Mayo GAA Discussion Part 2

What was the result of the minors today?

jr86 wrote: »

Also, it's an argument for another day, but what a daft time to be playing minor champ. Lads doing first year college exams at the moment and the LC only slightly over a month away

Is this the last year of the minor as an u18 comp? Understand there is u17 kicking off soon too.

jr86 wrote: »

I always feel people overstate underage results and their impact on future senior teams.

Let's be honest you could have a super collective team at minor with very few standout individuals. Id much rather have a useless team every year if they produced 1 top senior player each

Many players don't peak well into their 20s. Id bet any amount a lad born in 1999 that didn't tog out today will be a key player for the senior team in the near future for years.

Perhaps. But there is no denying that a winning mentality gained at underage has a positive impact on the progression to senior. No doubt if 1 or 2 players will come out of this group maybe in years to come and develop into solid senior county players.

However there are big issues that need looking at overall in the county underage. Imo first positive step is to combine the two Ted Webb Mayo teams.

jr86 wrote: »

Bear in mind a Kerry under 21 team beaten by 25 odd points by cork, made up a large proportion of a sam Maguire winning team three years later

:eek: didn't know that. It's rare enough that I imagine. No doubt management, setup, resources etc. has a massive impact at senior level.

Ah just disappointing to see a promising group taken a beating at home like that. Let's hope the lads involved can learn and improve from it

Anyone see Martin Breheny's newest article on the Holmes/Connelly debacle?

I think he is underestimating the readers to be honest. Does he genuinely think that people cant see that articles are very often, written with a certain slant of narrative? It's insulting to people's intelligence for him to feign indignation at this assertion, not unlike his contrived assertion that Alan Dillon being unhappy at being dropped meant that there was player power. Talk about taking people for fools. It is like watching a card trick where you can see the card up the guy's sleeve.

As for his claims that he wanted to deliver the full story without bias - that is nearly as laughable as Jim Gavin's latest assertions that nobody in the Dublin set up gets paid. Again, Breheny seems to assume people don't understand how journalists and the media work.

Here is the reality of it, for my money. Mayo have been around for a while now. Like any team, sooner or later, they will fall by the wayside. They have came up short a few times, have a few characters that people dislike, and have had a bit of controversy - not unlike the cork hurlers before them. Breheny and co frankly, see a story. They know that when they do fall away there will be plenty wanting to read articles sticking the boot in. Simply put, they want to be on that gravy train early doors. That is the long and short of it, he is just angling for the story on the inevitable.

The thing is, predict any team to lose and wait long enough, and you will ultimately be right. Fact is mayo made the all Ireland final and were the best team in the drawn game after breheny made his assertions. Therefore, he got it wrong, and revisiting it over and over will never change that.
Sorry Martin.

I get what you are saying, but if the article is being roundly criticised etc, then I don't think that is giving it oxygen, but rather highlighting how inadequate it is. Id argue that letting it go every time, means they can stay there spouting what they want for as long as they like, which is sort of what has got us the current situation with brolly on the SG.

Plus I believe it is important to highlight how unfair/poor/inaccurate some articles are. People should have to answer for their work, the same way players do for their performances. Id love to see pundits made to make predictions every year, with those prediction recorded and later explored. They get it far too easy - it is the best job in sport these days.

I could be wrong but the only national paper on this whole Connelly-Holmes and Mayo bandwagon has been the Indo. Primarily Breheny with a couple of other Indo hacks providing some "intelligent" comment at the time to back him up.

They constantly highlight all of Mayo's supposed deficiencies and conveniently fail to remember that Mayo were just a point behind the "greatest team of all-time" after 140+ minutes of football.

That's why they're best ignored. What GAA journo is best to read these days for fair balanced coverage? Very few out there...the more extreme, one-eyed outrageous articles or headlines sells newspapers. Maybe it says more about your average GAA supporter than the GAA journalists currently out there.

What did AOS think he was doing going there in the first place.
He has been around long enough now to know journalists were going to ask about it the first opportunity they got.
The official line from the Mayo county board and management at the time was no comment, so why he now has to go and open up the can of worms again is just stupid.

Jayop wrote: »

That article was the biggest butt hurt load of tripe I've seen written in t a long time. It's amazing how many of these journalists and pundits that are literally paid to stick the boot in time and time again have such incredibly thin skin if anyone dares to call them up on it. The saddest thing about it is that the rest of their buddies will circle the wagon around them too.

Agreed. The way some journalists operate these days is something that doesn't sit well with me. An awful lot have become bullies with a microphone, who complain about the standards of others, while regularly sinking below the belt themselves. They put words in people's mouths, ask loaded questions and take the response out of context on purpose. That isnt good journalism, that is a race to the bottom and a nasty way to operate, as far as Im concerned.


Charlie14, I get what you are saying re O'Shea, he needs to wake up to the real world a bit, in my opinion. But on this occasion, he literally said one sentence, i.e. that all the details were not accurate and that the paper will write it in a certain way. Considering we got one side of the story, delivered in a very obviously deliberate manner, Id argue O'Shea has said nothing that anyone with half a brain didn't know already, and breheny knocking another lengthy article out of it only confirms this more.

The man is obsessed. It's more than a little strange.