Photo: Bancrete.com
It’s been confirmed a short while ago that next weekend’s U21 All-Ireland semi-finals will indeed be held at O’Connor Park in Tullamore. Our match against Dublin is the first to get underway that afternoon, with throw-in scheduled for 2.45pm, while the Cork/monaghan semi gets underway at 4.30pm. Both matches will also be transmitted live by TG4.
The Dublin game isn’t the second game/main event?! What the…?!
Hold on ’til I look out the window and see if the apocalypse is under way…
Ah Mayo Mark,
You’re not thinking straight.If the Dubs were on last it might be getting dark shortly after and they might never find the way home. Intend going myself and looking forward to it.Tullamore is a handy enough trip from my starting point.
Leave Dublin alone please. They have enough on their minds with the trauma of carrick on Shannon still fresh and now this latest insult of being asked to take another journey so soon after the last. Have mercy.
Let’s hope that mr solan and co are reviewing last weeks video carefully and seeing where the gaps were that almost finished them before they even started. I know we are supposedly strong up front but are dublins backs a strong area or are the another team like us with a weaker defense and hoping to out score an opponent rather than keep a clean sheet? Or should Mayo be thinking of keeping this thing very low scoring and hoping for a narrow low score win?
Class, dublin to tullomore train leaves 12:45 into tullamore at 13:38 . Really hope we get a crowd going to this , come on county board start pushin this game , mid west , social media , clubs organise coaches , u-12 teams u-14 u-16 etc etc , let’s get behind this team . It’s an all Ireland semi final such a massive deal . Hon Mayo .
Stop the moaning about the venue and get on with it.Longford and Ross not available. Portlaoise would be worse. There is no conspiracy against Mayo .The posability of Limerick in 2014 was known to our county board well in advance.
Lol , misunderstood again . I live in Dublin mr Ewing and was just looking up train times whilst reading this blog, not moaning about venue at all seems very sensible venue tbh , Tullamore is on the Westport line obviously so it could work for the other way too.
Sorry Sean
With over interest in the league now over for 2016, the long lead in to the London match, this been a double and all with Dublin involved there will most likely be a big crowd at this. I wonder will it be purchase ticket on the day with seating arrangements on a first come first serve basis?
I’d imagine that’ll be it, toe to hand, though there’ll most likely be an option to buy in advance as well. As soon as there’s some news on that front, I’ll post relevant details here.
will this be covered by season tickets ?
I’m guessing not
I doubt it, as the season ticket is (I’m nearly sure) limited to senior matches.
Very small crowd in carrick. We were also well outnumbered in a crowd of over 2000 people in Sligo. This was a Connacht final against a talked up Roscommon side played very close to home. If anything I would imagine there would be a smaller Mayo crowd making the long distance to Tullamore but I hope I’m wrong.
I’d say a fair few will travel tommyk
there is no senior game on the same weekend so easier for people like myself to get away for the day 😀
will help fill the void till the London game for many too
Maybe we might be better off to let our U21 team come in under the radar and let them do their taking on the field, as they have been doing up to now. Remember when we won the All-Ireland minor title in 2013 our senior team was taking up most of the attention and allowed the minors to concentrate on their games without any major distractions.
Maybe our players just can’t handle the hype associated with some of these big games, look what happened to Castlebar this year. I remember before the All-Ireland club final reading comments from some people talking about what Barry Moran was going to do to the Ballyboden midfield and Michael Darragh MacAuley in particular. We all know how that panned out.
The minute I read those comments I just thought to myself, will we ever learn, no matter how many times we lose big games, people still try to do their talking off the pitch. I’d say give the lads some space, let them concentrate on the game and if they come out and play to their full potential and they have no regrets in terms of their performance after the game, that’s all we can ask for. For us maybe we can let our players do their talking on the field and give them as much support as possible off it.
Good luck with that hopespringseternal?
Some of ye are gettin to be a right pain in the hole , what do ye want ! For us to not go to the game as the only talk here is to encourage people to go and support he team and if you’re suggesting that , well sure then there’s not much point to it at all . Relax man and enjoy the ride of being a class footballing county , you’d swear we were friggin Carlow/Leitrim and never get anywhere the way some of ye go on .
fully agree Sean Burke
players play for days like these and the buzz that comes with it
as an aside I was sitting behind 2 injured senior panel members in mchale park the other day
one of them had the Mayo crest as his screensaver 😀
sometimes we forget they are amateur players and basically long suffering Mayo supporters like the rest of us ! they know the losses. they have felt the pain. that undoubtedly brings added pressure compared to the likes of Dublin players. it’s just the way it is
and it will be even sweeter when they deliver
I for one love talking as much about Mayo football as I can and I dont think anyone pays a lot of heed really so I dont think the lads will feel any pressure from my ramblings.Support in any way you can..give out…praise…criticise….deck yourself in the colours…but above all just enjoy the bloody thing.It binds us as a people…gives us hope…fashions our memories…and raises our expectations.
It gives us something vital to pass on to our children.Thats the important thing.
The point I was trying to make was that what happens between the white lines on the pitch during the 70 plus minutes is all that really matters. In the last 30 years we have probably reached almost as many finals as Kerry have and they have probably won as many as we have lost. So what I’m saying is that maybe sometimes we should try to take their approach to finals, i.e. let their players do their talking on the pitch and let the other teams worry about other things. We often do the opposite thing, hype our teams up to the last, then lose and some people then spend the next 6 to 12 months or even more in some cases going on about why we lost like still talking about Limerick and Cormac Reilly etc. rather than focussing on us been five points ahead with only a few minutes left in the drawn All-Ireland semi-final and not closing out that game.
Three of the Mayo players have even talked about not blaming referees, venues etc. so it just shows that the Mayo players are even embarrassed by some of the comments by some of the Mayo supporters on social media. Seamie O’Shea, Barry Moran and Lee Keegan were the three players who talked about this in interviews, so it shows that these players have the right attitude and know that we have our future in our own hands.
So well done to our minors yesterday and our ladies today. Best of luck to our U21 team next week-end. It would be great to see them playing to their full potential. For our senior team we have plenty to look forward to for the rest of the season as well so roll on the London game!
The countdown to Tullamore begins!
Good man Trevor bump the hell out of this thread everyone , rally the troops for this one . Bookies have it evens both . The one danger man for the dubs is that o callaghan buck , watched him in o Byrne cup game dub v dcu , my gawd is he a footballer very skillful forward will need to be old fashioned tight on him imo.
Anyone know of a bus heading up to this?
I like these comments from our U21 manager Michael Solan in the Western People, that’s what you like to see a quiet confidence on display:
(Our job, being involved in Mayo, is just to make sure that we’re maximising the potential we have in our teams and maximising the resources we have available to us. I’d be confident that the footballers in Mayo are well able to compete at all levels with footballers from anywhere in the country.)
And talking about Dublin:
(They’re after coming off their third provincial title in-a-row in Leinster. They had a tight game there with Kildare, but they’ve certainly got a lot of quality in their team. Obviously, they’re a pretty dominant force now in the GAA at a lot of levels. They have three senior All-Irelands won since 2011, and they’ve won U21 titles in that time as well. So we’re under no illusions about the task that’s ahead of us. But it’s something we’ll prepare very well for and something that we’re looking forward to.)
Anne Marie – the train is not a bad option if you plan on waiting around for second game. arriving at 1.30 for 2.45 start and leaves around 7.
A very good article here in The Mayo News about our U21 manger Michael Solan, best of luck to him, his management team and the players next Saturday against Dublin:
http://www.mayonews.ie/sports/27646-john-o-mahony-and-michael-solan-master-and-apprentice