Connacht Finals

patmac

Tickets will be very scarce for this one due to the appearance of reigning All-Ireland Champions Roscommon in the Minor Final preceeding the Senior.
Galway v Sligo
I would love to see a very fit(and I don't mean looks-wise) Sligo win this but unless their full forward line find their scoring boots it has to be Galway. Defending champions Roscommon will still be underdogs against a highly fancied Galway team but I hope the Rossies win this.

Utopia Parkway

patmac wrote:

Tickets will be very scarce for this one due to the appearance of reigning All-Ireland Champions Roscommon in the Minor Final preceeding the Senior.
Galway v Sligo
I would love to see a very fit(and I don't mean looks-wise) Sligo win this but unless their full forward line find their scoring boots it has to be Galway. Defending champions Roscommon will still be underdogs against a highly fancied Galway team but I hope the Rossies win this.

I'm sure the Rossies must be favourites for the minor. Do they have many of last year's team back? This Galway minor team isn't particularly fancied at all but even moderate Galway teams are capable of landing Connacht titles but you'd have to fancy Roscommon. They beat Mayo fairly comfortably.

gucci

i read in the press that galway were favourites for the minor....hopefully they are as good as the mayo minors who were favourites against roscommon a few weeks back, they were the poorest mayo minor side i seen in years, maybe they just had a bad day.
hopefully a good roscommon crowd go to it anyways, galway supporters whould do theyre best to get there early enough to make it a good atmosphere. im not going to the roscommon senior match the day before, as they disgusted me so much the last day, bit more pride and hunger shown by the minors, and even if they lose they have a quarter final against the leinster champions. but i think roscommon will sneak it.

kevmy

I haven't got any insight on the Galway minor side as I haven't seen them play but the Rossies have 7-8 of the players from last years AI winning side. However most of there bigger performers would be gone. It always hard to call minor games with the inconsistency of youth and the everchanging teams.

gucci wrote:

i hopefully they are as good as the mayo minors who were favourites against roscommon a few weeks back, they were the poorest mayo minor side i seen in years, maybe they just had a bad day.

Kevin Beirne Mayo selector said after that performance that that Mayo underage football was in crisis. Now IMO I'd say it's an overstatement but I have to say that over the years Mayo's problem was bringing the players through from minor to U21 to senior. Now we were in 3 minor finals in late 90's early 00's (of course we lost them all) and in fairness a lot of the best of these guys came through to U21 (except Gavin Duffy IMO the best midfielder we never had). We were in U21 finals in 04 and 06(when we finally won!!!) but the problem now is to bring these guys onto senior. So far we've had Alan Dillon, Conor Mort, Keith Higgins and Liam O Malley nail down regular first team slots but that isn't really enough. We need more guys coming through and more leaders coming through.

AS for the Connacht Final the Tribesmen will walk it Sligo are worse than Leitrim.

K-9

Fantastic result for Sligo and the championship.

Terrible second half but they just about hung on.

If only I'd put a few bob on them!

Kingp35

Well done Sligo. Heroic performance from them today. Congratulations to all involved!

cournioni

Well done to Sligo, great to see the underdogs win. It adds to the excitement of the championship. Hope you lads have a good night tonight!

mise_me_fein

Fair play to Sligo. Rubbish forwards in the second half but the best defensive display this year by any team.

bubthatub

does anyone know what odds sligo were to win today

Kojak

As a Galway man I can have no complaints with the result of the Connacht Final today. Sligo were by far in a way the better team today and fully deserved their win.

They should have actually won by a lot more. I guess it was a combination of nerves and some poor shooting by Sligo that kept Galway in the game. It meant a lot more to Sligo to win today than it did to Galway. They seemed to want it more. I dont think they will progress nay further in the championship though. This is not sour grapes on my behalf, but I think they will celebrate it for some time to come Which, when you consider they have been waiting 32 years for a title, they are well entitled to do.

Galway are gone as far as the championship goes this year. Based on today's showing, they will loose the next day out regardless of who they draw in the qualifiers.

Once again, well done to Sligo.

Pride Fighter

I thought it was a great game in the first half with some excellent scores taken (what a goal). It was a nervous second half filled with tension and good in a different way.Connacht could have 3 teams in the quarter finals, I wonder what odds you would get on that at the start of the year. Galway are not out. Armagh being knocked out opens up the back door considerably.

Gillie

bubthatub wrote:

does anyone know what odds sligo were to win today

I heard someone say 6/1 but I can't be sure!

Culchie

bubthatub wrote:

does anyone know what odds sligo were to win today

7.8 on Betfair

mise_me_fein

15 to 1 on Paddy Power

gucci

well done to sligo, very impressive defensively and in midfield, if they could sort out the shooting (was also a problem against roscommon but they still havnt improved noticably) quinn had a super game at midfield, man of the match in my opinion. galway management were very slow to make any changes in midfield when they were getting swamped, reverting to the age old tactic of taking off the corner forward (cormac baane) when they were getting roasted around the middle!!

my own roscommon went down in the minors, we played poor from a passing point of view, but looked in control in the second half until a mystery sending off of garvey who was playing well and we could have pinched a draw had we taken the right options from frees, but we have another day anyways so fingers crossed!!

dacman

typical i go to australia and sligo win the connaught final. well done sligo great result

gucci

dacman wrote:

typical i go to australia and sligo win the connaught final. well done sligo great result

id say there were a few people with oxygen tickets that were sickened they missed out too!!

rossie1977

can i just add my congrats to the sligo team and fans. I was in the middle of the crush (i mean celebration) at the end and it was great to witness.

Those that say Connaught is a two-horse race every year are wrong, Ulster and Munster are far more predictable than Connaught imo. After all Tyrone and Armagh are the only teams that have won Ulster in ages and ditto Cork and Kerry in Munster but you don't hear the experts dismissing all the other teams in those provinces especially Ulster where everyone is supposed to be in with a chance (yeah rite)

Flukey

Congratulations to Sligo from myself and on behalf of a man who you'll all know and has a belt of the same colours as Sligo's strip.:)

gucci

true true, but how often is it just mayo or galway who win connaught?? not sure how your arguement really stands up. id like to think roscommon have a chance every year but we havnt won a championship IN ireland since 2003!!!
and armagh hadnt won a ulster championship for almost 20 years til they got one in 1999!! so traditionally ulster wouldnt be a tyrone or armagh 50/50 call in the same way you could call connaught a traditional 2horser

rossie1977

as pat spillane said last night its all about belief and commitment and then you have a every chance. Belief and commitment are two traits sadly lacking in sligo, leitrim and roscommon for far too long imo. For example when roscommon goes to McHale they expect to get beaten, they don't go there expecting to win.

Sligo, roscommon and leitrim are a lot closer to galway and mayo than people realise. Leitrim were one point away from beating mayo last year, sligo actually had a much tougher game against the rossies than against galway and don't forget roscommon held galway scoreless until injury time in the first half of last years game. Roscommon have a big problem in that once they go into the lead they self-destruct, this was evident again against kildare on saturday night.

back to the point on the connaught championship; 4 out the 5 teams have won it since 2001, whereas only 2 out of 9 have won it in Ulster since 1999. Monaghan have no chance of beating Tyrone imo so in essence Ulster has become a bit of a two-horse race of sorts in recent years. I have been at a few Armagh-Donegal Ulster finals and they have been totally one-sided affairs, rare to see that in a Connaught final recently.

kevmy

kevmy wrote:

AS for the Connacht Final the Tribesmen will walk it Sligo are worse than Leitrim.

Obviously I am clueless!!!

Seriously thought fair play to Sligo they were the better team on the day without a doubt. Midfield was the important area as always. Football is still simple enough win midfield and you have a 75% chance of winning. I felt that Sligo's time had gone but Tommy Brehony has done a great job and has finally got the 25 best footballers in Sligo pulling in the one direction.
Felt really happy for O' Hara one of the guys you always hoped would win something. For years it was a mental thing with Sligo about not being able to win a Connacht they were as good as Ros around the turn of the century but they never won Connacht.

Utopia Parkway

Congrats to Sligo. They were just the much hungrier team on the day and wanted to win it more. Many of the Galway team have All-Ireland medals and cupboards full of Connacht medals at home and just couldn't match Sligo's desire for victory on the day. In the GAA if you can't match your opponent's hunger and work rate you are snookered from the start.

For Galway well we are still in the qualifiers and if we win one game there we're in the quarter-finals along with Sligo but the thought of playing the likes of Kerry and Tyrone doesn't really fill my heart with gladness. We might be better getting off getting knocked out before then. I think this will be Ford's last campaign with us anyway and it might be a good point for the likes of Ja, Savo and Padraig Joyce to call it quits too and let some young lads have a go. I think Ja has already said that this is definitely his last year.

At least the minors won so that's five of the last seven Connacht titles they've won which shows we have the best youngsters coming through in Connacht at least. Maybe time to give some of them a chance.

wow sierra

Well done Sligo - great performance. It was great to be in Hyde Park yesterday - no offence to Ja but watching that last kick go wide was almost as good as the O'Hara goal:) Days like this are what GAA is all about. Amazing scenes.

Hard luck to the Ross minors - bad luck getting Garvey sent off in such a mysterious way.

Nalced_irl

Well, i can say i had more faith in Sligo than my Ma had (and she is a sligo lady btw). I said from day 1 that Sligo will do Galway if they play to even half their strength, and they played just about half their strength and did it. She thought beforehand that they would be destroyed, when O Hara went off, she said game over....simple fact...Sligo are not a bad team, Galway are lacking confidence and i knew they COULD do it, but happy they did follow through.

K-9

rossie1977 wrote:

can i just add my congrats to the sligo team and fans. I was in the middle of the crush (i mean celebration) at the end and it was great to witness.

Those that say Connaught is a two-horse race every year are wrong, Ulster and Munster are far more predictable than Connaught imo. After all Tyrone and Armagh are the only teams that have won Ulster in ages and ditto Cork and Kerry in Munster but you don't hear the experts dismissing all the other teams in those provinces especially Ulster where everyone is supposed to be in with a chance (yeah rite)

In fairness if you take that 5 teams have won Connacht since 94 I suppose he does have a point. However Ulster has had 4 and Donegal, Down and Monaghan, this year have reached finals.

Fermanagh, Derry and Donegal have got to AI SF's through the qualifier system which says a lot for Ulster too. Tyrone and Armagh have reached the AI Final through the back door. On a provincial level its competitive just like Ulster, on any given day any team has a chance of beating another, but on an All Ireland championship basis, other than Galway and Mayo they haven't been competitive.

Really Munster is totally uncompetitive now. I think the Tribune made the point that if the Munster draw put Cork, Limerick and Kerry on the same side of the draw (has happened before) you would have a Tommy Murphy Cup team in the last 12.

Kerry this year are another example. Beat Waterford and they are in the last 12. Donegal would have had to beat Armagh and Tyrone to reach the same stage. Down would have had to beat Cavan, Moanaghan and Tyrone.

Leinster is competitive but suffers from the same problems as Connacht (if not worse) at AI level. I think Meath in 01 have been the only Leinster AI finalists under the qualifier system.

Its a fantastic achievement for Sligo as I posted earlier especially after being knocking on the door for so long, but comparing that to Ulster is unfair. My own county Donegal, would have had to beat Armagh, Tyrone and Monaghan to win Ulster compared to Sligo beating New York, Roscommon and Galway.

Don't get too carried away in Sligo or Connacht! Monaghan will have had to beat Down, Derry and Tyrone. We've had 5 different AI Semi Finalists since 01, Connacht has only 2.

kevmy

Seanies32 wrote:

Leinster is competitive but suffers from the same problems as Connacht (if not worse) at AI level. I think Meath in 01 have been the only Leinster AI finalists under the qualifier system.

Meath in 01 were the last Leinster finalists full stop. Since 01 we've had 3 Connacht finalists (Galway 01, Mayo 04+06), 4 Ulster finalists(Armagh 02+03, Tyrone 03+05) and 4 Munster finalists(Kerry 02,04,05+06).
With both Ulster and Munster winning 3 and Connacht 1. Because of the better spread in Ulster you would have to say Ulster has been the strongest province since the millenium.

jmayo

Speaking as someone from just across the border, fair dues to Sligo, they deserve it.
I remember being in Croker few years back watching them play Armagh.
They really gave it to them and Armagh went on to win All Ireland.

Only got to see highlights but they appeared they were the better team last sunday.
They really need to do something about free taking. Maybe just a bad day but you can't afford to miss those easy chances.

rossie1977

the biggest problem in Connaught has always been the size of the populations in each county.

Galway with 220,000 people has ten times the population of Ireland's smallest county leitrim so only once in a blue moon will leitrim manage to have a pick of players equal or better than what galway can produce.

We in Roscommon have our own major problem and that of course sees our second biggest town, Ballaghaderren playing in Mayo. We already have a very small pick as it is but take the second biggest town and the players it produces out of any county and see what happens

kevmy

rossie1977 wrote:

We in Roscommon have our own major problem and that of course sees our second biggest town, Ballaghaderren playing in Mayo. We already have a very small pick as it is but take the second biggest town and the players it produces out of any county and see what happens

Sure there's only 4 Ballagh' lads on the team these days:D

dodgyme

rossie1977 wrote:

Ballaghaderren playing in Mayo

Ballaghaderren was nicked from mayo anyhow and should be given back

rossie1977

dodgyme wrote:

Ballaghaderren was nicked from mayo anyhow and should be given back

The parish of Kilmoremoy along with part of the neighbouring parish of Castleconnor were nicked from Sligo to become part of Mayo as was Ballinchalla and Ballinrobe from Galway

jmayo

Hey AFAIK Castleconnor is still in Sligo.
http://www.westsligo.com/castleconnor/index.htm
Since when did it move?

AFAIK Ballaghdereen moved for financial reasons to Roscommon but still play footnball in Mayo ?

wow sierra

Connaught competed in 6 All Ireland finals in Football in 2006 3 of which they won.

Club Salthill
Under 21 Mayo
Minor Roscommon

Beaten in All Ireland Senior and junior finals and League final (All by Kerry:mad: )

But of course Connaught football is inferior - everyone knows that:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

K-9

wow sierra wrote:

Connaught competed in 6 All Ireland finals in Football in 2006 3 of which they won.

Club Salthill
Under 21 Mayo
Minor Roscommon

Beaten in All Ireland Senior and junior finals and League final (All by Kerry:mad: )

But of course Connaught football is inferior - everyone knows that:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Where did anybody say that?

There are 5 counties in Connacht, no disrespect to London or New York. Sligo really and Galway had only to win one game to get to the last 12. Down/Cavan had to win three. Donegal had to beat Armagh and Tyrone to get to the same stage, Fermanagh who I'm sure everybody would love to win an Ulster just as much as Sligo a Connacht would have had to beat Tyrone, Donegal/Armagh and Monaghan/Derry.

The other side is if Sligo where in Ulster and beat Tyrone, Armagh and Monaghan to win they would be treated as serious AI contenders.

If people can't see that Connacht and Munster have an unfair advantage in getting to the last 12 because they have only 5 teams whereas Leinster has 12 and Ulster has 9 well.........

Just looking at Kevmy's post it's amazing Cork haven't reached a AI under the qualifier system seeing as they only had to win 3 games if they where Munster champions. Donegal would have had to win 6 in 2005 to reach the same level. Armagh seriously suffered under the qualifiers. If it was the old system they would have more than 1 AI.

Nobody is saying Connacht/Munster is inferior just its hard to justify a province with 5 teams being treated equally with Leinster who has 12.

gucci

if ballahadreen are only supplying 4 players to the mayo team, then the roscommon town club roscommon gaels this year had only one player starting and another as a sub, so a big town dosnt generally mean good players!! although i think the 4 balla boys would make the roscommon team at the moment.

kevmy

rossie1977 wrote:

The parish of Kilmoremoy along with part of the neighbouring parish of Castleconnor were nicked from Sligo to become part of Mayo as was Ballinchalla and Ballinrobe from Galway

Ballinrobe was no more nicked from Galway:rolleyes: Anyway theres no good footballers in Ballinrobe.

Now if Galway invaded Shrule we could be in trouble.

PH01

jmayo wrote:

Hey AFAIK Castleconnor is still in Sligo.
http://www.westsligo.com/castleconnor/index.htm
Since when did it move?

Originally all of Castleconnor parish was in Sligo. The boundries were redrawn a long time ago (I think it was the "Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898") so now part of Castleconnor parish is in Mayo.

blackbelt

The east side of Mayo is the place to get good footballers.David Heaney from the Swinford area being most noticeable

jmayo

blackbelt wrote:

The east side of Mayo is the place to get good footballers.David Heaney from the Swinford area being most noticeable

Heaney would be one of the very few Swinford players to make Mayo team.
Charlestown and Ballaghdereen would have historically have much better club teams and much more county players.

Oh and you were right, Armagh are past it. I thought they were much better and would have taken Derry, the form book is going out the window at the moment.
Galway footballers are inheriting some of their hurlers habits of late as well.

blackbelt

Thanks JMayo,Castlebar is another area.Surely there must be some big huge guys out the Belmullet area that could make Mayo a more physical side.

Sometimes the writing is on the wall and sometimes I can sense things before they happen.:D

In Armaghs case,their league campaign was a big indicator plus their injuries to McConville and Bellew.Armagh are pretty much harmless without those two influential players.As I said before,I couldn't understand the pessimism of the Mayo fans if they had drawn Armagh in the qualifiers.

Despite Mayos off form at the beginning of the Championship,I now consider them as part of the "big three".

rossie1977

armagh are far from finished yet imo. Their record and consistency since 1999 has been amazing. Don't forget they had won the previous 3 ulster championships in a row or 4 Ulster titles in 5 years. As a poster on this thread has said, had it not been for the qualifiers Armagh could easily have had at least 3 all-irelands by now.

The injuries to key players was a major factor in their downfall this year and don't anybody tell me they weren't unlucky this year against donegal (last second goal) or derry (last second point).

kevmy

Armagh just too many miles on the clock. A couple years out and some of the winning '04 U21's coming through and they'll be back

blackbelt

I think they are gone for another 2-3 years.You can't win All-Irelands relying heavily on two players and the age profile of Armagh is too high.You'd think the Crossmaglen contingent could put Armagh in the top 4 seen as how they are all-ireland club champions but the side isn't well oiled.

I feel they were unlucky against Donegal but against Derry they should never had let it get to the stage where they were struggling and scoring 9 points against Derry suggests how Armagh have declined rapidly.Derry accounted for Armagh fair and square.Its just too damn bad for them and Kernan can blame the ref until the cows come home but it won't bring Armagh back this year.

Now Lemlin,you told me some days ago that Dublin could not handle the likes of Kerry,Tyrone,Mayo and Armagh.I think we could handle Mayo but Armagh have to be dropped from your list.I said it before they got knocked out.They are no longer in the "big three".They are 8th or 9th at best at this stage.Having won the AI in 2002 and 4 Ulster titles in 5 years and reaching the semi in 2005 and the quarter in 2006,they are like Steve Davis,ranked higher from past glory.I watched them time and time again in that quarter-final against Kerry last year and you could sense then they were in decline.Tyrone would have won the Ulster Championship and demolished them if they were not riddled with injuries.

Although I acknowledge that Armagh are a good,dangerous side,their performance this year has been diabolical.I considered them to progress a bit further given the good spell of football they showed against Donegal but they are like this summers weather...mixed.

rossie1977

Derry absolutely annihilated Tyrone last year in the Championship so losing to them is not the end of the world. I can see Derry beating Mayo too.

Armagh looked excellent in that first half against Kerry, but those goals in quick succession made the difference that day. Kerry and Tyrone are the teams to beat this year. Dublin and Cork have an outside chance, the rest are fooling themselves.

blackbelt

I don't think Mayo are fooling themselves.They seem to be recovering from that match against Galway and if Mayo are to play Galway again I'd actually fancy Mayo to win.Cork look good I must say.If they perform to the level they did in Killarney and don't get crucial decisions against them,I can see them making a real good go of it.They certainly sent out a message and I think the other counties would agree that Kerry got off scot-free.

Dublin are a team that blow hot and cold but I'm thankful we've had two tight games against decent opposition.People can say Meath are no great shakes but I disagree.They are getting stronger and stronger and if Laois don't win on Sunday,I'd imagine Meath would win a Leinster Title before Laois will.
We've always been contenders for All Ireland glory.We missed the boat last year and its hard to say when exactly we peaked.Our league form was dire but Dublin don't do well in the league.We seem to beat the teams we aren't expected to and lose against the teams we aren't expected to.

Take last year,a loss to Fermanagh,Cork and Monaghan.We're better than Fermanagh and Monaghan and should have made the league semi-final.We drew with Kerry in Killarney,something that is hard to do so thats why we'll never know with Dublin.

nacho libre

Drawing with(Kerry)in the league was meaningless. I don't think there was a subsequent loss of form in the latter stages of the championship by Mayo, it was simply the case that Kerry in the All-Ireland were the much better side.
I mean form wasn't cited as a problem when they dispatched Dublin in the Semi-final. Unless, you subscribe to the view they peaked against Dublin? Do you?
The last nine years in championship meetings between the two sides attests to the simple fact: that Kerry have been the better side. In this particular case the statistics don't lie.


I want Mayo to win as much as anybody but we need to be honest as to why they lost last year. Mayo are among the top sides but just short of being the best. Hopefully, this year they will prove to be and i'll gladly eat humble pie come September.

Flukey

Well Mayo's wait continues for at least another year. A disappointing season, considering the heights of last year. A very comfortable win for Derry. No one predicted that. If Derry can keep free of injuries, they could yet have a say in how things go. Confidence will be building. The draw for the next round will be interesting. But then, isn't it always?