Mayo GAA Discussion Thread

BPKS wrote: »

Horan says he got rid of some of the bullsh1t which surrounded Mayo, that perception of them as a bunch of fancy Dans who died their hair and wore white boots.

Is that the jist of it?

Mort thought he was the mayo team and that they could not manage with out him,when horan dropped him his ego took over and the rest is history.i think the worst bit was when the famaily released a statement after he left/got kicked out of the team

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

I said on a thread here before the replay that the best way to deal with Donaghey was to stave him of ball and make him come out the field, thus negating his infulence inside.
You starve him of ball by winning midfield.
But as it turned out Mayo were well beaten in the middle, thus the ball going into Donaghey was the problem.
Of course Horan should have done something during the game to resolve the problem.

Winning midfield would not reduce the problem as much as you think it would. Look at the stats of the Second game on Don't foul blog.
http://dontfoul.wordpress.com/2014/09/01/kerry-v-mayo-replay-2014-championship/
It is hard to get the column headings to lineup in those stats
Team Possessions Shots Shot Rate Scores Success Rate
Kerry 50 40 80% 19 48%
Mayo 42 32 76% 16 50%

Now with Mayo winning midfield (Cutting out supply):
Kerry 42 33 80% 16 48%
Mayo 50 38 76% 19 50%

With Kieran Donaghy already having shown his form in setting up a goal for James ODonoghue in the first game how can you place confidence in a tactic likely only to give us 3 more shots than Kerry? How is it even a tactic? Not having a go at you but at the labelling of this as an actual tactic by Horan. Trying to win midfield and closing down space/players is simply a standard way to play the game. (Exception being teams that leave opposition uncontested on opposition kickout)

Now look at the stats that were available to Mayo Mgmt from the Drawn game. It clearly shows that "Cutting out the supply" is not a tactic at all for dealing with Kieran Donaghy.
http://dontfoul.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/kerry-v-mayo-2014-championship/
Team Possessions Shots Shot Rate Scores Success Rate
Kerry 40 28 70% 17 61%
Mayo 37 29 78% 17 59%

Now with Mayo winning midfield (Cutting out supply)
Team Possessions Shots Shot Rate Scores Success Rate
Kerry 37 26 70% 16 61%
Mayo 40 31 78% 18 59%

Small rounding errors in all of above. You can disregard rounding errors seeing as you want to have a robust tactic that will ensure victory. Predicted volume of scores is only 18 for Mayo versus 16 for Kerry.
With Kieran Donaghy already have dominated the final 8 minutes of the drawn game?? With Kerry having a full 5 days to study Mayo and run through reps in training of passing the ball into Donaghy?? Passing a ball to a full forwards zone, especially one who is six foot five is much easier than scoring, with his extra height/strength and good hands you don't have to be that accurate with your pass. Donaghy can outfield crowding tactics to claim the ball.

Mayo of course should have been trying two tactics in parallel:
1. Directly tackle the problem by putting Seamus OShea back on Donaghy
2. Create an extra sweeper directly in front of Donaghy for on the ground extra tackling

As usual attempt to win midfield and close down space to the opposition half forwards/midfielders (I still think this is standard play and not a tactic)

With tactic (1) and (2) I'v utter confidence Mayo had a much better chance of victory. It is totally dispiriting to a defence to know that the opposition have a totally open target man that they can pick out. That wouldn't be the case with an extra defender covering Donaghy from in front (Maybe even Cafferkey) and 6'3" Seamus OShea covering behind.

Mayo management watched the entire replayed game and to my view didn't even implement tactic (2) which is to create double coverage on Kieran Donaghy. I never noticed any extra player standing directly in front of him.

davegrohl48 wrote: »

Winning midfield would not reduce the problem as much as you think it would. Look at the stats of the Second game on Don't foul blog.
http://dontfoul.wordpress.com/2014/09/01/kerry-v-mayo-replay-2014-championship/
It is hard to get the column headings to lineup in those stats
Team Possessions Shots Shot Rate Scores Success Rate
Kerry 50 40 80% 19 48%
Mayo 42 32 76% 16 50%

Now with Mayo winning midfield (Cutting out supply):
Kerry 42 33 80% 16 48%
Mayo 50 38 76% 19 50%

With Kieran Donaghy already having shown his form in setting up a goal for James ODonoghue in the first game how can you place confidence in a tactic likely only to give us 3 more shots than Kerry? How is it even a tactic? Not having a go at you but at the labelling of this as an actual tactic by Horan. Trying to win midfield and closing down space/players is simply a standard way to play the game. (Exception being teams that leave opposition uncontested on opposition kickout)

Now look at the stats that were available to Mayo Mgmt from the Drawn game. It clearly shows that "Cutting out the supply" is not a tactic at all for dealing with Kieran Donaghy.
http://dontfoul.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/kerry-v-mayo-2014-championship/
Team Possessions Shots Shot Rate Scores Success Rate
Kerry 40 28 70% 17 61%
Mayo 37 29 78% 17 59%

Now with Mayo winning midfield (Cutting out supply)
Team Possessions Shots Shot Rate Scores Success Rate
Kerry 37 26 70% 16 61%
Mayo 40 31 78% 18 59%

Small rounding errors in all of above. You can disregard rounding errors seeing as you want to have a robust tactic that will ensure victory. Predicted volume of scores is only 18 for Mayo versus 16 for Kerry.
With Kieran Donaghy already have dominated the final 8 minutes of the drawn game?? With Kerry having a full 5 days to study Mayo and run through reps in training of passing the ball into Donaghy?? Passing a ball to a full forwards zone, especially one who is six foot five is much easier than scoring, with his extra height/strength and good hands you don't have to be that accurate with your pass. Donaghy can outfield crowding tactics to claim the ball.

Mayo of course should have been trying two tactics in parallel:
1. Directly tackle the problem by putting Seamus OShea back on Donaghy
2. Create an extra sweeper directly in front of Donaghy for on the ground extra tackling

As usual attempt to win midfield and close down space to the opposition half forwards/midfielders (I still think this is standard play and not a tactic)

With tactic (1) and (2) I'v utter confidence Mayo had a much better chance of victory. It is totally dispiriting to a defence to know that the opposition have a totally open target man that they can pick out. That wouldn't be the case with an extra defender covering Donaghy from in front (Maybe even Cafferkey) and 6'3" Seamus OShea covering behind.

Mayo management watched the entire replayed game and to my view didn't even implement tactic (2) which is to create double coverage on Kieran Donaghy. I never noticed any extra player standing directly in front of him.

I don't want to get into a whole reanalysis of the Kerry game and yes stats are very interesting and I'm sure they show valuable data about the game.

But I was talking in a more general sense i.e. the problem with Donaghey was as much Mayo's inability to stop the ball getting to him as it was Cafferkey's inability to deal with that ball when it arrived.
And that's Horan's point, that Caffertkey is not the only one to blame.

I just highlighted two things in you post.

Were we not all in agreement in the week leading up to the replay that Mayo should just play their natural game and dispense with sweepers etc after what we saw in the first half of the drawn game ?

KMFCross wrote: »

Noel Connelly is supposedly the frontrunner to land the Mayo job according to Midwest. He would bring Pat Holmes in with him.

Holmes was quoted in the mayo news he didnt have time to do the job.

irishgeo wrote: »

Holmes was quoted in the mayo news he didnt have time to do the job.

Seems to have done a U-Turn to work with Connelly is what was stated

GBXI wrote: »

I think you miss-read my point. Someone saw that Horan commented on Mayo being seen as a team of players with white boots and bleached hair and thus being a soft touch and that that image is now gone. They then (laughably) said that 'sure wasn't Keith Higgins wearing white boots the last day'. Maybe it was a really clever attempt at humour but I highly doubt it!

My point was that it was Horan who patted himself on the back for getting rid of the perception of Mayo as fancy Dans (trust me in Kerry we realised that after the 2011 semi final, when some of the late "tackles" bordered on assault).

He aligned this with the white boots and dyed hair analogy in a snipe at Mortimor - I was merely pointing out that a number of Mayo players continue to wear white boots. Personally I would still see that as a sign of fancy dan-ness but obviously Horan doesn't is he has no issue with his players wearing white boots.

At least he got rid of the lads with Hawaiian shirts doing the warm up I suppose.

Never saw him wear white boots on the field yop!

Or a Hawaiian shirt during the warm up!

BPKS wrote: »

My point was that it was Horan who patted himself on the back for getting rid of the perception of Mayo as fancy Dans (trust me in Kerry we realised that after the 2011 semi final, when some of the late "tackles" bordered on assault).

He aligned this with the white boots and dyed hair analogy in a snipe at Mortimor - I was merely pointing out that a number of Mayo players continue to wear white boots. Personally I would still see that as a sign of fancy dan-ness but obviously Horan doesn't is he has no issue with his players wearing white boots.

At least he got rid of the lads with Hawaiian shirts doing the warm up I suppose.

You're talking some sh1te kiddo!

List of Mayo's 2015 National League Fixtures(Provisional)



Early chance to get some small measure of revenge!