Mayo GAA Discussion

Can we leave the Clarke/Hennelly debate in the past? It's been done to death over the years since then.

While we're reminiscing

It's raining in Mayo heartland and hearts as the inquests begin

Mayo reaction to All-Ireland SFC humiliation: Keith Duggan on the anger and disappointment in the county at their latest setback

In a Shakespearean touch, it has not stopped raining in the west since Sunday. The rain buckets down on Mayo and there is nothing for it but to bemoan another distorted and inglorious All-Ireland defeat.

Mickey Moran and John Morrison have, understandably, asked for a few days of solitude. Morrison did make encouraging sounds on Sunday night after reviewing the day's events and promising the management would, given time, sit down with the players individually and try to work out what was going on in their heads.

He vowed Mayo would be back, which was at least an early indication the Ulster men are planning to return for the second year of their managerial term.

For the players, the Mayo club championship looms large, but after a desperately subdued return to the Welcome Inn in Castlebar, the squad officially broke up, a dismaying end to a greatly promising season.

Much more so than in 2004, when there were clear signs that Mayo were labouring in the build-up to the All-Ireland final, the nature of last Sunday's defeat remains inexplicable and, for many supporters, unacceptable.

The reaction lies between crushing disappointment and outright anger.

After sitting through The Sunday Game as a panellist, former Mayo star Kevin McStay headed home and wrote a very strong column for the Mayo News arguing that enough was enough.

"I wasn't angry, it wasn't that," he explains, "as an ex-player, you know what it feels like to get walloped and it isn't pleasant to pick up a newspaper or listen to a radio and see a former player cutting the socks of you. But driving home, I thought of my own people who came over here from Boston thinking, 'God, if they won and I wasn't there, I'd never forgive myself'. Nobody put a gun to their heads, but it was an awful lot of time and effort and hundreds of people did the same.

"And it was hard to square off that collective effort with what we saw on the field. The bit that killed me was that apparent lack of ordinary effort, the simple blocking and tackling. That feeling that this game was the biggest day in their lives.

"And I have been critical of David Brady in the past, but I take my hat off to him because he stood up to be counted when he went in. But I felt that there weren't that many standing with him."

Amid the disappointment, theories and criticisms abound. That Mayo did not set out with an obvious contingency plan to counter the threat of Kieran Donaghy has been the chief criticism. But there were problems all over the field and Kerry were masterful in quietening Mayo's key men.

As Jack O'Connor remarked with a satisfied grimace on Sunday evening, they "cracked" the Mayo midfield. Contrary to pre-match expectations, Tommy Griffin was the key man. The heavyweight pair of Darragh Ó Sé and Ronan McGarritty sort of cancelled each other out.

"Yeah, but Mayo needed more than for Darragh Ó Sé to be quiet," counters McStay. "We needed Ronan McGarrity to be huge."

Once again, Tom O'Sullivan hounded Conor Mortimer, although a substantial argument can be made that the Shrule man never got quality ball and was playing a dead match before he got his first meaningful touch.

Aidan O'Mahony marked Ciarán McDonald diligently, tracking the Mayo playmaker back and coolly kicking two points when the opportunities presented themselves as the Crossmolina man, with increasing desperation, tried to make things happen.

"And the explanation for Alan Dillon's game is that once Mayo's overall game plan was obliterated, his role effectively disappeared," adds McStay.

Still, it is the minor details that haunt him. He instances a sequence when a clearance by Séamus Moynihan was half-blocked down. A Mayo player, racing into defence, was too distracted or rushed to notice that the ball was about to fall near him - as he tore back to cover, Paul Galvin was racing the other way, alive to the break.

For Donaghy's goal, he noticed a defender was torn between his natural defensive instinct to race to David Heaney's assistance and a fear of leaving his own man unmarked. That second of hesitation was fatal. "We were bamboozled. And there are plenty of examples, I don't want to pick on individual players."

Anyway, it is as a unit that Mayo failed. And as the team and county go back to the drawing board, there may be a loudening clamour for a fundamental change of the fast and open attacking game that Mayo play.

Mayo are comfortably a Division One team and, as regular provincial championship contenders, a reasonable bet for the last eight of the championship. But there is a mounting feeling that if they are to push on, they will need to play a more sinister and narrow-minded game.

"I don't know if that is the way," argues McStay. "Our style is our style. And when it is good, it is very pleasing to the eye. If we were to go the other way and try and embrace the darker side, as they say, I am not sure we are cute enough to pull it off.

"Take a guy like David Brady, one of the toughest players on the Mayo team, but I am not sure he would be able to adapt to playing the game on the borders of the rules the whole time."

Like most Mayo football people, McStay is uncertain as to where or how things will go from here. Leaving Croke Park last week, he met a former Kerry great who was genuinely troubled and perplexed about Mayo's fretful showing. But speaking of the three most impressive forwards who played for Mayo this year, he noted that only Dillon, the industrious, roving wing forward, would have fitted comfortably into the contemporary demands of the Kerry panel.

"What he was saying was that only Dillon, with his direct approach and incredible work ethic, would have been acceptable to Kerry. I suppose that is a reflection of how we play the game in Mayo. There is an extravagance to our game.

"Being honest, I suppose I liked being that bit extravagant when I was playing myself. And I look back and think, God above, why didn't someone grab me and shout stop. But I suppose it goes back to the way we play the game."

And all they can do is keep on playing and keep clinging to the word that has trailed them all summer - faith.

Alas the Hype Train™ hasn't reached Australia yet it seems but if you're missing Oisin you can watch him butchering the Irish language every Tuesday night on RTE 1....

Mayo are peaking way too soon…….

Assuming the O'Shea-Carr-O'Donoghue full forward line holds it's form and stays the same going into Championship, with O'Connor and Conroy coming off the bench and the likes of Carney able to play in there, it must be by far the best selection of FFs Mayo have ever had?

 Oisín son of Fionn mac Cumhaill wouldn't even make this team!

Mayo are one point worse off than the same stage last year. It's not unusual for us to be towards the top of division 1.

Funny. If I was Kevin or the team I'd be coming at the that from the opposite side.

Lucky to scrape a draw against a missfiring Galway side. Threw away a win against a not firing Armagh side. Got two relatively easy wins against Kerry and Tyrone sides that didn't show up. Wouldn't be overly worried about looking to sustain the current form so much as aiming to push on a few levels with it ourselves over the Provincials and Round Robin.

Great to see lads like Diarmuid, Jordan, Enda, Aidan or James having fun, moving well and striking the ball well (at times.... that 'rocky' 20 minutes against Tyrone where we dominated the game but had nothing on the score board from dropped or fumbled balls, mistakes and poorly hit shots shows how easy things can turn) but none of them will be getting too excited yet. I'd well imagine they've all had tougher AvB games this year than we've seen so far in the NFL.

All we can really ask for at this stage of the season, especially the new condensed season, is lads to avoid injuries (Eoghan making his way back from concussion from Sigerson duty and knocks picked up by Darren and Rory suggest we'd hope for a little better luck there) and beat what's put in front of them. All the better to do it with a little swagger, throwing in a few goals and managing to keep a clean sheet or two to help build a little confidence. Plenty of positives to build on, especially the movement and creativity we've shown, but nothing that should be making ourselves or the lads too giddy.

Can't remember Aido winning many (or any) high diagonals this year? James has won a couple but can't remember Aido taking one above chest height to date (and even low diagonals only the single one against Armagh springs to mind). Very open to correction there but none stand out.

His ball winning abilities and strength have been a huge part of his play inside but not the old fashioned hoofed ball in and high fielding stuff that has failed for us/him in the past. It's mostly pop passes and chest high stuff where the defence just can't stop him turning or laying off to whoever is on his shoulder for him to cause chaos.

Pretty easy stuff to stop inside by playing a sweeper directly in front... but that's fine too. The setup isn't looking for Aido to be a dominant scorer just to link things up and if they tie up two defenders on him it leaves a lot of extra space for runners from deep and lads looping around. Taking it 1v1 I'm not sure there's a player in the country that can stop him winning more than his fair share of clever balls (was surprised to see Foley swapped with Casey in the Kerry match.... though that could have been hoping Foley would do a more impactful job elsewhere rather than expecting Casey to do better on Aidan directly). He's just too big, too strong and has great hands for it to be easily stopped 1v1. So while it can be stopped, relatively easily, it would always be coming at a significant cost for opposition that would allow advantage elsewhere.

That said, lovely to have options with Ryan/Tommy/James/Cillian (Conor and Paul hopefully also stepping up to push those) to pick from. Wouldn't have any strong feelings on who should be starters or finishers there. A combination of form and match ups should allow decent decisions to be made game to game. I'd expect to see a couple of them turning up outside of 13-15 from time to time.