Mayo GAA Discussion

This defeat hurts. And it’s one I think we’ll really come to regret quite badly. It was probably the most open championship since 2010. Certainly the most open final since then. With the big two (the Dubs and Kerry) out of the way, you have to take those chances when they come along. Too many players didn’t step up yesterday. Very wasteful with our chances. Too many bad decisions by our forwards and a general lack of composure.

Felt sorry for Keegan he was superb yesterday. Never stopped driving the team on. Time is running out for him now. Hate to think of it ending the same way for him as it did for Andy, Higgins and some others, but it’s looking likely he won’t get that elusive AI title he deserves.

I also feel sorry for Keegan. He's the best player we've ever had and it's sad to think he won't get a medal. He's the only one who showed up yesterday.

Here’s the Brolly article for anyone interested…

No more excuses please from football’s great time wastersJoe Brolly

Mayo is full of cliques and favourites as culture will not change under Horan who made Tyrone’s job easy

September 11 2021 10:08 PM

Time wasters. A lot of other counties would give their right arms to be here. The people of Mayo put their heart and soul into their team. And this is what they get?

A manager on the sideline making choices based on political considerations. A protected captain who does not lead and never will.

Substituting Pádraig O’Hora in the 51st minute after he had surged forward to win a free inside the Tyrone half and had been taking the game to Tyrone? Leaving passengers on the field?

It was embarrassing and enraging, even if it was inevitable. The shame is that with a high-performance culture based on merit, Mayo could be so much more than this. I got a text from Pat Gilroy on the final whistle. It said “culture”.

At the highest level, the best culture wins. Which is why, in the end, a middling Tyrone team still learning their trade won easily. They are serious.

With Dooher, Logan and Peter Canavan leading the group, there is a merciless search for success. No passengers. No favourites. Winning big games, as they know, is war without guns.

The six in-a-row Dubs might have been highly skilled, highly conditioned, and expertly coached, but they would not have won without bringing war. Tyrone were up for it. Mayo, with a few exceptions, were not. How could they be? They have too many distractions.

The game was finally over in the 25th minute. Aidan O’Shea was presented with the easiest goal chance I have seen in a final. The Tyrone keeper was caught out and had left his goal empty, chasing back fearing the worst.

His life must have flashed before his eyes. He needn’t have worried. “Oh for f**k sake” the Mayo man beside me said. My brother Proinsias texted me, “As I said our boy”.

When there are individuals who are undroppable and a manager has favourites, cliques form and it is not a team.

The players know this, and the true bonds of loyalty and togetherness that are compulsory for success are missing.

The manager talks a good game but it is merely talk. I feel bad for Mayo and its people and its wonderful clubs but until this malaise is rooted out, this will continue to be their reality.

Straws will be clutched at. Mayo missed a penalty when they were two points down. But when everything isn’t right, nothing is right.

The feeling of liberation at the absence of Dublin and the hope that Mayo might perform was soon replaced with a feeling that nothing has changed. Tyrone, all calm and composed and ruthless when it came to it, won by five points.

It could have been worse, if for the second game in a row, the ‘Son of God’ hadn’t missed what for him was an easy goal chance.

I have watched him with excitement since he was a teenager and have never seen him miss a goal chance. It must be the Carrickmore in him. He has his first Sam Maguire already. His father, who did not win his first until he was 33, must be well pleased.

I wrote last week that what happened in the last quarter of the Dublin game and in extra-time was not a game plan. It was a crazy, unpredictable, emotional energy that an underdog sometimes taps into.

Tyrone, meanwhile, gloved Kerry, with a miraculous performance from David Clifford keeping Kerry in it. Finals are unsentimental affairs. It is kill or be killed. It is culture v culture. And when one team’s philosophy is not based on the principles of logic and merit, defeat is inevitable. The back-to-the-drawing-board bullshit does not cut it.

Good culture is the backdrop for the decisive contributions that are required to win an All-Ireland. I think of the Meath team of Colm O’Rourke, all loyalty and stubbornness and refusal to accept defeat, winning All-Irelands against better teams on paper.

Or the 2008 Tyrone team. Or Down of 1991. Or us in 1993. Or the Dubs from 2011 onwards. Mayo’s manager will say, “We lost by a point” or “we missed a penalty” or “we couldn’t repeat our semi-final performance” but this is just bullshit.

Tyrone, a team picked on merit, with a culture of heads down, no commercial distractions and playing for the people of Tyrone, easily won. Two expertly-taken goals will be the headline, but the truth is that their culture is a world away from their opposition’s.

There were any number of moments where we turned to each other and said, “Well that’s the end of that”, but the truth is that this contest was over before it began.

Tyrone came in at half-time two up, after O’Hora had surged forward defiantly to win a 20-metre free that Ryan O’Donoghue easily converted. But the wheels of this sentimental, public-relations merry-go-round came off altogether in the second half.

McShane came on and fisted a superb goal from a terrific long diagonal ball. The ‘Son of God’ came on shortly afterwards and played with the precision and expertise one would expect from a Canavan.

The inevitable second Tyrone goal followed, a thrilling long kick-out from Morgan leading to an expertly-taken finish. Calm, precise, serious. Just what you’d expect from a serious team.

Thing is, Tyrone did not expect to be All-Ireland champions at the start of this season. But when they got Mayo in the final, they knew, and we knew, that it was going to happen. In the end, it is a question of culture.

Under this manager, Mayo are time wasters. Soul destroying for good footballers and good clubs. Soul destroying for the people.

Well thats a load of rubbish!!! I wonder what he would have wrote if Mayo won.

Quick question for ye. McHale failed to make the 26 yesterday. I know his form in the last 2 matches was poor and Canning said Orme impressed in a recent A v B. But was McHale just dropped or any injury? Its quite a drop to go from starting a semi to not making 26 in the final.

“The game was finally over in the 25th minute. Aidan O’Shea was presented with the easiest goal chance I have seen in a final. The Tyrone keeper was caught out and had left his goal empty, chasing back fearing the worst”

Absolute scutter

Conor Loftus chance when there was no keeper and a defender lying on the ground who he hit the ball at was the best chance

Followed by Conroy’s

And of course the penalty

Bit yeah Aidan o Shea’s on at an angle outside the box with a defender in the way was the easiest.

Out of that list Higgins is the only one on a par with Keegan

Go back to bed

I am well aware who Liam McHale is

A fine player but nowhere near the level Keegan has consistently played at .

One all star. Never won POTY. Fairly easy to see who is the better player

And of all the posters here I am the last person who needs to do my research on Conor ;)

While we are all disappointed, angry and disillusioned, any real Mayo fan giving that brolly article any heed or traction need to step back and have a look at themselves.

It certainly was not an easy chance for AOS. He caught the ball well but seemed to panic then. He shud have soloed back in to himself, thereby getting free of the defender and better chance of a score. Even a point would have been ok.

An easy goal is the Tyrone 2nd (more credit goes to the midfielder who caught the ball and the forward who had the brains to hand pass it into the square) and the Mayo missed pen. I don’t think you should be going for top corner and doing a stop/start in such a crucial moment. I wonder what could have happened if AOS had taken it, could have got that demon of never scoring in a final off his back.

He subbed him early in the semi but looked like he was not allowed sun him yday. I think AOS and the people around him must have some kind of influence on Horan yday.

Daren McHale was injured