Mayo GAA Discussion

How piss poor where the rossies in the 2nd half I think it happened a few times where we had the ball in our own back line there wasn't one tackle made on us untill the forward line and even then it was lacking any sort of power or intensity.

Is it 3 players out now with hamstring problems ?hate seeing that injury itan go just as quick again when they return.

Good win last night although Roscommon were very poor in second half so I wouldn't be getting too excited. A few things in particular that I noticed at the match:

- ROD was excellent but early in the second half he was 2nd receiver for a kickout and carried the ball from our 30 well into their half. We have 10+ other players who can do this job better than him and very few who can do his job closer to goal

- too many players taking a solo without looking up. I wouldn't blame him too much as he's so young but for both of mchugh's points, he could have shot without taking a solo; against better teams, the time wasted on that solo will be used to bottle him up

- Aidan was man on man on several occasions inside and not once did we let a ball in on top of him; even if he did nothing with it, it'd keep the backs honest and leave a little extra space further out

- second game running that Cillian has looked his age

Have to agree. I can’t imagine Allianz as sponsors are delighted with how the GAA are entirely negating the league as a competition.

Is Padraig o Hora injured, have not heard any mention of him since start of the league

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.

I alway thought Swanny would be worth a try at 6 instead of the corner

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.

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).

Taking a hiding at home from the 3rd best team in the country .

Derry deserving winners. Not a good day for Reape. Looked ragged at times but some good things also. Tommy's best game in ages

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.

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.

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.

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 “got one” in 1993.