Mayo GAA Discussion

PARlance

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123311804#Comment_123311804

Or it could just be the case that both the management and the players aren't up to standard.

Barlett

I expected us to be relegated so the league was definitely a success overall. I suppose the reality of where we are was there again today, we saw it last year too against Derry we are just very limited when it comes to kickpassing. We are not great at fielding but we need to get better at breaking ball.

Ultimately a Connaught title would be big achievement for this team.

hugeorange

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123311858#Comment_123311858

Okay, so who should come in? Who's going to teach this squad of 20-something and 30-something year old players the basic skills that they are clearly lacking?

MacDanger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123311775#Comment_123311775

It's difficult for the forwards when the ball in to them is so slow; Kerry forwards were getting the ball in acres of space

Westernview

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123311886#Comment_123311886

Because Kerry midfielders and backs are able to deliver fast long ball. Mayo players can't. If there was a man free inside a player out the field isn't thinking 'I won't kick it in because the manager said not to'. They just aren't able to. It's simple as that.

howdo1992

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123311842#Comment_123311842

There’s plenty ways to improve kickouts with better tactics. It’s very obvious where our keeper is kicking it and he doesn’t disguise it well…maybe they should have tried a different option in league. Also plenty times Kerry won the breaking ball , this really isn’t a skill issue, it’s just being a bit more clever and 2 players not going for same ball etc .

So we stick to the same old and just be happy. Madness is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results. The squad isn’t the strongest but a pretty average Armagh squad won the all Ireland last year. Also Donegal weren’t on anyone’s radar last year but change of management has transformed the team and they are now tipped for the all Ireland. Good coaching and tactics would make the word of difference .

MacDanger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123311928#Comment_123311928

I think you're talking us down with that kind of chat tbh.

I'm not even talking about +50m passes; when we break, any of our players should be able to manage say a 30m pass in in front the full forward line. It never happens because that's not our game plan, you'll rarely see the player coming out looking up and equally the player inside making the run out. It's a management decision imo

Sebastian Dangerfield

Id struggle to find a link to prove it, but before he was manager I remember well an article from McStay in the Times to the effect that Aidans best position was 14 and Mayos inability or lack of want to kick early ball in and exploit his presence was a huge flaw. Id love to know what he has seen to abandon the tactic without even trying it to any extent himself

MacDanger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123306599#Comment_123306599

To answer my own question here, turns out Phillips from Ballyhaunis is the #2 keeper

Westernview

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123311946#Comment_123311946

Who are the players on the Mayo team to deliver 30m kick passes? I don't recall seeing Callinan, McBrien, Hession, Ruane, Carney, Rod delivering much kick passes at club level. Maybe Jordan at a push. They are by and large ball carriers. Maybe we should blame the club managers also?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123311950#Comment_123311950

He's seeing them 3 times a week between training and games. That's enough for him to see what they can and can't do.

crusd

The refusal to mix it up and kick pass, even mid length passes, will completely hamper up again this year. Multiple occasions we turned the ball over, ran 30 yards into contact and recycled sideways or backwards while Kerry defence got set was unreal. And the exact same as last year. Players in to possession don’t look for a man in space up the pitch and even if they did the forwards don’t run into space when the ball is in the half back line. That’s why it’s clear it is coaching because they Don t even consider the option. For a team like ours where we don’t have a number of consistent long range shooters we need to transition defence to attack quickly to create mismatches and overlaps. The space is there, we need to use it or this year will be the same as last. In the last few of rounds of the league they did mix it up more but today they reverted again

MacDanger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123311977#Comment_123311977

Yes, any of those players mentioned.

When you're playing long balls into space, pin point accuracy isn't actually needed as you're playing the ball into the space in front of the player - it's not some mythical skill that only Kerry players are capable of. Other than P Clifford, the rest of the Kerry players kicking it in are average enough players

flasher0030

I hope Reape was just taken off as a precautionary. I know he made a mistake for the goal. But the sub keeper that came in had no kick-out tactic at all, and just ballooned it up in the air, for which Kerry seemed to come away with possession almost all of the time.

I wouldn't be too despondent after that today. It's a good prep for the championship. If someone had said at the beginning of Feb that Mayo would be in a league final, and within 3 points of Kerry with about 10 mins to go, I wouldn't have believed it.

Westernview

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123312047#Comment_123312047

Most players can kick a ball 30 yards but at intercounty level with huge pressure on the kicker and less time on the ball it's completely different. Seems simple watching from the stands or on tv but down at pitch level is a different challenge. There's no way Mayo players would turn up the opportunity to kick a ball into a forward that was available if they could do it. Kerry played an intensive game today and Mayo couldn't deal with it. Kerry have a number of players in the top 20 in Ireland. I don't think we have even one. Definitely none in the top 10.

Westernview

On a separate point I strongly believe that most league finals not involving Dublin should be outside Croke Park. 21k in an 82k stadium isn't how you market the game. Limerick would have been the obvious venue for today's game involving 2 western counties a long distance from Dublin.

Shank Williams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123312439#Comment_123312439

tbh that should be the case for AI semis and quarters too

Westernview

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123312446#Comment_123312446

Agreed. Unless it's a guaranteed 50k upwards attendance

Be-Jaysus

Hopefully this will be McStay's final season here.

He understands how the media works, gets soft questions, never challenged by his pals at RTE , but in truth managing at the top level is not for him, and those post-match comments on Clifford were designed to take the focus off both the teams and the management's shortcoming's as a whole.

Mayo will finish this season a far worse team than the team he inherited, and there hasn't been that many drastic change's in playing personal over the yrs.

PARlance

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123312283#Comment_123312283

I wouldn't be too despondent but for different reasons, main one being that we're miles off being competitive. Hopes were never high enough to be despondent. Being within 3 points of Kerry with 10 minutes to go is a very optimistic way of looking at it, we were never really in that game. Lost by 6 and could have been 10 or more, would be more the way I look at it.

Reapes kickouts were poor all day (and a concern all year), I don't think the introduction of Phillips changed much. I'm not sure what we can expect when we don't actually try out another keeper for the entire campaign.

Winning Connaught is the about the best we can hope for this year imo, and I wouldn't be too confident of that.

Audioslaven

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123311858#Comment_123311858

I think you have hit it on the head. It is two fold and we will need to go back to the drawing board after this season is over. It was a great achievement to get to the league final, but yesterday reinforced that we are Tier 2 and certain players are not at the level to compete for SAM.

McStay needed a new team or at least a few significant changes if he was to survive(managment team), but he was not interested or he can't read the road ahead. It could also mean that this is our level for the foreseable. Anyway, It starts with getting the best managment team and let them go and build a new squad.

Westernview

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123312923#Comment_123312923

I got a hard time here last year for suggesting that an AI semi final appearance would represent success but we didn't even get that far. I think realism has set in for a lot of fans but still others here expect great things. Just compare various players like for like with the 2011 to 2021 teams. Reape not a patch on Clake. Sam Callinan was talked up as the next Lee Keegan a few years ago. Higgins, Colm Boyle, Parsons, Andy, Kevin McLoughlin. Even our best player ROD will never come close to Cillian IMO. Cillian would have nailed that 2 pointer before half time yesterday and was also a serious goal threat.

It would seem logical to try another keeper in the league but it seems to be a position managers like to keep consistent to avoid unsettling the No. 1 choice. Horan didn't even play anyone but Hennelly in FBD games when he was first choice.

Greengrass53

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123312283#Comment_123312283

Ah here. If you think that we ever had a chance today you're completely deluded.We were taken to the cleaners by a kerry team in 2nd gear. Mcstay has bluffed it out long enough. Time for him to move on.

flasher0030

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123312999#Comment_123312999

I didn't think Mayo had a chance of winning yesterday. There is a reason that Kerry are favourites with the bookies to win Sam this year. I thought Kerry would beat them by a lot more. We in Mayo are used to competing at the top for many years - getting to All-Ireland finals. I think we find it hard to accept that right now we do not have the players for that top level.

MacDanger

Just looking at the stats (@gaelicstatsman on twitter) - we lost 15 (50%) of our own kickouts. It's basically impossible to win a match with those kind of numbers and Kerry don't even have what would be considered a dominant midfield.

Our scoring % was 50% so not that much worse than Kerry's @ 54% (although I feel like a lot of theirs came when late on when the game was effectively done) but they took ~50% more shots than us which is reflective of their better overall game plan imo.

The only other stat of note for me was that they were 7/7 on frees while we were 3/5 and those were two bad misses from ROD.

irishgeo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123313456#Comment_123313456

AOS missed a bad free on his left foot as well.

PARlance

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123313456#Comment_123313456

I'm surprised we won 50% of our own, it felt worse than that.

Would been interesting to see the kickout stats for the league. I would suspect we were quite a bit behind of the curve in terms of winning our own. We had a cake walk on them vs Derry and had a good first half against Kerry (in Castlebar) but outside of that I think we struggled.

Island Voter

Blessed to only lose that by 6.

mayo.mick

Mayo v Sligo game is on GAA+ as is New York v Galway and London v Roscommon.

Announced earlier

flasher0030

One other observation from the game yesterday. Paudi Clifford got man of the match, and in fairness he had supplied some great ball into the forward line. But when you are the opposition and the opposition management, surely that should be a focus in terms of tactics. We all know that Paudi loves to get on the ball, he immediately has a look inside and he plays it into space for the other forwards to run on to - generally David. And when D. Clifford gets the ball, it generally ends with a score.

Some years ago,. Mayo had Keegan doing a real man-marking job on Diarmuid Kilkenny and Ciaran Kilkenny - to stop them getting on the ball. Perhaps something similar should have been operated yesterday. P Clifford seemed to have a huge amount of space for a very long time. With Mayo having to keep 3 players and the keeper back, it allowed for a lot more space for the Kerry forwards to run into and they made use of it. But if the supply could have been curtailed, it would have eased the burden on the likes of Donnacha McHugh.

muddle84

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123314235#Comment_123314235

Sadly we don't have Lee Keegan anymore, or anyone close to his level as it stands.