Mayo GAA Discussion

In an ideal world, as @TsuDhoNimh mentions, someone would grab that starting spot. Nobody claiming it just yet though.

But on the other hand, I'm not sure if both Aidan and Cillian can be impact subs. You're bringing down the pace of the team if both are coming on late.

We're constantly told not to overreact when winning during the league, the same surely applies when someone plays poorly!

I think Aidan played quite well vs Galway. Was out in front the whole time in the first half winning ball and laying it off. He was still out in front of his marker a lot last Saturday too. Unusually for him he had several handling errors which shouldn't happen too often again. When Reid went off injured we only had 5 forwards on the pitch so Dublin constantly had a sweeper cutting out kick passes to our full forward line. That obviously limits what Aidan can do as he's not going to come out on the loop taking shots.

He's not a natural free taker but what other option have we for left footed ones?! Teams will be wise to us going short after the last night too!

Good to be able to have a reasoned discussion about it anyway,the Mayo blog has finally tipped the balance of more eejits than rational people.

Aido isn't really there to take scores,he's not or never has been an out and out scorer. His job is to win ball,creat chances for others,disrupt defenses and tackle.

I'm not confident with him taking the right sided frees and neither is he it seems (similar to Kevin McLoughlin before him) Being left footed doesn't guarantee the skill,execution and mindset of a free taker.

He's definitely off the pace in the first 2 league games,whether that's form,getting on a bit,fitness or match sharpness we don't know.Hes just back from holiday so behind everyone else in work done.

I think he's earned the right to see if he comes good.

On Saturday I thought it was very apparent how light Towey is compared to Top intercounty players. Even smaller players like Fergal Boland and Ryan O'Donoghue have physiques capable of battling with these defenders. Its a shame if he can't figure out how to deal with them because he is sensational for scores at club level.

Yeah the Mayo blog is very polarised. At least you can have an opinion here without causing a meltdown response.

Aidan will probably be better the next day and he often plays well against Kerry. But he is nearly 34 and I think a pacier player is needed for championship football. If Diamuid gets back he may slot in at midfield or at 11 and that might free up someone for full forward. And if Aidan happened to get injured (he rarely does to his credit) they would manage to come up with someone to replace him.

Yeah, long term he's a huge prospect too. Himself and Brian Reape looked deadly at times linking up for Moy Davitts this year in his first year adult (arguably had the better first year at intermediate/senior of the two). Long term you'd expect him to fill the Cillian sort of role of a 'boring' consistently heavy scorer (certainly club and hopefully county) with Niall offering more of the RO'D/Tommy style explosiveness & creativity (and hopefully heavy scoring too). The explosive pace to potentially create goals why Niall would edge infront in my mind but having not caught any of the 20s games this year (I know they'd a challenge against Derry on Saturday, rushing to get in to the Senior game on time) I could be miles off on what's happening on the pitch.

Maheady from Crossmolina could be ahead of the two for now in terms of the physicals to push towards senior (wouldn't be far off Duffy you'd imagine). Wouldn't quite offer the explosivness of Hurley but another that can pull off some outrageous scores and a flair for the unexpected our existing options (outside McHale) are potentially a touch short on.

Have agree with a lot that's being said here re oshea did OK against a sh1te galway team,was very poor against dublin then the free kick just summed up his night.

Don't think he deserves his place for kerry to be honest (didn't realise he was 34)last 20 massive impact sub for us.Coc to start he hasn't played much since ballintubber got knocked out.

You'll often hear people complain about no new faces etc but whatever system is in place, there's a fairly constant conveyor belt of guys coming through. Credit to whoever is or was behind setting up that structure. It would be something that I would love to know more about.

Maybe it's the lack of one or two attacking gems that causes us to overlook it at times, but we've been rejuvenating the team now consistently for a long long time.

David Dolan in the Club All Star challenge game and Diarmuid Duffy in the league have already been involved this year from that group. All the lads mentioned (along with Dara Hurley and Luke Feeney) showed plenty in the Club Championship to be in the conversation so I'd disagree with the chat being outright premature.

I wouldn't disagree that for their long term health/development of the lads we're probably better leaving them in the 20s (they are u19 after all so on the same page there) but no question in terms of current talent and current ability (ignoring the sky high potential) they're part of the chat. Similar chats were had around Callinan (played u19) and Mullin (didn't play u19 but burst on the scene u20 iirc) with different decisions made so obviously no clear right/wrong answer for management on it.

Lots of Ukrainians in Kerry are renting out their apartments on the web for short-term lets and on weekends too .

Interesting piece from James Laffey on Mayo's forward line issues.

https://westernpeople.ie/sport/gaa/attacking-strategy-requires-urgent-attention-if-mayo-are-to-bloom-in-summer_arid-9095.html?fbclid=IwAR2XZMTFB8nwaMmwTkw1d3wt_7a_l-Lc0E_kofzyxkVU_ei7P_3Y00_UtaQ

"O’Shea’s willingness to take on responsibility is to be commended but if it’s not working it needs to be changed and there is little logic in a veteran taking frees when he never previously did it for club or county."

Free in the County Final, frees in the Semi-Final against Mitchels, 3rd highest scorer in the Club Championship with 2-17 for the year (beaten only by Evan Regan and Ryan O'Donoghue) a large portion of those being frees (can't find a breakdown on the specifics sadly) and a surprisingly massive portion of those frees he won for himself (and a tonne more where he assisted Conor/Robbie with right footed free scores). All while carrying (Mattie had a really poor year at club so it ended with Aidan & Conor doing an awful lot of the heavy lifting for Breaffy, with notable support from younger lads like Neary, Tunney & Beirne) an unfancied Breaffy side through battles with Westport and Castlebar to make the Final. If that's not previously doing it for club, successfully kicking under pressure in big games with the weight of the team on him, I'm not sure what is.

I disagreed with far more of the piece than I agreed with.

Some of the numbers GAA Tracker App shared were pretty interesting to me. I'd never have imagined we got as many shots away against Dublin as we did against Galway, really shows how much that Salthill breeze had interfered in Round 1.

The average time to a score versus average time to a miss probably the most telling (and hopefully actionable) of the numbers there. Important to get the lads comfortable and patient for stages where they have to hold it and go through phases, whether it's to kill momentum of a team or game management for black cards/see out a win, rather than it causing our conversion rates to drop. That said... anything we can do to get the average time to a score even lower all the better again. The faster the transition the more likely a goal chance from it, or at least you'd assume so.

Anyone think we should add more seats to McHale Park ?

I remember the board saying couple years ago that they have ambitions doing it but so far it hasn't happened.

The stadium looks great on TV, but if we added more seats it would look the real deal,

My inlaw who is a dub was at the game the other night were very impressed with the stand, but confused as to why we only planted a select few seats on the oppposite side , and just left like that.

I couldn't give him an answer.

The blue seats on the McHale Road side were originally in the stand.They had to take about 1000 out of the stand as there weren't sufficient walkways.You can see it in pics of the 1st year or two of the stands existence.

There's no appetite to do anything more with the stadium because they made such a hames of the finance side of it first time round.The debt on the stadium and levy on clubs is projected to go till about 2060.More than 50 years after the stand opened, its the single biggest obstacle to Mayo staying at the top table.That money can't be used for centre of excellence, GPOs etc.

Roscommon will open a refurbished stand with a bigger capacity than our stand next month.It cost 10% of what we paid and is mostly self funded,no debt.