn’t have been, and should have been getting it right today!
Well done Tyrone, less than 3 weeks ago your squad were riddled with covid 19 !! and in 14 days you wipe the floor with Kerry and then Mayo..
Meanwhile Mayo manage to complete 13 All Ireland Finals without a win.
Willie joe your first paragraph sums up today’s result.
Curse What curse !!!!!
I’m sorry; but today was embarrassing,
Outside of the exceptional Keegan and some other good performances we are just miles away:
I heard a lot of talk about feeling sorry for players.
Not no more. If we really want to win we need to think
About where we are. Tyrone are ok so lets not talk them up.
Cork, Meath, Kerry, Donegal, Dublin and now
Tyrone. We should be embarrassed tis evening,
We have to change mindset And except more
I think I’m more disappointed by the performance as opposed to the loss if that makes any sense at all, because a usual Mayo performance would have been enough to win today.
We are all so much invested in this that I think we all deserve some answers as to what actually happened there today.
We need an explanation otherwise we are all just making total fools of ourselves searching for answers.
Saying stuff like “Tyrone were the better team” or “the lads had an off day” just doesn’t cut it anymore.
Having a collective off day bar three players points to a much bigger issue.
Something happened there today that needs to be explained, but of course we will never be given the real answers, as a matter of fact will anyone even ask the hard hitting questions.
Winning is about here and now when the opportunity presents itself, forget next year, that’s cobs wallop.
We have the backroom team that most counties could only dream about, huge support, but we clearly do not have a proper tactician on the books, and until we address this issue we are at nothing.
Give me a good tactician before paying a sports physiologist because clearly that is a waste of money.
We had two weeks to come up with a plan to defeat Tyrone and it was evident from the get go that there was no tweaking of tactics or plan to open Tyrone up and when goal opportunities came our way we fluffed them.
The dogs in the street knew how Tyrone were going to play, so I’m sorry but it’s just not good enough to say “we had an off day”.
We are doing our best at turning all this into a self fulfilling prophecy, perhaps we have already.
Agree with vast majority of all comments above, especially WJs summary. Just not good enough. It makes a refreshing difference to the moronic comments of “mayo gaa banter group”. The players fought their hearts out, but the difference was was out forwards could not score enough. Two majestic pieces of football by Tyrone were enough to beat us and I’m absolutely fucking gutted. Mayo will hopefully work on our (woefully bad) weaknesses and come back with grim determination and anger next year to win it. No bad referees, dubs have all the advantages etc, we just gotta eradicate the errors and come back again to win the fucking thing
And they will
Tyrone have been a – or maybe the – revelation of the 2021 Championship. (I might include Armagh in the ‘revelation’ category this year too though they didn’t advance as far).
They are good, athletic, adaptable footballers and their system really works for them. I think they are a very strong team.
My feeling is that the only teams capable of beating them right now are Dublin at their best or maybe a Donegal.
Their system is that robust and marry to that the skilful footballers they have to operate around that system.
Before being too harsh on Mayo, please consider that.
Styles go a long way in football and can decide how things run in championships.
Do we all now have to figure out how to defeat a skilful counterattacking team again and cut out the turnovers? Turnovers killed us today, I thought, as well as the goals.
Swallow swoops. This great Tyrone team could get beaten by Armagh in the first round of the Ulster Championship next year.
Lee will probably retire as will Kevin mc and Oisin is gone to oz. it looks like another re-build. It needs to be a re- build, and whoever is in charge needs to ask hard questions – what is Aidan’s role? what is Diarmuid’s role? what is Plunket’s main ability? Why do we have a half forward line that can’t score? Why was James Carr brought on 3 min into injury time? Why was Boyle sub all year and never used? If he’s not good enough, tell him! Where did Orme come from that he was going to be the player that didn’t play much all year and was going to perform in the cauldron of Croker and win it for us? We have 50+ football clubs, development squads to beat the band and we still end up with the same players in multiple finals who can’t score simple points! The Mayo supporters deserve better, there are better players but certain players are un droppable. I was there today and part from last year at all the other finals. We need to be honest, we don’t win because we don’t pick a team of winners. Lee is a winner, Ryan is a winner, Tommy is a winner but there are players there that will ensure we never win the big one. It’s time to get honest.
Swallow Swoops. The sad thing is we had known from the Kerry game about the Tyrone counter attacking capabilities. The got something like 2-9 off turnovers against Kerry.
They turned us over and scored heavily again today. We didn’t seem to learn any lesson from the Kerry game.
From play today our backs scored as much as our forwards. 4 points from the back 7 from play and 4 from the other 8 players on the pitch.
4 points from play for players 8 – 15. That will never win an all – Ireland.
In many respects our defeat today was alot like Kerry’s defeat. Fluffed goal chances.
Both games had a handy fisted point turned down for a blasted wide. Identical.
Soloing in to Tyrone arms leading to turnovers leading to Tyrone scores. Identical to the Kerry game.
We learned nothing from watching the Kerry – Tyrone semi final.
Kerry didn’t change their tactics 2 weeks ago and we didn’t change our tactics today.
It’s almost hard to fathom out.
We showed glimpses today as per second halves v Galway and Dublin but we came a cropper when it mattered, ie making the final pass or taking our chances, ie decent goal opportunities. The belief simply wasn’t there that we could do it. Amazingly, everything went right for us: The peno (deserved), and Padraig getting away with a black card offence in first half, and Tyrone missing fair few chances.
We blew it.
They had two goal chances, they took them both. Poor goals to give away but that’s our pattern. The McShane one was 2013 all over – ala Bernard Brogan.
To be fair, Tyrone tackled very cleanly because they fancied that we simply weren’t going to be able to take our long range scores outside their blanket, and they were right. They sensed our nerves. They’re certainly no world beaters and I still believe that if we reached our potential we’d have beaten them. But like Dublin, Tyrone will grow from this. I fear we may wilt even more. That’s the most frustrating thing. I think Tyrone couldn’t believe their luck today.
Puckout, 100% right
As poor as we were today…we had 15 scores against Tyrone’s 16. Unfortunately the goal count was 2 0. We had at least 4 decent goal chsnces…didn’t take any. Now we can talk about tactics until we are blue in the face but missing those chances is down to poor execution…whether this is due to the pressure of the occasion or what I don’t know. What I do know is we may not have missed Cillian up until now but he was desperately missed today.
I am beyond disappointed, obviously with the loss in a final, yet again, but even more so, with our poor performance, which was flat-we just did’nt turn up-only Lee, who was outstanding, Stephen, Ryan and Tommy stood out, with okay, but patchy performances from a few others, but we had far too many passengers. On the other hand, Tyrone gave a superb team performance, with everyone putting in a good shift-they played with far more intensity, hunger, belief and composure than we did. They put far more pressure on our players and our scores were much more hard earned, whereas they looked like scoring every time they went forward. Not just today, or this year, I have been saying this for years-we just do not put enough pressure on the ball carrier or get tight enough to them-hovering around in the general vicinity and waving arms in their direction is not good enough-contrast that with the intensity of Tyrone’s tackling and closing down. Other reasons we lost were the high number of turnovers we conceded, most of which came from poor or misplaced passes or loss of control rather than any Tyrone intervention, bad wides and some dropped short, poor decision making and lack of composure, which resulted in 4 missed goal chances, at least 2 of which were gilt-edged. We were also out fielded all over the field and hardly won any of those battles. It is so frustrating as, despite all of the above, we could have won this game and got off to a good start. We played right into Tyrone’s hands, with our build-up play in their half too slow-why, oh why didn’t we use our main asset,and run at them at pace, which did cause them problems on the rare occasions that we did. There is no doubt that the injuries had a big impact, especially Cillian, who was an enormous loss, for many reasons-he would probably have got or set up a few goals and scored the penalty(not a dig at Ryan, as he had a very good game) Also our defending for both goals was poor. But now we must look to the future. We have a very young squad, who will improve, will have Cillian, Jason and Eoghan back and, hopefully, no retirements. We need to introduce some more young players during the league and give game time to the present young fringe players and will hopefully, return with a stronger squad next season. For me, we need to unearth a strong physical reliable full-back, a tall physical midfielder and a few big physical forwards, to compliment our pacy smaller players. Sorry for the long rant, but I am just sick of defeat after defeat, in the final.
Correction to above.
7 points from play.
3 points from players 1 – 7
4 points from players 8 – 15
Players 8 – 15:
1 player scored 2 from play.
2 players scored 1 from play.
5 players didn’t score.
WJ can u please console the die hard Mayo Fans!!
I’m not going To lie, I’m f88kijg heart broken.
The only man that stood up for me was Lee Roy and he was simply amazing.
Management/big name players have a lot to think about.
We need to gel and realise we are on the edge of breaking the famine.
Please stick together and bring it home next year. It will and can be done.
Up Mayo and please don’t give up hope Mayo GAA and Fans
We’re on the edge of nothing, until we get forwards that can an score from play we’ll get all the hard luck stories you want, see post above.
Madmyorob: Quite difficult for WJ or anyone else to console us now. Why should next year be any different? Fair enough we have a young team. But our clear MOM today was Lee, a man in his early 30s who ever underperforms in a final. This year, we had beaten the Dublin juggernaut and the inevitable Kerry juggernaut had been beaten for us. What stood before us in a final was a Tyrone team of which pre match talk was that we had the upper hand. Experienced Mayo players who have been here before and a manager in his second term who was leading the team into his 4th all Ireland. And what happened today was a case of deja vu. An underperformance, the brilliance of the 2nd half performance in the Dublin game was nowhere to be seen. We were flat and for the umpteenth time, we conceded soft goals when the game was in the melting pot. Goals win games and our opposition always seem to be able to capatilise when we can’t. Massive opportunity lost today,.we can’t assume we will reach finals every year..Apologies for the lack of optimism.but that’s what 70 years of losses does to you.
They got two goals. We didn’t. End of story
A very tough one to take. Unlike some of the Dublin finals where you felt Mayo left everything out on the field. It felt like they didn’t really perform at all this time. Such a great opportunity this year with Dublin and Kerry both gone. Dubs could have players back next year. Kerry will have a new manager. A long way back.
Just woke up in the middle of the night and cannot believe Tyrone are AI champions.
Massively disappointing! I thought some of the ‘senior’ players, namely D O’ Connor, Kev Mc and A O’Shea (as per usual) didn’t stand up when it mattered. I thought ROD had a great game and showed massive character after missing the penalty! Lee Keegan was eminence as he usually is on all Ireland final day and the same can be said for S. Coen. D McHale was a massive loss (due to injury), Walsh wasn’t up to it on the day unfortunately. No major complaints though.. the best team won. Congrats to Tyrone!
Despite all this though.. one thing is certain.. we will pick ourselves up off the floor.. dust ourselves down.. and go again!! Because we may have lost.. but we are never beaten!!!! C’mon Mayo!!!!!!!!!
Never mind a young team or building for next year. These players were in a final less than 12 months ago. No Dublin no kerry. We dont lack conditioning, fitness, ability or skill. We lack composure and belief on the final day, we have it in abundance in every other game and it deserts us when Sam is up in the hogan stand. So what do we need?
Look at limerick, they contribute much of their success to their sports psychologist. It doesn’t take a genius to figure we need one and i cant believe we havent heavily invested in this with our psychological baggage on final day. So clear to see how not scoring in a final to date weighs so heavy on o shea. Our muscle memory only knows standing devasted as another team lifts sam, this has to be challenged and trained and it’s why we need a top class psychologist.
I love this team and thank them for all the great memories but i think this is hard to swallow given the poor performance.
@puckout nail on head.
How often, if ever have you seen a goalkeeper like niall morgan today at any level by running as much with the ball and as far out. He had no fear.
Any other team would be pressing and taking him on and make him pay for over playing.
Gees we miss a penalty, ok bad luck it happens .but then Tyrone miss next chance . Mayo score next. We could have taken it back then. Tyrone missed soft chances too. Points wise we were close until around 68. But never felt like they could get a goal.
I noticed the urgency and intensity on tyrone sideline at first water break, looked driven and focused. Mayos was too calm and relaxed . Its all ireland final day pump the players up leave it all out there . Its tyrone not kerry or dublin 15v15 not much between them on paper. Really was a great chance to win today. I honestly cant see us beating a team of Dublin or Kerrys calibre anytime soon.
Lets rebuild with youth. Break the chain with guys who have lost multi finals.its a long chain litterally goes back to 89.
Lets be honest Mayo is a big football county numbers wise and will have a decent financial backing due to interest level. Connacht is soft enough really. If we started fresh wouldnt take long to be back in final. Fans are very defensive of certain players, but my opinion it should be more about team mayo winning.
No doubt if we meet Tyrone next year we will beat them in a quarter or semi. We had a great chance and we cannot accept defeat as a county anymore because big day failures have becone our identity and i think we’ve become comfortable with it. Its a identity we embrace and wear with pride because it shows we always rise again and endure no matter how agonising the loss. Time to change that psyche and narrative.
Btw I don’t like to see people say what if cillian was playing. They beat the dubs without him and he has played in every other all ireland defeat.
Why is James Horan getting let off the hook? He fails to make the big game calls when the going gets tough on the line ? I hate to say it but Rochford was by far the better manager when it came to calling match ups, ultimately match ups and poor forwards let us down and I am gutted.
Don’t over analyse, Mayo had 4 glorious goal chances, score 1 of them we probably would have won. Score 2 of them we definitely would have won. I’m 61 now don’t believe I’ll ever see them win All Ireland at this stage just too much pressure on young lads when they get so close to end the famine. Unless Aiden packs it in, was once a legend but hey he’s no forward and maybe just make Lee captain next year as nothing seems to phase him on the big day and his attitude might just inspire the younger crop of talented players we have to treat the whole thing as a beautiful game
There is no solace in this loss, unfortunately.
We must first give Tyrone credit, for their tactical set up was spot-on, their execution was excellent (they kicked very few wides), and they tackled like tigers. Most of our key men were nullified on the day, even allowing for some sluggishness after the 4 week layoff.
As for us…
The first thing is that once again, Horan was found wanting tactically on the big day. The big press worked for five minutes at the beginning of the game, but once Tyrone readjusted tactically, we had no answer. People talked about their kickout being vulnerable but Morgan had a fantastic day, picking out his men almost at will.
The other thing is that Horan’s refusal to play a sweeper again cost up big time. They hit us time and time again with fast diagonal ball into their full forward line and we looked clueless as to how to counteract it. I reckon that ball probably accounted for 2-5 of their 2-14 yesterday.
Also, we patently learned nothing from their semi final win over Kerry. Time after time, we ran into tackles and got turned over, and at no point did we change tack. We got very little change out of our big men on the day, most of them were nullified. Only Lee, Tommy, Stephen Coen emerge with much credit.
Also thought Cillian was a huge loss in terms of composure in front of the posts. There’s no way he would have thrashed at the chance that Bryan Walsh missed in the second half, for instance. Or the goal chance that he failed to connect with in the first half.
The two (three?) goal chances cost us dearly. Even playing poorly, those goals would have forced a replay at least, and I fancy we would have played better the second time out. Tyrone took their two chances clinically, and their decision making up front was much better.
It’s also clear to me that Aidan has given sterling service to the county but his time is up. He has played in seven All-Ireland finals now and failed to make an impression in any of them. He has scored 2-3 across five matches this term, 2-2 of which came in the rout of Sligo. When we needed him around the edge of the square in the closing stages to force a goal chance, he was standing stationery in the half-forward line.
The ghost of Hennelly past also came back to haunt us. While he didn’t play badly generally, scoring a 45 and getting most of his (uncontested) kickouts away, he dithered for McShane’s goal and it cost us again. A lot of people here went overboard on his performance after the Dublin game, taking a swipe at his critics. Well, once again, he has been responsible for letting in a preventable goal in an All-Ireland final. That makes 2013, 2016 and 2021 at senior and 2008 in the minor final by my count. How many times will we persist in making the same mistake?
But we can’t put this loss on any one man, ultimately. We were dismantled, overrun, outfought. And as hard as it is to say it, once again we lost our nerve on the biggest stage.
Yes there is a curse how else could we loose this game with so many goal chances, together with a missed penalty.
Some of our players do not have the ability to kick with their weaker foot into an empty net.
Carr should have been brought on much earlier, and Swanee shouldn’t have been taken off when he started to find his feet, ok he started poorly, but nearly forced a penalty.
Also question Mullen before Hession, as he was not effective, conceded a soft goal.
Can we really complain about Brolly or Spillane after this debacle.
Another bit of culling of players necessary, make way for youth.
Retain Keegan and make him captain.
As an aside, a lot of the stuff that went on concerning ticket distribution before the game was also deeply disappointing from an administration point of view. Out of respect for the rules of the house I won’t go into details, but a lot of committed Mayo supporters ended up getting shafted in my view. Many of the people reading this blog will know what I’m referring to.
I was re-reading The Road to 51 this week, and the performance of the county board back in that area let a lot to be desired. I fear that in the seventy years since, very little has changed in that regard.
Niall Morgan alluded to the critics and doubters in Tyrone in post match interview. I’d count myself as one of those, It felt like Harte was giving him chance after chance in order to copy Cluxton. This may have been his greatest display in a Tyrone jersey. 3 points, no wides. Confident and assured coming out. In particular his kick passing from hands has improved immensely.
I was worried two weeks may not be enough time for the lads to lift themselves again for the big stage. V surprised with OHora sub and Horans persistence with O’Shea. Bit of a headscratcher.
@Philor: The only curse we suffer from is a lack of composure in front of the posts.
It’s been well documented at this point that there was no funeral in Foxford the week after the All-Ireland final of 1951. Nor did any of that team ever recollect any such incident.
If we want to solve our problem, we have to get real and stop indulging childish fantasies, it makes us a laughing stock nationally.
To Cheer Owen, congratulations to Tyrone and I hope ye enjoyed your night. Logan and Dooher have proven themselves to be a very astute combo tactically and this Tyrone side will be around for a while, methinks.
I just cannot figure out was there any plan for McShane? He was not just a one-trick pony against Kerry. He has been a dangerous forward for years. Unbelieveable – he did what everybody should have known what he was capable of. Maybe there was a tactic to sort him out when he came on the pitch – it was not evident though? Tyrone were crafty – they outwitted us (and they also outwitted Kerry). There is a problem – the same mistakes are being repeated.
Some of you guys mention a lack of tactics – the sideline were caught out by the Northern street smarts and you have to say – Tyrone deserved it. As for the assholes on Twitter and Facebook – just dont lower yourself to open their loser threads. At the end of the day we have a fantastic amatuer sport and yeah some guys get perks but minimal really compared to most other sports.
Maybe we need to address our absolute hunger and our mindset and tactical nous. Nice guys just do not win – ask Tyrone. Disappointed and gutted but back for round-12 next year.
Immensely proud of the team. Look 2 years in a row. Two provincial titles and two all Ireland finals. We finally put the Dublin hoodoo behind us. The team has undergone a huge change in personel with retirements. No cillian, no MC Laughlin. Put simply if they’re on the pitch we win. Cillian scores that peno all day.long. and MC Laughlin gives us those lung bursting runs that drag the Tyrone team out of their defensive shape. Yes there were mistakes made of the sideline but we missed 3 guilt edged goal chances. Lastly my heart goes out to aidan. This year he has been immensely and the fittest he’s looked in a long time. But the rumours of an injury must’ve been true.he didn’t look himself. I also believe that he should’ve been given a go at taking the free in front of goal just to get that horrible statistic out of the way- never scored in 7 AI finals. Yes it may be a stupid decision but I just feel he needs to put that to bed Tyrone were there for the taking and what makes it all the more painful. Thank you WJ for the blog it has helped more than you know.
Whatever you think about joe brolly…and it pains me to say.. his article in the sunday independent is bang on. Tells it as it is. When will we ever learn?
I had worries re the Galway and Dublin games, it was simple.
Why a none 1st half performance
Why no close in tackling in the 1st halves, defenders standing way off their men.
Tyrone spotted a weakness in Mayo defence, the long ball killed Mayo, the marking was woeful, but this always happened under Horan in finals.
When so many goal opportunities are missed there can be no excuses. How many simple points were missed, probably 5.
This defeat is worse to take, takes me back to 1997 when so many players didn’t show up, that fight, grit, tough tackling wasn’t there.
Mayonaze was thinking of the worst the night Mayo beat the Dubs, probably thought of what happened in 2006 final.
We need a culture change. Majority of people will see this as a sucessful year. Let’s call it for what it is. A failure. Anything but an All ireland win is a failure in kerry. We need the same mentality. Forget this “they are a great bunch of lads” stuff. “We owe them nothing”. Tired of hearing this stuff. When we have sensible lads from other counties on here (cheer owen etc) bemused by our loyalty to AOS….it worries me. I will still buy my season ticket as always..but i expect things to change. It’s a two way street.
@Cheer Owen, well done to Tyrone, I like to watch Morgan coming way out the pitch, he come off the line to beat everyone to take the ball in the air, very commanding, his very very long range point v Kerry must be a record in Croker.
Well that was certainly disappointing. Hats off to Tyrone, worthy winners, and certainly the better team yesterday.
I’ll be honest and say I sometimes struggled to find the top 3 players in a game for the polls, due to there usually being a few to pick from but this time it was a lot easier given so many of ours did not perform. Credit again must be given to Tyrone for a lot of that as they clearly had done their homework on how to Marshall their opposite numbers and in doing so, kept a lot of our players anonymous for most of the game.
Leeroy, Stephen Coen and Ryan were probably our best players.
Some stats that were quite telling:
We scored 7 from 20 attempts from play (35% conversion rate) while Tyrone got 10 from 18 (55%) according to @gaa_statsman on Twitter.
That’s pretty much the story of it. You can’t expect to win any game with that amount of misses and you certainly won’t win an All-Ireland like that.
Congrats again to Cheer Owen and the Tyrone fans, all of whom were very gracious in victory. Certain other County fans could certainly learn a lot from them and how they behave themselves.
We’ll dust ourselves off and go again next year.
Went over every scenario in my head pre match.. many of them had us winning – but sadly a scenario where we played the same pedestrian, laboured, error ridden football, and were beaten by the far more solid and driven team absolutely struck me as a very live possibility
In the cold light of day – when looking back – we were very poor for most of the Dublin game, saved by a last 10 minute push (that carried us into extra time) against a team who were a write off this year, if we’re honest. We needed to improve vastly to beat Tyrone and sadly it was very much same old story
I still think we probably overachieved if anything this year. Without O’Connor we didn’t have near the same attacking threat (will we ever, ever remedy this failing?), I don’t think we have a clue of our best team, and we’re a long way off the great side of 2012-2017.
But what a feckin chance to win an all ireland in a strange year. This wasn’t Dublin or Kerry in their pomp , and as dominant as Tyrone were on the day they still left the door open on several occasions – however we never ever seized any initiative
Outside of Keegan, Donoghue (first half), and Stephen coen (make this fine man captain for 2022 please), no-one else even gave a 7/10 performance, although I’d never fault the likes of paddy durcan for effort.
Sideline once again had a bad day in a final (Rochford still remains our only commendable performer in this regard), this can’t be just glossed over imo
Leaving Walsh and loftus on for so long (don’t think we’ll see much of either in 2022 – what do fionn mcdonagh and james Carr need to do?), moving Mullen back to full back where he patently doesn’t look at all comfortable (if he was bailing water at half time, why not put Harry – a feckin all star corner back – back to mind the house?), another year and some more questionable decisions
And as for on the field, where is the quick direct ball in to our inside line on counter attacks? I feel so bad for Ryan O’Donoghue today. Made some mighty runs inside to create one on ones with his man just begging for quick direct service. But as ever our default MO out the field is to just carry possession when we win it, and slow down the play or better yet run into traffic (did we watch the Kerry semi at all?). This nonsense never happened under Donie Buckley’s watch
Same old failings in a final again. Concede 2 goals (Rochford conceded only 1 each in 2016 replay and 2017 – and the two conceded in drawn game 16 were OGs – at least the man had something resembling a defensive plan) , zero impact off bench, nothing from 5 of the 6 starting forwards, O’Shea peripheral again (his all Ireland return is just not up to it I’m afraid and I don’t think him or kev mc will ever start a champ game again)
We won’t get a chance like this again. Kerry and Dublin will only improve, and as for Tyrone? Talk about humble in victory (which seems to very much come from the top down – Logan and Dooher strike me as great guys) they may well have just won a McKenna cup going by all of their calmness and humility! These players won’t take too much geeing up again for a drive for 2 in a row
They were brilliant yesterday, but sadly faced such little resistance. Well deserving champions though, who came through a much tougher route including the all Ireland favourites in the semi, and three other 2022 division 1 teams, plus the reigning Ulster champions
As for mayo, you just don’t win all Irelands without great forwards and by not having anything resembling a settled team
This year presented a gift of a chance though – one that hasn’t a hope of coming again any time soon once this awful straight knockout goes away again from next year
Still, great memories of the Dublin game, still kings of Connacht and dominant promotion on first time of asking. It’s – once again – been a rollercoaster that’s for sure
Now bring on the club championship – jaypers can anyone call a winner of it at all?
Hope it’s a good winter for everyone, with restrictions lifted for once and for all, and sure wont we all be out in force again in Castlebar in January?
Maybe Santa might bring us one more marquee forward!
The dream once more lives on
My plan to get over this defeat is to immerse myself in the club this winter as long as their run lasts, Renew the season ticket and start off again going to FBD and league games that’s all you can do.
This blog is superb as always after a defeat. Intelligent and considered comments from decent fans.
It’s a contrast to the build up however where the comments were almost exclusively comprised of auld misty eyed sentimentality and happy clapping. It’s not really for me at all, but perhaps it is an insight into our psyche as a county? You wouldn’t see it in kerry or Dublin. Why should we be any different?
Hard questions need to be asked of everyone involved in Mayo gaa if we want to improve. You learn 10 times more from a defeat than victory. Why aren’t we learning these lessons?
Our panel is still not deep enough. Horan has done well to unearth some young talent but we need more. Let’s see what club championship offers. Get Ethan Henry, Ruairi Keane and a few more of those u20s in the panel next January.
Don’t know what to say about yesterday all the missed chances iam starting to believe in the curse it’s not fair picking players to abuse them online no body goes out to have a bad game and James is doing a very good job we need to rebuild and rebuild
Dunno why you’re saying to get rid of Keegan Jeff. Our best player in a final yet again. Always rises to the challenge. I just think we tend to over hype our players in the county. Our midfielders were supposed to clean Tyrone yesterday. Did any of the Mayo players catch one kickout yesterday? Hard to know where they go from here really. Defensively caught out again in one on one situations for tap ins. Exposed every year. Any team playing Mayo in a final will always be confident of victory.
Probably the most composed goal I’ve ever seen under pressure was Ciaran Tracey in the league final in ’19. Himself, Mark Moran, Towey all need a shot. Can’t understand why Fionn McDonagh isn’t there.
Right now though, it feels like no matter who we have on the team we’ll get the same outcome. Every possible manner of defeat. Beaten by every type of team imaginable.
I strongly believe we have/had the players to do it. It just doesn’t happen on the biggest day of all. It’s not from the want of trying and there’s massive honesty of effort. But the damage is done, namely, the accumulation of so many defeats that it’s hard to see it ever happening. That niggle and doubt will always be there I feel. Even if the opposition collapsed, you sense that we’d find a way to blow it. But….the thing is, the opposition never collapse. They know and sense the pressure on Mayo and this is always worth 3-4 points to them from the off. Opposotiin Managers have the easiest job in the world against us in finals, ie Just hammer home to their players that if you contain Mayo at all you’ll put them under pressure and if you don’t beat them well you’ll eventually make them beat themselves.
We’re way off an all Ireland. Yesterday was the best opportunity we had since 51. We played and were beaten by a limited Tyrone team. We had a huge number of bad performances both on and off the pitch.
Can’t see us winning one anytime soon.
So so disappointing.
The performance was horrific. Very few will be left without regrets. I didin’t think we were the best team in the country, but we had a great chance to be the best team on the day that matters. That hurts. Hard to know when or if another chance comes. There are obvious shortcomings that may not be fixable and there are no superstars that are being left out of the squad.
We start next year as probably fourth in the race. We have to hope we can get to a level where we can compete and beat the likes of Dublin, Tyrone and Kerry. A big ask. More likely we become beatable by the likes of Galway, Donegal, Monaghan and Armagh. A tricky for years ahead but still with opportunity.
Very disappointed yet again. Missing 4 goal chances and conceding the soft goal inflicted terrible psychological damage on us and gave Tyrone a massive boost. The pressure on us just built and built until we ended up playing panic-football in the last 15 minutes.
There were lots of factors that contributed to our poor performance – pressure from Tyrone, lack of enough scoring forwards, (how long is it since we got a decent return of scores from any of our forwards apart from Conroy and O Donoghue), poor performance from several players etc etc. But the big one for me was the growing self doubt that we were doomed to yet another defeat because of the missed chances.
Not sure where we go from here or that I have much appetite for any more of this.
Nearly 40 years since I had underage trials with Mayo and it was all about coaches favorites then. Sending young lads from our club now and they are coming back with the same stories of coaches favorites etc. So for those looking for change, I don’t see any evidence of it happening even though I do believe the talent is there. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Mayo lose to the same team again…MAYO!
Not acceptable giving our recent experience to collectively collapse at final hurdle yesterday. There was a lot vested in yesterday. Cannot see how Horan will do anything different if there is a next time. He’s had his chances. We beat ourselves again!
On the point of our half forwards we seem to have a history of small ball carriers. I cannot understand how in the last 20 years or so we haven’t had any big ball winning player that can win their own ball and kick it over from distance 3 or 4 times in a game. There are teams in lower divisions with great forwards but even our current underage are the same mould, small ball carriers.
When mayo were flying 10 or so years ago and our attacking half backs were the talk of football, I remember Paul Galvin saying on the Sunday game that that’s all very well but now you are crowding the forward line and no-one has space… We were depending on them so we’d no choice… Unfortunately that’s still the case. I’m not sure why Diarmuid doesn’t shoot anymore, he scored some brilliant points in CP before, but there’s a lack of confidence gone out of that line… Above everything else this needs to be looked at. In kerry they have the 2 club championships which allows players from every level to be seen, playing with and against good players. Some of kerry best players come from junior clubs…
I’m heartbroken today. I live in Galway. The whattsapps and snide comments await.. We know the drill…. But, we also know that deep down under all the hurt, we will come again..
I looked at recording of game and a few things came to mind. Where was Kieran McDonnell situated yesterday? O’Hora was hard done by. A bit like Freeman. O,Shea out taking frees around midfield when he should be in the forward line trying to catch those frees, Bryan Walsh misses were criminal. Conor Loftus just as bad. Half forward line didnt score same as against Dublin. O Shea again left on for the full game. He got a goal scoring chance and fluffed it. DOC is not a patch on his performances a few years ago. Even he couldn’t score.The great hopes (Conroy.Mullins.Plunkett. Walsh.) were shown to be overrated. And JH has not learned anything from the past Finals he was involved in. Simply my way or no way. Anyhow he will have the winter to look at this shambles of display by team yesterday .
I fully believe the talent is there. It’s there on the current panel and on previous panels. We’re every bloody bit as good as many other teams who’ve gotten over the line against us.
It angers me to hear the media say we’ve never had the scoring forwards and still don’t. That’s untrue. Cillian is the top scorer of all time scorer in championship. Andy POTY 2017. Tommy a likely All star this year.
Disastrous that we didn’t deal with McCurry yesterday. We made him look better than he is. McShane scores a goal that’s unforgiveable on our part. Yet the narrative will be, and now is, that Tyrone have class forwards whereas we don’t. I don’t believe this, but it feeds into the smothering pressure that we will always face, especially in this department.
Westisawake….if Aidan was carrying an injury he shouldn’t hsve played!! Just likr kilgannon in 89 and Flanagan in 96 or 97.
Do people realise Tyrone whipped off their stalwart Mattie Donnelly after 42 minutes to bring on McShane. Tyrone fans dont flinch and He scores 1-1. Ruthless!!
Had aidan being called ashore for Carr there would have been gasps and shock.
Dubliners are a savvy bunch but the ice cream vendors must be kicking themselves for not being near Croke Park will so many children in attendance yesterday
Onemoretime….exactly
Gutted obviously.but could sense it coming..look at Galway Dublin games again and we were very patchy…
Not the time for a witch hunt either but new talent needs to be found..
So to everyone that seems to know who should or should not be playing,I recommend ye all go to the club championship games and see what’s out there
Can’t wait for club championship personally
Oh and as for the way ticket distribution was handled…the less said the better,county board let us down badly
Was in Dublin looking for a ticket and no joy…
But it was an eye opener to see who had tickets….
Hesitation. That for me describes our performance yesterday. At times, I felt we were only a play away from tearing Tyrone open. It was fleeting though, as that final pass was slightly off, sometimes only ever so slightly off, but enough at this level to put the kibosh on the attack and meaningful forward progress, especially with the Tyrone blanket.
Lack of a kicking game also cost us. An inability to catch Tyrone on the counter with fast ball in over their press. It gals me that this morning they are All Ireland champions.
We’ve a production line of good men all being damaged.
Where’s the allure in that?
Just can’t believe how flat the performance was. For me, without a doubt our worst showing in a final since 2006. There was no purple patch, I felt a goal at any stage would’ve ignited the crowd , which also seemed flat . But that never came . Disappointed, but it’s that old familiar feeling now but it’s not a horrible loss in the way 2017 was. It’s a long time since we showed such a lack of composure in the last 15 mins. We had lost our heads then.
For me out of that starting forward line yesterday only Conroy and ODonoghue are of the required standard and ODonoghue as a half forward probably.
Time seems to be catching up with Mclaughlin,he’s been a superb player for the county.
Diarmaid needs to go back into the half forward and hopefully Cillian comes back also. Probably need to try to find a midfielder to partner Matty possibly Mullin.Also need to look at the option of Durcan playing 3rd midfielder or in the forwards he’s certainly a better option that Loftus there who butchered 1-3 worth of chances yesterday and didn’t score.
One other thing would be the lads that are not in the squad. Hanley, Akram, Irwin,Carr (bit part player).
These lads are amongst the best underage players of the last 7-8 years. Now maybe some opted out but it greatly reduces your chances of winning when a significant proportion of your top talent is not involved.
I suppose looking to the future some very hard decisions will have to me made starting with the management question. Horan has done wonderfully well to get us to 4 finals, but we now seem further away than ever. What was Boyler on the bench for all year if he was never going to be played? I wont criticise individual players, but some of the starters and subs yesterday are never going to be good enough. If Horan is there for the 2022 campaign, he will persist with these same players over and over again and will expect a different result. Personally, I think we need a change at the top and someone needs to beg Keegan and McLoughlin to stay involved. In addition the County Board needs to sort it so that Oisìn Mullin is around Mayo for years to come. What would Tyrone have won yesterday without McShane or McKenna, the 2 lads that were in Oz, nothing is my guess. They were looked after well, now we need to do the same with Oisìn.
Horan aftermath interview sums it all up for me. ‘…we will go back and learn from this…’. SORRY but we are not learning. It was unacceptable from the team and management and I’d have more hope if he acknowledged that and showed some anger. I 100% appreciate what he has brang to Mayo and thank him for that but his consistently competitive brand is no more. Bar Keegan we cannot rely on players to deliver week in week out. Personal performances and collective team& management performance swing from high to low way too much for my liking.
I was hoping Oisin Mullen would be the big difference yesterday but that didn’t happen. Maybe he wasn’t fully ready. He seemed to spend a lot of time in the first half yesterday on his own in the middle of our defence with his man well down the field. He seemed to be acting as a kind of sweeper for a time. However, when the Tyrone attacks came he seemed to be bypassed.
I think it was a mistake to put him into the FB line in the second half. His mistake for the goal was a killer. I would have put him to MF where we were struggling and where he could really get into the game.
Joe Brolly has the serrated blade well planted this morning.
There’s loads of the usual uber negative nonsense here. I guess let it have its day. I would mostly agree with pundits on forwards. I think we have enough inside men but less in the half forwards. Dublin have had Paul Howard, Paul Flynn, Diarmaid Connolly, Ciaran Kilkenny. Kerry have Paudie Clifford, Tyrone has converted defenders but some of them are very good score takers. Next year either Ryan or Cillian can come out to CHF and it strengthens that line. They targeted our midfield especially Matthew and it worked very well, either that or Matthew was well off his game. Matthew and Eoghan Mc who didn’t play are tailor made for being turned over by teams like Tyrone, they like to take the man on and Tyrone flood defend. So we need to adapt. We have loads of half forwards in the extended panel Fionn, Fergal, Mark Moran but what we needs is lads who are very adaptable and could equally be picked in the backs. Enda Hession is a star of the future in backs or forwards.
A cleanout is ridiculous, we have Cillian, Harry and maybe Doc coming back hopefully all to top form, but maybe not.
We set up in last 10 years to press teams as Dublin were the team to beat. An uber organised defense is the best way to win big games. Dublin dominance has ended, there are 4 or 5 in the frame now and Dublin will remain there abouts. Kerry are the most dangerous followed by Tyrone. Dublin have huge player numbers. James has been very good at unearthing talent but we need a few more or take existing talented players to another level.
Excellent observation diehard. For some reason Oisin seemed at sea yesterday, even before being moved to FB. If he does stay on (I’m guessing he’ll leave for Oz) he needs to be played in one position only: midfield.
I hate to admit it but Brolly is not totally wrong. Aos. an impact sub at most. A new goalie, Harrison back and a new midfielder. Will Keegan stay on?
Why do we need a new goalie? Hennelly was fine yesterday. The problem was midfield. Cleaned out all day. Ruane was a joke. Loftus not much better.
O’Shea was appalling and should have been subbed.
Keegan was phenomenal and the only Mayo player who really went out to win yesterday.
That was a very winnable game. We need to examine what happened here. They didn’t show up at all and are laughing stock again. Ridiculous how it’s going on. We need a psychologist to change the mindset. Too comfortable being losers.
Its a sad day when those of you on here use Brolly as validation for your point of view.
I suppose my biggest fear is we show up next year and day 1 of championship and Aos will be named at full forward. I am not sure we will learn from this. I just dont trust the management to make those big but obvious decisions.
@dooniverswifts…I get you re brolly. But is he wrong? Please read the article and tell me what you think?
Aiden o’se has been a brilliant servant for mayo football but he no longer has the legs for the modern game,diarmuid o’connors only contribution this year was to stick his leg out to save a free going over the end line, Conor loftus was very poor today, and yet all three of them were left on for the guts of the whole game, if players are not doing it on the pitch management cannot be afraid to take them off
“Too comfortable being losers”???? I don’t think so. Losing is painful and depressing. But losing so often in finals is a heavy burden and dismissing it’s existence, as I think many of us have done, doesn’t make it go away. The biggest factor in producing a big performance on the big day lies not in fitness or skill or tactics etc but in the head. It’s to do with belief and confidence and calmness and focus on the basis things. When you have a history like ours and you start to miss chances to put the opposition away it messes with your brain. Confidence begins to drain incrementally until you cannot even do the most basic things. Fear is the enemy and many of our lads have it lurking around in the inner workings of the brain only waiting to come up and paralyze you. If there is a curse surely it’s this.
I’m a fan of James Horan and he has handled the transition really well but by God he had a shocker on the sideline yesterday, not for the first time in a final, he froze completely. Matchups all wrong, far too late and predictable with his subs, letting Morgan run the show and also there appears now to be a clear bias towards certain clubs in his team selections.
I couldn’t help but look over at the Tyrone bench in envy, Dooher and logan the picture of humility, a backroom team of Joe mcmahon, Peter donnelly, collie Holmes all contributing (a heap of all ireland winning experience there).
I very much get the impression JH calls all the shots, he needs to beef up his backroom with guys he is willing to listen to. Rochford had mcentee and Buckley to defer to, JH seems unwilling to defer to anyone
…. Ah lads there is enough pundits and journos today giving well informed deserved, constructive criticism today across the papers without turning to Joe f’ing brolly
Mayomick2: I refuse to have any thing to do with that tabloid rag so I won’t be reading Brolly’s articles. But I bet it goes something like this: Mayo are bottlers , no forwards, there’s a celebrity culture within the team, manager is afraid to make the hard calls, no emphasis on defense, Tyrone are everything Mayo are not, yada yada yada, Am I wrong?
Still actually can’t believe what I saw with my own eyes yesterday.
Congratulations to Tyrone. Great performance (but far from brilliant), excellent composure, superb management and a winning mentality – all of which we lacked yesterday. A word too for their supporters. I’ve never had a opportunity to say this before frankly but every single one we met was lovely and they were very gracious and kind in the aftermath when they didn’t really need to be.
But you could see the pity in their eyes. And no-one wants to be pitied.
I cannot fathom, after how far we have come all, with all we experience we have, with all the bitter lessons we have learned, that we went out there yesterday and just made all of the same mistakes again, both on the pitch and off it.
I’m angry because they had such a great chance to shut up the naysayers for once and for all. They had a chance to show that this was a different team with a different mindset, like we saw against Dublin. Instead, we saw meekness and weakness and a complete lack of composure. We were found out. Where was the ruthlessness of the semi-final? Where were those nerves of steel? Where was that warrior mindset?
We’ve lost finals on the sideline before. Yesterday we saw players remain on the pitch who were actively damaging our performance. We took off one of our best performers (was it because of the knock he’d taken, or was the card? Or was it just poor decision-making from the line again? You can’t blame anyone for wondering.) What an insult to a player to introduce him 73 minutes into a game we had already lost in full time – just don’t bloody bother. Where was all this much-vaunted forward work, when we were still dropping balls short (criminal any day, but absolutely unforgivable on an AIF day?) and were unable to convert from multiple achievable scoring positions?
Yesterday was like watching a final from the 00s but far worse, because it was there for the taking and we just smashed the plate on the ground. I’m disappointed for the lads of course because no-one will feel it more than they, but I am also incredibly disappointed for us – it’s been a long road for supporters too. Over the last two weeks so many people did everything they could (and spent a fortune) to be there yesterday, many travelling from all over the world. I’m finding it very hard today to find any shred of hope to cling to because even if we did reach another final, how could you have any faith going in? I feel like an absolute fool for believing we were going to win.
This will be the hardest one of all to accept. We can’t blame the ref, we can’t point any fingers at the opposition, the blame lies squarely with ourselves.
Agree, Sipermac. We need a defensive coach alongside JH as its obvious that JH is not defensively minded with the same sad scenario repeated ad nauseum.
Anne-Marie, that sadly sums it up perfectly.
Would it be too much of a circus and unrealistic for Horan to bring Rochford in as a coach? They didn’t have the confidence or composure to just hold on to the ball and wait for openings it was all about getting our own running game going and build up the belief.
We did the same thing from word go never tried anything else. Need to vary our game a small bit, you can be sure the defensive game will be lingering around like a bad smell after Tyrone’s win.
An opposition target man who has been manufactured killed us again when the game was still possibly there. Tough pill to swallow for the winter, but we will get it back. Aidan might have to look at taking a back seat or closing the curtain, pity, really thought he would do it yesterday.
Well put Anne-Marie. Well summed up.
A totally self inflicted defeat and the only ones who deserve any sympathy are Lee Keegan and a couple of others but that’s all.
Folks on here can talk all they want about this player and that player but it doesn’t matter what players we have, we just do not have the head for it when it comes to getting over the line because the psyche has been damaged and possibly beyond repair and now that damage has gone outside the white line as well.
The sight of the Green and Red is worth a good six points to the opposition, all I think of now when I see it is failure.
I think we need a total reset, a rebranding including a brand new jersey because I cannot even look at the jersey any longer.
These guys give up a lot all year round , no social life to speak of , in the media glare if they put a foot wrong , all for the love of the game . I’ve nothing but respect for all players who give us joy & entertainment for very little reward. So to people who are abusing players on social media while hiding behind computer screens ask yourself have you ever had an offday , so how would ye like to be abused up & down the internet . The players commitment cant be questioned they always give their all they are hurting themselves today , so think on that before you hurl your vitriol at them for trying their best . Remember these lads have loved ones who dont need to hear horrible untrue things said about a family member that has nothing to do with football. A football fan
Yes, diehard. We are comfortable being losers. Absolutely cannot get over the line. There was no reason we couldn’t win that game yesterday. Absolutely none. Tyrone were well worth their win, but they’re no world beaters. We had every opportunity and scuppered it.
I think Horan needs to freshen up the backroom team – keep McDonald but need someone like Aidan o’rourke on board – the guy is tactically class. It’s plain as day we need a good sports psychologist on board too.
I expect Boyle will retire, hopefully keegan won’t, Mayo co. Board need to do all in their power to keep Oisin Mullen in the country. I agree with an earlier poster he needs to be in midfield. Aidan O’Shea to be on the bench from now on
Well said Anne-Marie. You have it spot on. It is the supporters I feel sorry for not the players. Yesterday was a shocking display. Only 1997 comes close and yet as in 97 the game was still there to be won going into the last quarter. However the complete loss of composure in our shooting was a throwback to the bad old days. Only Stephen Coen and Lee Keegan could be happy with their performance although I would not be unduly harsh with Ryan apart from the dreadful penalty miss.
I had really thought from the Galway and Dublin games that James had learned how to manage the game from the sideline but yesterday it was back to the bad days of Dublin in 13 and Kerry in 14. Bringing on James Carr in the 74th minute was a farce. Could someone tell me what role Diarmuid O’Connor is meant to be playing. He was far to deep and a long way from been able to use his strengths to damage the opposition or make an impact on the scoreboard.
As to where we go from here I just don’t know. Dublin will be back as strong as ever and Kerry must be kicking themselves because they should have beaten Tyrone and then would have had another easy final against us. Tyrone have won this year and will only get stronger as well. Even Galway might get their act together. I don’t know what the format for next year is yet but one thing for sure the path back to a final will be longer and harder then the last two years. .
Puckout -you are spot on there ..Onemoretime I have seen this first hand in the 60s it is still there in this Mayo team now.. Well said Revellino. Something has to be done about this , i dont know how it can be done where people who know football can say their piece PO box or other address, then sorted by a panel of football people . it is beyond the joke stage now. Did a mayo player field a ball yesterday, the basics of football ,fielding the ball is the number one thing missing in mayo football . Why does Diarmud not go for points now. this guy used to score points for fun at one time, coaching perhaps. Tyrone are average at best dont try and boost them up ,the first goal was schoolboy stuff at best , Was Mcshane coached by brogan, no goals and Mayo will beat any of them. Mayo and Kerry used to have the best fielders in another life. Yesterday Tyrone won that game with 4 mayo players playing up to standard, i am sure plenty people on here will agree 3 players should not have started yesterday against the blanket. B.T.W the screen in Ballina was good, mostly young ones there. Slan
I agree with you on that T Fagan.
Dream sleepy, we need a new goalie because when a goalie calls and comes for a high ball he has to get it, it happened before with him. Also he was 10 yards off his line for the second goal. I agree with you as regards midfield. Loftus not fit for that role.
Jr, people love having a go at Hennelly. He is not the reason we lost yesterday. Our midfield is the reason we lost.
@dooniver+swifts, did you ever consider that maybe Brolly is right and we may all be better off actually taking his criticism on board, this is all I could copy from his article:
“Time wasters. A lot of other counties would give their right arms to be here. The people of Mayo put their heart and soul into their team. And this is what they get?
A manager on the sideline making choices based on political considerations. A protected captain who does not lead and never will”
Isn’t Brolly just saying what we are all thinking, so I’m not going to criticize him for that.
Anne Marie,I believe that is the best post I have seen,you have nails our problems,I must thank Willie Joe once again because everyone wants to let steam off after a game like that,I have been following Mayo since the sixties so I am not even upset anymore
@dreamysleepynightysnoozysnooze: This is the fourth All-Ireland final in which Hennelly has gifted the opposition a preventable goal (or a penalty which led to a goal). The third one in which a high ball has been a factor in those preventable goals. The height of insanity is repeating the same mistake time after time, and spraying a few easy kick passes out to the wings doesn’t negate that fact. Neither does scoring the odd 45 (and he missed more than he scored yesterday, think it was one point he got).
I actually wonder sometimes how many more times it has to happen before it sinks in with some of the pro-Hennelly brigade. Infinitely seems to be the answer.
And no, he isn’t the sole factor in our defeat this time. But conceding a preventable goal to a defensive/counterattacking team like Tyrone is a massive body blow. I don’t believe Clarke would have conceded that sort of goal tbh.
High time we looked at blooding alternatives for the goalie position during pre-season and the league next term.
It means nothing to me, I couldn’t agree with you more on how supporters were treated and tickets distributed. When I think of some of the people who were left outside the gates yesterday I feel sick to my stomach (though in hindsight they were probably better off).
Neither our county board nor the GAA and in some cases, clubs, gave a damn about loyalty or the people who have been on the road for years or those who have given their time and energy to their clubs.
Instead they went out of their way to encourage online gambling (I honestly don’t know how anyone with an interest in Mayo football who might have a problem with gambling got through this last fortnight) and creamed off desperate fans. And for what, exactly? What use is all this money when the foundations are so dodgy?
The GAA season ticket office didn’t even have the courtesy to communicate with its most loyal fans and failed to even acknowledge emails from people who couldn’t access their season ticket accounts? The arrogance and contempt as always was breathtaking. And meanwhile corporates were given the cream of the seats in the lower stands while fans and club members were pushed out to the edges if they were lucky enough to get in at all. The kindness of others is the only reason I was inside those gates and I’ll be eternally grateful to those who looked out for me, among them a couple of posters on this blog.
We are talking about rebuilding. But look at the culture within our own county. Why would you have any faith when, for example, the position of Operations and Finance Manager – in theory a fantastic opportunity – is so unattractive that most sane people would run a mile?
After what has gone on in recent weeks, it’ll be a very long time again before I put my hand in my pocket for anything related to the GAA, bar attending club games. This year has been a line in the sand for many of us.
Some Mayo so called supporters are our downfall, anti Aidan brigade, anti Henelly, anti Horan. “Mayo supporter” behind me shouting obscenities at Aido from the start. Cop on. These guys put their heart and soul into giving you a great team to follow. We had a bad day at the office yesterday. We will be back!
@Ann-Marie: Indeed. I don’t have a dog in this fight, as I’ve been away from Ireland some time. I wanted to get back for the final but the ticket allocation to overseas clubs was cut. Que sera sera.
But I know season ticket holders who have been up in Ballybofey and down in Killarney and all spots in-between who didn’t get a ticket this time. Meanwhile, commercial enterprises seem to get as many as they want.
It’s sickening and tbh there’s an element of moral hazard here. Let’s say Mayo qualify for the final next year, what’s to say it won’t happen again? There’s no guarantee that Covid will be over then (and a biologist friend of mine is decidedly of the opinion that it won’t be, but that’s by the by).
We have some of the best supporters in the land and it’s hard to see some of them passed over like that.
Dont know what to say , still in shock at performance , shot execution yesterday was diabolical . We will regret this one for the rest of our lives , when kerry and Dublin are out of the way , ya smash it and ya grab it . Wtf happened , something seriously wrong with how we react in an all Ireland final . Darren Coen one example , savage kicker , scored an almighty point v dubs in an intense semi final and then what in God’s name was he at yesterday. Conor loftus another man at it . Nah like I say something not right with mentality, it obviously gets to them ,no matter what they say . Theres Just too much at stake and they cant handle it , cause it’s not their normal game . Diarmuid o connor looks so sad playing football for a long time now , it’s like he doesn’t enjoy it at all . Aido doesnt really add much to this team now, I dont think he fits , far too pedestrian. James carr should of got substantial time this year. Do you guys in here really believe Bryan Walsh is a better forward than james carr .
Where does mayo county football go from here , this is damaging , demoralizing. The ticket fiasco should also be discussed, the amount of mayo supporters left in the pubs in Dublin yesterday and some of the absolute balloons that were in croke park was horrible.
It means nothing to me, I’m not part of the “pro Hennelly brigade” or whatever you’re calling it. But he isn’t the reason we lost. Full stop. What’s the point in bringing up Clarke? He doesn’t play intercounty football anymore. If we’re going to point fingers at anyone, let’s start with our midfield pair. Appalling from start to finish. Barely caught a ball all day between them. The Tyrone midfield is mediocre and ran rings around us. Before the game yesterday, Matthew Ruane was being touted as a player of the year contender. Well he didn’t do anything to cement that reputation yesterday.
I’m honestly sick to the back teeth of all of this losing. We are too comfortable being runners up. It isn’t acceptable.
@ Viper, of course he is right in some of what he writes but it the glee and the venom and yes hatred in which he expresses himself with regards to all things Mayo. As if he gives 2 shites about the people of Mayo.
Fair play to Tyrone they done a good job best TEAM won
I never ever imagined in all the scenarios I played out in my mind before the match that we would not turn up. I thought those days were left behind us pre 2012. I blame management for not having them jizzed up somehow. It was going wrong in practically every line and nearly every man was having an off day at the same time bar Lee and 2/3 others. So how could it be fixed with a sub or two. There was just too much to fix. We were completely flat.
Someone said here, sorry I can’t remember who though that ‘Mayo lost to Mayo’. I agree. We lost to ourselves because it was a very winnable match.
But what is sickening me more than my own misery is the abuse our captain is getting and is going to get. We know Rob will too fall victim even though I don’t think he had a bad match. Why do people think they have a right to abuse others. Yesterday I heard from a friend of Rob’s father about the heaps of rotten mail Rob has received. It disgusted and upset me. They had to stop opening them and burn straight away. That’s what some of our players put up with. They have been brave to keep playing for as long as they have, never mind coming back to contest so many all Irelands. I feel for the whole team but esp those two because they will be made the fall guys for a team and management malfunction. That to me is more upsetting than losing All Ireland number 13.
Number 11!
Mayo team play same way every day they play. In the era where opposition are analysed it is easy for opposition teams to counteract this. Tyrone kixkouts over the top and long kicks were tactic Tyrone used to take advantage and it worked a treat..
No sign of Mcdonald on the sideline for the last 15 minutes – was there a disagreement between him and Hiran during game. He was sitting with the subs for last few minutes.
@dreamysleepynightysnoozysnooze: Your response boils down to “let’s ignore a history of conceding soft goals in several All-Ireland finals, including yesterday’s, maybe it will be better next time”. Sounds like a winning strategy.
It bothers me that you seem to want to shut down debate about this, quite honestly. In the wake of this game everything should be discussed, including the goalkeeper’s position.
And yes, I agree Mayo had several issues out the field. But if your goalie regularly leaks soft goals, you’re at nothing, especially in close games.
No I’m not saying ignore it. But you seem to think this all falls to him. You think those soft goals were all Hennelly’s fault? Once again, i come back to our midfield pair, who were awful all day. Mullin got caught for the second goal too.
It Means Nothing to Me, I am with Dreamy on this one.
David Clarke is not currently in the Mayo team. It doesn’t make any difference what he would or would not have done yesterday. He’s not on the subs’ bench. Do you think it’s best to release Rob and find a better keeper ready to come on board? Good luck with that one.
Perhaps, Rob has still more things to learn, like sometimes to take man and ball, or still sometimes, when to fist a ball away. They are doable. However, McShane’s goal had skilful execution and you could just as easily point to our full backs and other backs.
Rob Hennelly is an excellent shot stopper – I saw him make six breathtaking saves against Dublin in Croke Park in a League game in 2019. Single-handedly he saved our shame and skins that night. I saw him make a point blank save against David Clifford in the League Final in 2019. When a person has ability, you nurture and develop it, in my view, not throw him off the team.
I am bothered by this harping on about the goalkeeper when goals go in. Rob or other prominent players seem like easy targets. People say – we need to call things out, be honest and criticise.
I say – we need to look at the situation carefully, take responsibility for making a good analysis, look at the situation in the round, and then offer your critique.
Criticism shooting from the hip is not useful in my humble opinion and, on the contrary, can be very damaging.
Just to add re Robbie – he made two goal-saving stops yesterday, the first when he poked McCurry’s effort out for a ’45 in the first half and the second one a point-blank stop in the second half. As I said in the match report, I’d have more criticism of Oisín’s positioning for the goal, which was all wrong and allowed McShane in goal side of him. Robbie seems to be trying to cover for this but got caught out. Between the two of them it was but no way can the goal be put down as a ‘keeper error alone.
As the dust settles on another campaign and the rawness of the manner of yesterday’s defeat begins to ease i think we would have to consider it as a successful season albeit the ultimate prize still isn’t ours.
But going back to last spring when we were struggling to overcome mediocre div.2 teams don’t think even the most optimistic of us saw us ending up in an AI final after getting back to div.1,winning connaught, and dethroning the 6 in a row crowd. But of course we got carried away and expected more.
In the cold light of day thought especially without Cillian we were letting the heart rule the head big time. We listened to the “experts” opinions and believed them because they could not be wrong surely. As the blame and recriminations die down thought we recognise that we are at least a few players below the standard required & yes hard decisions have to be made from the sideline. Waiting and hoping things will improve is not good enough. We have the nucleus of a good team, imo there are 4 positions where we need improved performances from along with Cillian hopefully back to his best.
Let’s see what the club championship throws up and we go into battle again.
Onwards and upwards.
@dreamysleepynightysnoozysnooze: Yes, all of those goals in previous finals that I referred to were down to him. 2013- comes for a ball, fails to get a hand on it, Bernard Brogan flicks it in to the net. 2016- Fails to gather a routine ball into the square, ends up dragging Paddy Andrews for a penalty which Connolly converts. 2021- Half comes out, changes his mind half way through, is in no man’s land as McShane flicks it over him. I seem to recall that in 2008 he dropped the ball into the net in the minor replay.
I could mention other goals here but the discussion is about All-Ireland finals.
If you decide to come out for a ball as a goalie, you simply must get your hands on the ball, end of story. If you don’t and a goal is conceded, it’s the keeper’s fault for not claiming the ball. Can’t see how anyone could argue with this.
@Willie Joe: Agreed that for the second goal Mullin was partially to blame by covering the wrong side of the square, but my original comment referred to the first goal, not the second.
And I do agree that we can’t put our loss here down to any one player, as I wrote in my original comment on this thread. This was a systems’ failure. But IMO Hennelly’s track record of conceding one soft goal per final will guarantee that if he gets selected again, we won’t win the next one we take part in either.
@Swallow Swoops: Disagree with your summation of his shot stopping, would always have said Robbie’s strength was his restarts, when his confidence was up. In the NFL final Clifford hit the ball straight at him.
Also, in terms of learning, he’s 32 next spring. Chances are what you see is what you’ll get at this point.
Time to blood a younger and less error-prone keeper, if only in the FBD and NFL next season.
It Means Nothing to Me – my comment was also about the first goal. Have a re-look at it again and you’ll see what I mean about Oisin’s positioning for it. McShane outfoxed the two of them.
It’s Too Hot – I’ve just seen the comments you posted last night but which were waiting in moderation. Sometimes my intuition works! You can sling your hook after that, there’s no place here for that kind of stuff.
Have just re-watched it, and it doesn’t change my opinion. Mullin was caught out of position, however, once you decide to come out for a ball as a goalie, you must take either man or ball or preferably both. Robbie did neither. Blame is on him for that one IMO.
Doesn’t matter anyway at this stage, we’re only raking through the ashes of another failed All-Ireland bid.
We’re each entitled to our opinion, It Means Nothing to Me – as you say it doesn’t matter much either way now, another one is gone from us.
Yeah twas mullin that was more at fault in my view too
Think he was caught for a goal last year aswell
Moral of the story, a phenomenal half back or midfielder, not a full back – decision to relocate him at half time looks even more baffling when you consider we had an all star corner back left sitting on the bench
Higgins 2013 all over again
To my mind, he didn’t look as if he had recovered entirely from injury, Ciaran. That said, I hope it’s not the last of him we see in a green and red jersey (which it probably would be if he goes to Australia, as gaelic footballers are seldom as effective once the return from there, owing to the physical nature of the game).
Sadly, Mayo’s performance on Sat. reminded me of Donegal a few years ago (2014, was it?) – where they had defeated holders Dublin in the semi only to bomb against Kerry in the final. The parallels are too obvious to miss. Like nearly all GAA fans, I was rooting for Mayo to shut Tyrrone up but was worried that you’d flattered to deceive in the semi, and so it proved. Worse, that Dublin team was not in serious decline: you put to the sword a team most certainly good enough to win Sam only to fall again in the big one by failing to learn the lessons of countless heartaches. But Mayo *will win it at some stage, I’m sure of it. Dochum ghloir Mhaigh Eo!
For goal no.1 it was 2v1 to us. The 1 won. Plenty of blame to go round.
The buck stop with Horan here boys.. Mayo were predictable and Tyrone just picked them off.. What was our attacking strategy? Non existent.. I was genuinely angry leaving croker.. We deserve better than that guys.. No more of this “they owe us nothing” talk.. Horan has had his crack at it.. He only knows one way and the top teams are able to handle it. Rochford back has to happen
Few things we got wrong in my view.
MIDFIELD: quite simply out classed, Morgans kick outs beat us 9 times out of 10 and why we didn’t push up at times was beyond me. Also WHY oh WHY did we allow Morgan come out as far as he did time and time again without coming out to him. The one time we did it almost ended in an O’Shea goal .
DEFENCE: got the match ups wrong in my view, got done for not one but two goals as soon as the lads switched there was a bit more freedom for our running from deep game. Just unfortunately not at the races and stood off them a lot especially in the 1st half leading to at least 3 unnecessary points.
FORWARDS: ugh just not their day in any way shape or form, Conroy had way more time than he thought for his chance. The penalty miss didn’t help matters poor RO’D he’ll be back stronger than ever. O’Shea’s chance was a great block but ultimately he shouldn’t have shot. Someone should of kicked the ball in the net before the penalty was awarded.
Unfortunately I can’t see this team making a final for another 2 to 3 years. I hate to be negative because I was positive going into Saturday but I just feel we are not ready just yet. We put in a better shift in 2020 then we did on Saturday in my view but ultimately the same result. I hope I’m wrong and we’re back next year, but that performance on the biggest stage on our biggest day of the year was well below what we know this team was capable of and as such I can’t see them coming back after that.
Anyway I’m sad today and will be for weeks to come until we play Division 1 football again in February.
Both teams were quite similar in having powerful runners through the middle who can chip in with some scores but Mayo’s achilles heel has always been the lack of a couple of top class forwards who can score from play under pressure on the big occasion. Tyrone, unfortunately had two of them in McCurry and McShane which makes the difference. Mayo always have to chase the game in finals and they seem to run out of ideas.
Mayo are a great team and so are Tyrone. The two best teams in Ireland. It sickens me to read the “experts”. slate mayos performance. And tyrones performance. Mayo played just as well as they were let play. So did Dublin and Kerry. Effort deserves praise not bulshit.