Mayo GAA Discussion Part 2

Shurimgreat wrote: »

Are any of the "ins" the kind of free scoring forwards we have been looking for in recent years? If not then it will be more of the same, outscored from play in big games.

Not really,we have to hope the likes of Conor Loftus,Fergal Boland,Evan Regan and Conor O Shea can push on and offer a greater scoring threat.

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

I don't think he was in the in 2011 game tbh, and 2015 was a hiding, Myself and yourself would have looked half decent in that game. The 2015 semi final however, he wasn't in either of those games. I think he gets more praise than he maybe deserves at times, a bit like Aidan O'Shea actually at times, although O'Shea probably gets more criticism than he deserves at times too, whereas Im not sure Connolly does.
The guys who have stepped up for Dublin in big games are brogan, cluxton, o'sullivan, flynn. Even guys like Fitzsimons, Cooper, Rock and Bastick have done so more than Connolly for me. Not trying to be sniping at him or anything like that, that is just how I see it.

As for AOS in the media, I too wish he would shut up. But at the same time, we are always lamenting these say-nothing interviews that are so commonplace in the gaa. Jim Gavin could talk for an hour and you would be none the wiser. We cant have it both ways either. Personally, I think AOS suffers from the same public dislike that C Ronaldo does, i.e. when it comes down to it, people just don't like the cut of his jib, and so any excuse and they are on it.

How could you leave Philly Mc out of that list?

Cillian O Connor would be the most comfortable player off two feet. He's kicked an occasional point off of his ciotog.

But it's a point well made re a certain blindness to the advantage of trained ambidexterity within a squad and most especially in the forward department.

seligehgit wrote: »

Cillian O Connor would be the most comfortable player off two feet. He's kicked an occasional point off of his ciotog.

But it's a point well made re a certain blindness to the advantage of trained ambidexterity within a squad and most especially in the forward department.

Yeah, am surprised that the Mayo mgt and coaching team over the years, do not seem to have highlighted it as a problem to be fixed. If they had, we'd see the evidence of it on the scoreboard. Same with the players themselves. None of ye lot here, have brought it up all that much either. There is a lot of naval gazing, about the need to unearth this mystery marquee forward, that is going to bring Mayo to The Promised Land. But what about just making the forwards that you already have better, in one very, very important area? Am I the only one who thinks its odd that this seems to have been over looked in recent years?

ProudDUB wrote: »

Yeah, am surprised that the Mayo mgt and coaching team over the years, do not seem to have highlighted it as a problem to be fixed. If they had, we'd see the evidence of it on the scoreboard. Same with the players themselves. None of ye lot here, have brought it up all that much either. There is a lot of naval gazing, about the need to unearth this mystery marquee forward, that is going to bring Mayo to The Promised Land. But what about just making the forwards that you already have better, in one very, very important area? Am I the only one who thinks its odd that this seems to have been over looked in recent years?

As wirelessdude01 has stated Keegan is by far our best player kicking off either foot,totally went out of my head.As he stated Andy Moran can kick points off his weaker foot too,ditto Paddy Durcan.

This issue has been looked at in the Mayo setup,I reference an excellent article by Kieran Shannon the sports psychologist who formerly worked in same setup.It possibly has not brought the improvement needed as yet.


To understand why Mayo have been so remarkably competitive over the last six years ? more than your own county if you happen to be from somewhere other than Dublin, Kerry, and for a couple of seasons there, Donegal, so the last thing you should do is sneer at them ? and then to understand why they continuously and depressingly fail to be the best of the best, it is worth exploring that word they and Jim Gavin?s Dublin continuously use: ?The process?.

The first time I spoke with that group of Mayo players a little short of five years ago in my role as a performance consultant with a background in sport psychology, a fundamental principle we laid down was victory had to be earned. As Ali so eloquently put it, you had to put in the work away from the lights in order to shine and win under those lights. The better you got, the better it got.

We spoke about Armagh and the point that won them the 2002 All-Ireland. A ball had dropped short into Benny Tierney?s arms. He was 33 at the time. At 32 he couldn?t kick pass the ball to his wing backs; he?d just hand the ball off to Enda and Justin McNulty in front of him just as he?d been doing since he was 10, playing with them for Mullaghbawn. Joe Kernan suggested to him he develop a kick pass to skip a line and get the ball to the likes of Aidan O?Rourke quicker. But not to worry if he couldn?t do it after three league games; it would take time. And to definitely not to worry about it if he couldn?t do it by the end of the league, because he?d just go and get a goalkeeper who could. At 33 Benny Tierney made a pass he couldn?t at 32 and fed Aidan O?Rourke who played a diagonal ball into Stevie McDonnell.

Earlier that year Stevie McDonnell recognised he was too reliant on his right foot for scores; he needed to work on his left. It meant at times he looked incompetent, ball after ball spiralling wide at training when he could have just turned back onto his right.

By September McDonnell could swing off his left and kicked what ended up being the last score of that final against Kerry. It was a series of such invisible victories that led to the victory that was visible to us all, with Kieran McGeeney lifting Sam Maguire.

To virtually a man that Mayo squad totally bought into that philosophy. They understood at times it would mean feeling and looking foolish. But we spoke about the ice-skater learning to do a more advanced move. It would mean repeatedly falling down, but so what? Smack the ice.

I especially remember one Saturday morning in MacHale Park a couple of weeks after that year?s league final, about six weeks out from the first round of championship. The players came up to the gym in sets of three, where before being passed on to me for some individual goal-setting, they first met Ed Coughlan, the team?s then S&C coach with also a training in skill acquisition. He asked the players to take off their runners. So they take off their runners, in most cases, taking off their right shoe before their left. That was Coughlan?s point; if you?re right handed, you tend to do everything with your right first. But if you were to start doing things with your left, it would set off neurons that would help improve everything off your left. So to improve their left-hand fist-passing, there were players who didn?t just fist-pass to a team or to a wall 100 times a day; they?d brush their teeth with their left hand. Ger Cafferkey walked out the door that day with a bottle in his hand, only to put it back down on the ground, and then, to the laugher of us all, slide over to the other side of the bottle and pick it up with his left hand and recommence his walk to the door. That was the mentality of the group. That was their commitment to the process.

There were countless examples of it. Andy Moran on Donie Vaughan?s doorstep on a Bank Holiday Monday, the day after a poor shooting day the day before up in Ballyshannon, and heading to the local pitch in Ballinrobe. Cillian O?Connor?s free-taking range off the ground didn?t extend to the 45-metre line that May, but after smacking the ice repeatedly that summer, he?d nail huge frees in that year?s Connacht final against Sligo and then in the All-Ireland semi-final win over Dublin.

The process extended to other areas. Victory wasn?t something you deserved as if you were owed something for time served. You had to earn it, most significantly in three areas ? S&C, skill development and nutrition/lifestyle. And you committed to it because you?d come to love the process and you loved and were committed to the cause, of liberating a people mad about its football.

Yet here we are, four more All-Ireland semi-final or final defeats later, and still no Sam, still no liberation for those people of Mayo.

Because, in a nutshell, the virtue and philosophy that drives them forward is also internally compromised. They are producing under the lights exactly what they are doing away from the lights.

They are a phenomenal bunch of tacklers, indicative of their honesty and commitment and the time they give to that aspect of the game. But has their shooting adequately improved? Is there anywhere near as much emphasis on their shooting as there is on their tackling? Are they only coaching and doing what they?re most comfortable coaching and doing?

In last year?s two epic Dublin-Mayo clashes, Dublin had five different players who scored off either foot over the two games. Mayo had only one ? Lee Keegan. This year Mayo had none. Cormac Costello?s first two points were off his left; his last point was his right. C?est la difference. Mayo had to continuously recycle the ball last Saturday because they weren?t adequately comfortable shooting off their non- dominant side, and in some cases, like Aidan O?Shea, not confident to shoot right away even on their strong side. You can get away with that against 28, 29 counties. But not against Dublin.

Mayo did make some key, incremental, encouraging advances this year. Up to this September, you had to go back to when James Horan himself was playing in 1996 for the last Mayo starting forward to score a point from play in the second-half of an All-Ireland final. Over the last two games, Andy Moran, Cillian O?Connor, Diarmuid O?Connor and Kevin McLoughlin have bucked that trend and joined that list. But notably, O?Shea hasn?t. For all the big-name coaches and gurus Mayo have had in their ranks the last five years, their most physically talented player has obviously not been sufficiently challenged and coached well enough to earn victory on that front.

Very early on in my work with those Mayo players, I cited the words of a psychologist and public speaker, George Zalucki, whose work Mickey Harte had introduced me to. ?Nature knows your power. And she can?t tolerate your lies. And she dishes us back in direct proportion how much we deserve to succeed. Where a person sits today is exactly who they?ve settled for up to that moment in time. That?s the cool, hard truth of it.?

Mayo have deserved to outlast your county the last five championships. They deserve to reach All-Ireland finals. Men like Colm Boyle, Cillian O?Connor, Lee Keegan, Donal Vaughan; chances are the guys in your county aren?t smacking the ice like they are. To paraphrase the NFL legend Ray Lewis, those men are pissed off for greatness; ain?t none of those men happy with being mediocre. But is O?Shea, someone who looked destined to be greatness, being adequately challenged as to why his shooting is so mediocre? Do they not realise his power and recognising how nature is not tolerating any lies? Are they asking him to smack the ice? Are management willing to be strong enough to do a Joe Kernan and say they?ll get someone else who?ll do it if he won?t?

In one of my last workshops with the group, in the summer of 2014, I spoke to the players about John Healy, the journalist from Charlestown who spoke about shouting stop. Were they as fellow proud Mayo men going to be the ones who?d shout stop? The actions they took last October suggested yes. Even something like Ger Cafferkey calling on club games to be delayed further epitomised that mindset. The way they fought and fought the last two days against Dublin was also that of a team screaming STOP! But it only took them so far because on some things they?ve failed to shout stop.

Until all of them earn victory, none of them get victory. Until they all smack the ice, they?ll all continue to smack the ground in tears every September.

Alternatively, if they all do the work away from the lights, they?ll all get to dance with the cup under the lights. It?s still there for them. It?s still up to them.


Perhaps as you've stated it's simply too hard to teach an old dog new tricks whence the old tricks are so ingrained in the mindset.I certainly do hope our next generation of young footballers are from kindergarten are going to be taught how to handpass and most importantly be comfortable kicking off either foot.

seligehgit wrote: »

Perhaps as you've stated it's simply too hard to teach an old dog new tricks whence the old tricks are so ingrained in the mindset.I certainly do hope our next generation of young footballers are from kindergarten are going to be taught how to handpass and most importantly be comfortable kicking off either foot.

It is recognised that basic skills need to be taught correctly at a very early age and then built on correctly over time to maximise the players skills/mindset. Any small divergence cannot be corrected without a huge amount of work later if at all.

The difference this makes to counties that incubate, for want of a better word, when the kids get to senior football is quantifiable and gives the county a slight advantage over those that don't. And it's all about slight advantages.

The gaa are currently driving this idea forward trying to get all underage coachs trained up.

seligehgit wrote: »

Perhaps as you've stated it's simply too hard to teach an old dog new tricks whence the old tricks are so ingrained in the mindset.I certainly do hope our next generation of young footballers are from kindergarten are going to be taught how to handpass and most importantly be comfortable kicking off either foot.

You seem very Zen about it. If it were me, I'd be pretty livid, that such a simple thing, could have cost us at least one AI title. And it is simple to improve imo, if the willingness is there.

Kev McManammon only nailed down a regular starting spot last year, because he became better at shooting off both feet. He'll never be as good as the lads who have been doing it since minor level, but he has improved enough in a couple of years to make Jim Gavin happy. What is Aidan O'Shea doing to improve his skillsets and add more value to his worth to the team, other than his size, strength and willingness to run thru a brick wall?

I couldn't care less if he never gave another interview, or gave ten a week for the rest of his intercounty career. But I can see why he gets stick from some quarters for his burgeoning media profile, when his skillset does not seem to have expanded along with it.

He seems to be a nice guy, personable, hard worker, fan favourite and all that. But engaging in a purely empherical analysis of his abilities, does not make you a bitter begrudger, who just wants to have a go for the sake of it, which I'm sure I'll be accused of pretty soon. :rolleyes:

Ah no boss, wasn't expecting same from your good self, in particular.

Ronaldo is one of the greatest players of his, or any other generation. People give him stick for being an arrogant, self centred twat, but it does not diminish his greatness, or his influence on his teams success, one single jot. Comparing Aidan O'Shea to Ronaldo, is one of the daftest things I have ever head.

Mayo News Podcast is back.

Big days are usually defined as finals, he hasn't performed in any for his county or indeed club. Look back over his record in that sense.
I have said many times before that a marquee player can have a great game and still see their team lose.
Maybe we are over estimating him, but at this stage of his career where he has been playing senior inter-county football for almost a decade he possibly should be analyzed and critiqued with the best the game has to offer.

Playing against sligo in a connaught final wouldn't be classified as a big game in my book. Scoring a lot of goals and points against poor opposition doesn't cut the mustard.

When the teams were pretty well matched up:
2012 final, 2013 final, 2016 final & replay, being out scored by your marker in a big game replay in 2015.

Look at the 2013 & 2015 county finals

These are big games but no big performance. That's a significant enough sample size.

He's both over estimated and under appreciated a lot and it's generally by the same people. And they're connected imo.

People expect some type of Superman performances (in Big Games) but will be shy on giving credit when it's due. I feel that much of this is down to the media / sponsor attention he gets. He's a media dream. He gets more attention than anyone else, people see that and question why or expect him to live up to being the best... but he's not. He's the best person to create a bit of interest or promote a product.

I think it's understandable for people to see all this and question if it's deserved. In a pure football sense, it's not. But brands or journalists don't care for that.

When such high expectations are set then the good, very good performances can be overlooked. I think he has upped his game in recent years and it's rare you'll see a bad performance.

I would certainly fit him into a "best of" 15. I think the best barometer of him as a player is found when you look at opposition attention rather than media attention. He is regularly double teamed by big teams. These guys know their stuff.

He needs to win the Moclair now as well as Sam. And that's it in a nutshell, his status will be defined by his Club and Counties. Not many others are subject to that.