Enjoy!!
Old thread here......
https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2057962937/mayo-gaa-discussion-part-4#latest
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Green Peter - Permanent
Man Vs ManUre until 9/05/23
Think it was Colm Boyle that pointed out he felt Sam looked a bit leggy at times. I thought a good few of the lads did (runs even in the first half were leaving us fairly gassed, even the likes of Hession who's normally a 70 minute dynamo) so wouldn't be shocked if they'd run them hard during the 'break' and in full Championship mode for the Hyde already.
Possibly just wishful thinking but would help explain the lack of support runners most of the time and hopefully be part of the reason for the 3 silly errors (Rory, Colm and Enda/Jordan) leading to very soft Derry goals.
Along with the 2 hops for slow play Lynch ended up kicking another straight out of play, something you'd very rarely see from Derry. He was just back from a few weeks off with injury but very uncharacteristic and a positive sign of how well we were doing around the middle.
The biggest problem I saw in attack was that when players (AOS, Tommy, ROD, Towey) won the ball in the FF line, there was nobody making a run from the HF/MF area for them to pop it to so they either had to come all the way out to the HF line and start again or they tried to turn and got bottled up. It shouldn't be that hard to fix IMO. Overall though, I thought the forward play was better than it was in previous matches.
I also thought we did okay around the middle in that we managed to cover off a lot of options to the extent that we were able to get two hop balls from their keeper delaying his kickout and probably should have gotten a third one.
Wouldn't want to be overly negative, but I left the game deflated. I know it wasn't a must win, and it's not the result that matters, I just can't see the style or system we're playing working / being good enough.
I lost count of how many times, either Tommy or Ryan were our deepest defenders in the first half. Surely, if we're going to put 15 men behind the ball at times, we could work out some system that would see Tommy and Ryan be ready for the break.
It looks like some work is going into trying to improve attacking patterns, but it all seems extremely predictable.
I've listened to his podcast with Dion Fanning. It's interesting in terms of the insights it gives into Northern Ireland. But of course it's Joe speaking 95% of the time and poor Dion getting shut down anytime he tries to express a different point of view.
I think he's disliked in Derry almost as much as he is in Mayo
I'd add the "Joe Brolly" factor to that statement.
Derry “got one” in 1993.
I wouldnt begrudge Derry at all, bar maybe the Mickey Harte factor. Its what, 5 years since they played in a div 4 final and are now one of the top handful of teams in the country. They seem to have taken a strategic look at where they have gone wrong, and put a plan in place to fix it. Aided of course by having so many top class players come through and hit form at the same time. Glass, McGuigan, Rodgers and co are great to watch in full flow. I do think their goalkeeper might see them caught out again though.
There are a lot of teams Id rather see fall short than them :-)
Safe with a game to spare
safe from league final with a game to spare
New players given game time
next to zero goal chances given up in first 5 games
Id say mission accomplished.
Winning Connacht has to be the only priority now. Anything else is a bonus. I don’t see any other Connacht team winning the AI so that fear is gone :D
Be a sickener to see the likes of Derry get one before us though
Derry were just as loose in defence, if not more so. How many goal chances had we?
Not sure how in control Derry were either if you take that into account.
A big positive is how strong we were in midfield yesterday. Many would consider Glass and Rodgers the best duo around and I think we got the better of them.
Spot on.
We'd conceded 67, Derry next best on 69, Roscommon on 70 and Galway on 72 the best Div 1 defences at the end of R5 (Case to be made for Armagh on 52 & Donegal on 59 in Div 2). Even now on 91 the only ones tighter than us at the back after R6 are Derry on 88 and Roscommon on 90.
We lost this one on very poor defensive performances (to be fair, 1 to 15 involved not just 1 to 7), the one area we've been performing consistently well. We all know Colm, Sam, Enda, Rory, Donnacha and Stephen can do better than they showed at the weekend (thought Aaron put in a really solid showing for his first day out in a back unit that was misfiring) and against a team as fast as Derry having a few more from Jack, David, Paddy, Eoghan and Diarmuid on the pitch reduces the number of pace mismatches they could take advantage of dramatically which improves each of those individual performances relatively too.
Got as close as we did playing relatively poorly, hitting ~50% of our shots (with us creating more shooting opportunities than Derry and a number of those in very scorable positions), with restarts hurting us terribly performing way below any recent average (despite us doing relatively well around the middle), with experienced lads making very out of character mistakes for soft goals and with us creating 5 reasonable goal chances (taking 2) at the far end.
More than enough positives there for me to be content.... or at least as content as you can ever be after a loss.
Great to see some minutes for lads like Aaron McDonnell, Fenton Kelly, Kevin Quinn (3 debuts), Conor Loftus and Paul Towey too. All making decent contributions given the time available. Bit more confidence for Tommy, Mattie and Aido too. Should stand to them all going forward.
Open to correction here but our defence was the best in the league before yesterday.
A bit of perspective needed,we were never going to win that game yesterday, we didn't even want to.
Safety secured,job done.
It's all about championship.
Derry took the foot off the gas towards end which made the scoreline look more respectable. But honestly they could have won it by a lot more. We have to have one of the loosest defences in division 1. Absolute shambles.
Think you pretty much summed it up. The lateral play isn't going to get us far. Still best when we throw caution to the wind and attack directly. But then we usually revert back to plan A for the next game.
One main issue I see is the lack of height and bulk up the spine of the team. Plenty of nice footballers but lacking that bit of power to win dirty ball and to stop the opposition runs up the centre. But we have to go with what we have.
Tommy much better. If he was a little bit more cynical he could have gone down a few times and earned a black card or 2 against the defenders hanging out of him.
We are a top 6 team at the moment and that's where we will stay until players develop more.
Blessing in disguise. Knock the chances of a league final on the head and focus on Connacht. Derry will beat Roscommon and can’t see Dublin losing to Tyrone by anything material enough.
Some of the same old failings on display there today. Over and back and into cul de sacs before someone goes for a wild swing at the posts. Getting caught with no cover when turned over.
We were well beaten when it mattered, and only got back in to it when Derry thought they had the game won. Once we got within touching distance, they went up through a gear or two and put some more easy scores on the board.
I thought the ref was poor today. The one he blew up for the foul on Conroy when he had just got past his man and was bearing down on goal was the highlight. To bring the free all the way out to the sideline was bizarre.
Derry deserving winners. Not a good day for Reape. Looked ragged at times but some good things also. Tommy's best game in ages
Haven't see The Chaos for a while!!
Taking a hiding at home from the 3rd best team in the country .
Already safe now regardless of what happens in the next 2 games
As with a lot of the county lads (the majority of our full back line options, past and present, tend to play half back or midfield at club and our half backs can tend to show up anywhere on the pitch) he tends to play firefighter for Ballina and fill whatever role they need from him on a given weekend. Man marking 3 (if he's a better matchup or Ger Caff isn't playing), attacking 6, wing back or filling in around midfield at various times last year and previous years. He certainly has the strengths and experience to do a job at 6, if or when he's hitting form & fitness at least.
Interesting to watch Boland getting into the 26 ahead of him. Fantastic young player, great potential for the future but I'm not sure I've ever watched a Stephenites game and thought he'd make a 26 that Swannie didn't, this year at least. You'd have to imagine it's fitness or sharpness related rather than skill, ability or purely performance related (though if I'm wrong the idea of McDonnell and Boland outperforming him in training is even more exciting).
He's usually 6 or 4 depending on who they're playing - typically either marking the best opposition forward (I'd say less so now with Callinan involved) or driving forward from 6
I wouldn't be his biggest fan fan and he certainly has had tough days in some big games, but our naivety hasn't helped his cause at the same time. We seem to fail to relaise that man marking the likes of Clifford etc should be a 1.5/2 man job and we leave the likes of O'Hora exposed.
I think he'll just about scrape in to the 26 man squad, can't see him starting though.
What position does he play for Ballina.
I alway thought Swanny would be worth a try at 6 instead of the corner
Yes, even a fully fit O'Hora will struggle to make the team and probably even the first choice subs. A great warrior fully committed to the cause but pace is an issue.
Are we sure O’Hora brings anything that we don’t already have and in much younger legs? I’m afraid that he seems to get roasted too often for my liking.
Was injured at the start of the league and due to be back in contention around the Kerry game (Round 3).
No official word of a setback or another injury, so while that's possible he's probably just fighting to get back to 100% and enough match sharpness (in training) to get ahead of McDonnell/Boland/Plunkett/etc for a place on the 26. (McStay also well known over the years for not liking to rush back or risk lads recovering from injury)
Is Padraig o Hora injured, have not heard any mention of him since start of the league
The over-soloing thing is something I've been highlighting and results in missed opportunities when a player runs out of space. Overall though I felt there was more heads up football on Saturday and the ball was moved forward with greater urgency, especially in the first half.
I'm convinced more than ever that the league format should become the championship - the best teams playing each other week after week. It's a no brainer and would boost attendances.
1 - January - Scrap the pre-season tournaments and give the colleges the month to themselves.
2 - Then have the provincial competition which gives a chance to some teams to get a bit of silverware who are not at the level to win sam maguire.
3 - Then the All Ireland league format competition with divisions 1 and 2 competing for Sam Maguire and 3 and 4 with their own competition.
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