Mayo GAA Discussion

that Towey doesn’t have it at this level is not a popular opinion. He has a fan club on a particular podcast which doesn’t hold weight when you look at his record, but empty barrels and all that.

well at least mcstay has been nice and amenable to the media during his tenure so he’ ll be able to slot back on that gravy train quiet easy. Not sure how credible his expert opinion could be considered though looking at the hames he’s made of mayo

Remember in 1995 when Mayo were living in Div 3 of the league, and had recently lost to Leitrim in Connacht.

Remember in 2001 and 2003 when they lost of Westmeath and Fermanagh in qualifiers.

Remember in 2010 when they lost to Longford.

In the years after they quickly rose up the ranks and became challengers (not as much in the 2000s, but certainly in 1996 and 1997 and all through the 2010s)

That's the only thing I can hope for now.

That, once again a Maughan or Horan type figure comes along and revitalizes this team.

Because I think we could find themselves as low as the low points mentioned above very soon.

100%

People posting screenshots of a puzzled looking McStay on the sideline and having a dig at him are bullsh1t.He was right to be confused as it was called as on 3 on 3 line breach when we were down to 14 men.Thankfully that was overturned after some confusion.

That was down to officials getting it wrong.

The free against Mattie Ruane for (incorrectly) trying a solo and go after the mark whilst Tyrone do a carbon copy a few mins later yet no free also.I could go on all day.

The ref had a total nightmare yesterday.

I think the management team has legitimate questions to answer on the style of play and what theyre trying to achieve. I dont have a huge amount of confidence in them at this stage but will reserve judgement til after the championship (when i think theyll be gone)

Theres a certain cohert of Mayo supporters who would be happier if we lost yesterday (snide personal digs,you dont have to look too far up the thread)

Same pr1cks who wouldn't have been in McHale park yesterday (only 6k in attendance) but would be shouting about not getting an All Ireland ticket and feel they deserve one.

I think that's a big part of the problem, there clearly must be a gameplan management are trying to get the team to play to…but I think at this stage it's fair to say its not a style that suits us. I think there is just far too much of fitting square pegs into round holes in Mayo football and trying to get our best 15 onto the field regardless of natural position…it just feels so souless at the minute.

So far, it seems like we haven't really adapted to the new rules particularly well and our general gameplan seems to be overly cautious which makes it a hard watch.

On the plus side, a good few fringe players are getting decent minutes which will hopefully stand to us later on and in the coming years.

I'm willing to give the mgmt team the benefit of the doubt for now; with a couple of minor improvements / bit of luck last year, we'd have beaten both Galway & Dublin so I think it's only fair to wait until the summer to judge them.

At least the 2 points gained gives us a chance of survival in D1

You seem to have a major issue with Towey. Towey is the best inside forward in the Mayo senior championship for the past few seasons. He is still Mayo's top scorer from play in this year's league despite not scoring yesterday. Ryan, who is supposed to be Mayo's marquee forward, was dropped for yesterday's game. When he came on he received a ball inside the opposition 45', tried to take on his man but lost the ball feebly in contact - something he has done all season and going back to last season too. You better hope they persist with Towey because he has the class to score from anywhere, otherwise Mayo have nothing coming from their inside forwards.

On Frank Irwin, he took his chances well yesterday but he does nothing in the full-forward line - he's a midfield/11 player taking his scores coming from the half forward line. Honestly don't think he is at inter county standard come championship. Aidan is much more effective at 14.

Finally, there is some amount of over reaction to these games from Mayo support. Mayo have a lot of average and new players playing, they're not going to be at a Donegal/Galway level. Plus it's the third league game in February in a season where there are a whole host of new rules for everyone to get their heads around. Let's see what happens come summer.

I never said Towey wasn’t a great club player.

A lot of comments have being about the new rules we didn't have the new rules last yr an struggled so I don't see why it should be any different this yr,we have the same management and backroom team but now we have whole load of new rules to get to grip with,what we dont have is the players it makes no dfference how we to play,we couldn't get the most out of them last yr ii don't see it being any different this yt

I'm all for panel rotation & prioritising minutes for new lads ahead of points. I said last year I was fine with relegation, even more so this year with some of the young lads about to push through and the benefits they'd get from a year in Div 2 to wet their feet. All about building for Championship for me.

That said, there are ways you're ok losing games in order to be building & ways folks will be left pretty disillusioned even winning them.

Go out the last day and give Cian at least a good 10 minutes in the 2nd half with the wind. Try some different strategies to create and exploit attacking spaces (funny to see how much of the innovative stuff, other than Galway where Morris/Graham are trying some clever stuff or Donegal doing a nice job of punching through without using a 12th man while remaining solid at the back, is coming from outside D1 - Roscommon, Meath, Offaly or Wicklow all trying real interesting stuff at the weekend, and much of it working). See if we can add to our transition options ("slow, through hands and sometimes backwards" doesn't feel like it'll work 100% of the time). Lose by 4-6 points trying those, while having a decent work rate, I'd be a happy camper.

Stumbling over the line against a side playing slightly worse than we did, with the same slow transition we've leaned on too long, utterly struggling to try & get two of our best shooters (Paul & Cian) near a shot chance (directly related to the transition choices), with more unforced slips with basics of the new rules (we seemed to forget we needed to go back to 3 up after spending the 10 mins of the Black Card with just 2). Folks won't tend to be celebrating that.

It's fine. Points will help. A chance for the lads (on grass or the line) to relieve the mounting pressure a little. Enough positives we can pull from it to move forward. Just hard to write it off as "just the league" when so many of the concerns have been ongoing for years now. And all the more fatal if not addressed under these new rules, which reward so many of the things we've been short on.

A touch of unfair criticism around. A lot of very valid criticism (sometimes constructive), too.

The more and more I see, the more and more I am concerned about the impact of Rochfords coaching style. He seemed to lose his way post his original tenure, or maybe his coaches reigned in some of his instincts.

If you look at Donegal when he was coaching them, their style was very much like we are now. Zombie football. Wedded to a structure that did not work and seemingly unwilling to change. We had a far stronger panel with better young talent coming through most would have said. Yet today Donegal are one of the best teams in the country with virtually the same squad. McGuinness is not a magician, just a coach who knows how to put a team together and instil a common purpose. Where are the coaches in Mayo with that ability? We seem to marginalise coaches who look capable of putting a team together rather than develop them.

Your post reads like this is McStays first year, its his 3rd and more than likely final year!

Mc Guinness is probably more revered in Donegal now than he was during his first term. First term he took over a team that was a shambles when nobody else would touch the job with a County Board which was also a shambles doing everthing in their power not to give it to him. When he left in 2014 it was with the reputation of being one of the most astute managers in the game. Risking it all to come back 10 years later to a team that was again becoming a shambles with a County Board that was that was even more so than the 2011 one, and what he achieved in 2024 has him even more revered by Donegal fans that before.

Donegal fans thought Mayo were nuts to get rid of Rochfort and were delighted to see him joining Donegal under DEclan Bonner, especially after years of the negativity of Rory Gallagher`s management. Bonner, although being well regarded in the county as a great servant to Donegal, would not have been regarded as the most tactically astute of managers and Rochfort was looked on as being a great addition in that regards. Rumbling started pretty early on when Karl Lacey the counties most decorated player with 4 All Star`s and a player of the year who as a defender liked to play on the front foot was sidelined in favour of Rochfort. In fairness to Bonner he had been fielding teams that, unlike Gallagher, were attempting to win games rather than not lose them. With Rochfort on board it was back to the Gallagher play book. Keep possesion, take no risks and players that could shoot from distance, such as Langan and Thompson, out of favour with Michael Murphy being used as a work horse to plug gaps all over the field where even when he moved into the forward line balls would not be played in because it was viewed as being to risky.

Back then it was a style of play that would not see you being beaten by a high margin, but even then was not going to win you much and had players more concerned with not losing than actually going out to beat the oppostion. Maybe I`m being over harsh on Rochfort, but to me at least, Mayo are now playing very much in the style of Donegal when Rochfort was involved. It didn`t work back then and has even less chance of doing so under the new rules.

I understand the argument but I think it is too simplistic. Look at the football Mayo played against Kerry in Killarney and Dublin in Roscommon with Rochford as coach. The issue here is that pre the rule changes, if a team set up defensively against you ala Derry/Galway in recent years there's not much you can do other than mirror them. Donegal still set up very defensively when needed, like against Armagh in the Ulster final. With the new rules, it's still very early to say though I admit Mayo look a bit behind at this stage.

I think teams under Rochford, when they have had a chance to play football, have been very good - Corofin the year they won the AI - total football in my opinion, Mayo in 2016 v Dublin in the drawn and replayed game, Mayo 2017 v Ross, Kerry, and Dublin in the AI series. Theses teams had a lovely mix of kicking and running football.