Mayo GAA Discussion

Hard to argue with that but Galway football has been largely in the doldrums between '01 up until PJ took over. There was a period there, apart from an occasional sporadic flicker, when a few seasons went by when they didn't play there at all. Simple fact of the matter is if you're good enough up there, you will win.

But c'mon, Mayo calling *our* record in CP 'interesting' for the past 20 years...????!!!!

Probably a similar enough team for next Sunday. If I was McStay I'd drop Ruane, theres only so long he can keep underperforming, a kick up the hole might do him no harm. Flynn/Carney to the middle and McHale in the half forward line

Ruane was close to man of the match vs Donegal and Carney was no better than him yesterday. With all due respect, McHale has done nothing to warrant a start.

That's simply not true. The standout forward for the past 3 years has been O'Donoghue.

You could also make an argument for Conroy as he was nominated for two All-Stars in that time.

McHale has never performed close to those levels at county level irrespective of what he has done for his club.

Not a scoring thing for me re Ruane. He's loose in possession, runs into traffic far too often and is too easily turned over for a man of his size and athleticism. I don't think he imposes himself on games enough anymore. Maybe it's a form thing or maybe most teams have his number now, I don't know.

I think Maher fairly had his number yesterday. He was probably Galway's best performer on the day overall.

If you watch the first half back Ruane was marking Conroy when Maher got in for his goal chance and scored his point. Don't remember Maher doing much outside of that. Ruane actually won 2 turnovers in the first half that led to points for us.

I don't think Ruane played particularly well yesterday but people do seem to be judging him by completely different standards to other players. McDonagh, Carney and Flynn contributed very little yesterday either.

Football is all about opinions and everybody has got one but you (rightly) wont be taken seriously when you say Darren McHale has been the best Mayo forward over the last 3 years.I think you also might be forgetting he was injured for a lot of that time.A good squad player and I hope he kicks on and is in a position to make the 26 regularly.

Further adding to the notion that you're not coming across as somebody with a good understanding of football is you'd like to drop Mattie Ruane.

Maybe have a bit of a think before posting and people might interact you more positively with you.

No worries,

Any time you want to talk nonsense I'll happily point it out👍

That's fair enough, Ruane is capable of more.

However saying Maher had his number is simply not true if you watch the game back. Likewise saying he's loose in possession and runs into traffic. That didn't happen at all yesterday and hasn't really been an issue during the league from what I've seen.

A lot of recent criticisms (focused on Mattie and Fionn currently but at times seems to be including Jordan and Jack) seem to be focused on one aspect of play. Offence. Even more so it seems hyper focused on ball in hand skill execution and ball in hand decision making only. That's a pretty small part of the overall game and wouldn't be the sole priority (or even top 3 priorities) when selecting those players for those roles. Sure, it's very important. But so are lots of other things.

Looking at a few more aspects of their game all have been pretty great this year (I'll agree with Mattie having more to offer, he can hit the levels Diarmuid has been, but hoping for more and criticising what he has given are very different things). Sure they've all had games where they'll be kicking themselves for snatching at a shot or giving a sloppy turnover but all have been a huge part of giving us the platform to perform game after game. A platform that has really allowed for others on any given day to shine.

If you look at the job any of the lads are doing in Defence (once we're all back and in shape how are we managing to stop teams), Defence Transition (how we manage to get back into shape after something like losing a turnover or a team breaking a press), Offence Transition (how we get forward when we manage to turn the ball over on others) and Offence (how we manage to breakdown a set defence against us)... about 75%-85% of that workload is off the ball. Being in the right place at the right time to either prevent a ball coming in to an attacker on defence or pulling a defender out of position so another player can benefit from the space on offence (something Fionn and Mattie very seldom get praised for but frequently excel at).

Tackling is still huge, fielding important, kick and hand passing very important and taking scores always going to be vital but so much of our current setup is depending on what the 14 lads off the ball are doing for the 1 on it to get all that stuff right. And the lads often being criticised are doing an awful lot of the 'other' hard work very well. We've still a lot of work to do on stopping so many runs down the middle getting through... 5 goal chances coughed up to Galway is 5 too many... but when you break those down to the causes it's not any of the lads mentioned repeatedly or even commonly at fault this year (Maher one Mattie should have done better along with Ryan letting Kelly away a bit easily in the buildup; Heaney one Loftus had to do better in the footrace and put Heaney under more pressure [not necessarily having to win it]; Tierney one Paddy had tracked him brilliantly - give the defenders a thumbs up on that one with it a half chance at best after a very unfortunate turnover on Diarmuid coming into contact with Mattie supporting him; Comer one of the worst chances defensively... Loftus completely out of position and jogging exhausted looking towards the ball rather than busting a gut to cover inside [wouldn't have gotten there in time but you'd hope he'd be trying], Paddy ending up heading for canal after missing a push on Comer... fair play to Diarmuid busting a gut to narrow the goal and Reape covering the near post to stop what should have been buried; Cooke's one had multiple lads falling asleep from a mark assuming they'd point it. Eoghan McLoughlin, Bob Tuohy and Conor Loftus would be at the front of the list getting an earful from me on that one but you could easily pick out 4 or 5 others equally deserving of it. Team failure on combination of physical/mental fatigue on that one).

The five from 8 to 12 have some of the toughest jobs in the two transition phases, while being vital to both offence and defence too, and the energy and exertion they put in is going to cause some mistakes over the course of 70 minutes. Not every player is going to match the stamina needed for those roles the way we're playing them and those that can aren't always going to offer the same pace/physicality/fielding/defensive strengths/offensive strengths as the lads out there. Swapping any one of the lads for Darren McHale, Bob Tuohy, Frank Irwin, Tommy Conroy, Cillian O'Conner, Aidan O'Shea (personally I want him in at 14 99.9% but he can still offer a lot at 11 or 10 as needed), Bryan Walsh, Kevin McLoughlin or playing lads like Enda or Eoghan out of position are all going to offer a variety of pros and cons with very few cases where one player is simply 'better' than another. There will be times when we'd certainly look to change things up. However judging the lads predominantly on the one attacking aspect of the game, that a more attacking alternative could likely do (slightly) better, while ignoring all the other areas of the game we're likely to suffer feels very myopic.

(Said as a huge Darren McHale fan. Love his style of play, vision, distribution and eye for goal. Could be a key ingredient for us this year unlocking tricky defences. I'd disagree on him not being a great option off the bench though [his ability to pick out the right pass at the right time against a tired defence being run at is amazing coming on late in a game].

Wouldn't expect to see him starting in MacHale Park this week or Salthill if we're there in the Semi. Certainly not in place of Mattie. That said, could easily get a nice run off the bench and between the Connacht Final and Round Robin games if he stays fit could be a vital part of the team this year)

You over state the level of talent it takes to do the 'hard work' part of those roles. Don't get me wrong, you've got to be seriously fit and highly motivated to do it but much of that comes down how well the management team have set the team up and explained the roles well enough to the players involved. You underestimate the ball skills and decision-making which is what ultimately separate's the champions from the rest. Fionn is not Mayo inter-county standard when it comes to decision-making and ball-skills but Jordan and Jack Carney are. Wing forward is probably Mayo's weakest position. You have Bob Touhy as next in line, maybe Darren McHale if he stays fit long enough, and that's it really. Kevin Mc and Jason D are past it to play for any prolonged period in that role. Boland was unbelievably dropped from the panel and Oisin Mc pulled out I believe - so depth is lacking in that position.