Mayo GAA Discussion

Id also think Tommy Conroy should be used as an impact sub from now on.

If he doesn't have an impact early doors as a starter , he tends to drift in and out of games too much.

Cillian looks ready for the championship.

Its all to play for.

I'd agree on this being a good thing, we were always better off losing this game, gives us a nice break to get in a heavy training block and peak for the last three games of the year. I'd hope that we started that block last week. As someone said Callinan not coming on showed what McStay and Co thought about today. Delighted we'll have him for the U-20s.

Having said that we got filleted around the middle today. I thought our sideline was slow to make changes and our forwards were afraid to take their chances.

On the ref, I thought he was picky which was annoying but other than the hop balls with AOS I'm not sure he gave too many against us that weren't warranted, a bit like Joyce last week we see what we want to see.

McStay behind the camera would be very different I can imagine given his connections with Roscommon, lives there and his children born and bred rossies. It's one match he wouldn't have liked to lose given the choice but would accept they were 2nd best today and can now use the time off to re-group.

Just watching back now - Flynn was brutal, his worst game in a long time. Mcstay had a great shooting opportunity on the D with 2 points in it and passed it up; similar to the Monaghan game, very poor from him

Yeah I thought the same and it wasn't on the edge of the D it was right in the middle of the damn thing!

I'm hoping yesterday was a real wake up call for management and some players.

If a team is going to sit back and defend then is see absolutely no point in having Loftus at 6. His kicking (which we haven't seen a whole pile of anyway) is nullified and his weakness is exposed when those teams break. Any decent team will have this targeted by now.

Middle of the park is a big worry. Flynn got off to a great league but is going the other direction. Ruane was bullied and beaten up yesterday.

I've been a little concerned with Reape's kick-outs, but I don't think it's far to criticise them too much given that our midfield were cleaned out and the Rossies seemed first to every breaking ball.

I think the 6 weeks could be a massive bonus if it gives them some thinking time. But we were going all out for the win yesterday and failed miserably.

I haven't seen enough of Conor McStay but he doesn't seem to add much to the team. You couldn't script McHale's head injury, he seems destined to be unlucky.

The one positive I took from yesterday was that I don't think I saw McLaughlin kick the ball. He looked as if he was about to late on but stopped himself and gave a simple handpass instead. It's not much to take from the match but it's something.

The only other slight bit of solace is that if we do get to the latter stages, most of the better teams won't set up as negative.

If coen went low and hard We would be saying how we should have been kicking in more

Oh ya. That first free. I rewinded a couple of times last night to see if there was anything obvious from the recorded match. I couldn't see anything, but in fairness the camera was a fair distance from the alleged incident. Ref was obviously trying to lay down a marker that he could see everything that was going on. Presumably he got the shout in his earpiece from the other officials.

But ya, you'll always get some level of contact between the backs and forwards. Frees are generally given when it is seen that the back is overstepping the mark and illegally prohibiting the forward from a decent chance of the forward gathering the ball. But in that incident I couldn't see any obvious indiscretion.

On the high kick into the forwards, I don't think Mayo are cute enough. When a high ball is kicked into O'Shea, there are inevitablely lads pulling at him, But you'd never see any of our other forwards around him to give a bit of physicality back to the defenders. Why don't they try to block the defenders out of the way. At least in a way that might throw them off their game.

Biggest problem was around the middle. They won very little all day and no one around to mop up breaking ball.

Mayo were afraid to shoot yesterday, that was their biggest problem, a lot of players hadn't the balls to take on the shot, a lot of the time in very kickable positions, Roscommon kicked points from harder angles and distances.

I was gonna say, I'd love to see the stats because it didn't look to me like we were winning much in the middle at all. Back in the day, we had the likes of McLoughlin and Doherty who were really smart around the breaking ball in particular, but no one like that there the last day. No point playing a high press game if the middle is winning nothing - leaves the defence totally vulnerable.

I think Roscommon's last couple of points put a gloss on that. They were cracking points, but their shooting was poor for most of the second half. It was a very poor match in general.

It's a cliché, but the goals definitely won the game on Sunday. If Coen's had went in, I think the Rossies would have probably have had opened up a fair bit more.

Agree with that. Cillian's point from play out wide into the wind was the most difficult from either side. Roscommon didn't score a point from play until the 61st minute.

Goals were obviously the difference.

Not at all.

I was referring to the post above that said Roscommon kicked points from harder angles and distances.

Obviously Roscommon deserved to win the last day.

This is correct. The goals were absolutely huge. Sure, Roscommon didn't score a point from play until the 60th minute!! Everything went Roscommon's way yesterday but credit to them because they are definitely not man-for-man as good as Mayo but they bridged that gap with organization and intensity in their play. Then when they had some chances to shoot and with the wind at their back they took their chances.

Bar Coen's effort which was a little unlucky, Mayo absolutely butchered their numerous chances. Ryan's pass to Tommy was awful and then Tommy not only missed the point but the pass back across goal to Aiden who likely would have buried it. Jordan Flynn not having a shot from about 40 metres into an empty goal - yes it was against the wind but just kick it hard towards the goal and it likely bounces in before the defender gets back. McStay definitely should have pulled the trigger in the 2nd half too.