Mayo GAA Discussion

So all those people shouldn't have supported their team when they were in a final? People shouldn't enjoy an event that unites their community and gets their children excited? What's sport about so? Just whinging and moaning and not bothering going to games and not letting yourself feel anything at all in case your team loses? Grand, you enjoy that miserable existence.

Fact is, Mayo support is way down the last few years. The average person you talk to is quite pessimistic and I myself have been saying for a while now that we are probably going to experience a few years of nothing because the players aren't there. Until the underage structures start producing better quality, we won't be competing for an All Ireland.

No choice. Have to stick with the agreed schedule that was released at the start of the year to ensure fairness to clubs and club players. Besides, what's the point in starting it now and have the County champions kicking their heels for months waiting for the provincial fixtures to start? They would be very rusty and at a massive disadvantage.

Ah in fairness it was the nature of the loss, i thoguht Eamon Sweeny in the Indo was good in fairness

"

Mayo, God help them. Their capacity for defeat is limitless.

Football’s rule changes presented a new way to lose in the most painful manner possible. So they embraced it. What did you expect?

That particular article is bang on in my humble opinion. Summed it up simply,

"A team which suffer so many narrow defeats must be responsible for their own misfortune"

He also highlights that we were in the same position last year against Dublin, also in the hyde and miss out on the result we wanted/needed with the last kick of the ball, nothing learned in terms of game management and shutting down the very last counter attack.

Ah it's a play on the 'Mayo God help us' thing but the whole Mayo story is one of the most fascinating narratives in irish sport so of course dramatic losses like yesterday wil garner moremedia attention than if it was another team. The media are only doing their job and we give them plenty of ammo. We are box office, thats just the way it is.

No smarts at all in those last few seconds. Someone on the backroom team should have been tasked with knowing exactly what the situation was and how to get instructions in straight away. Kick the ball of the tee, cause a row, whatever, and even if we conceded a free by the time play restarts, Donegal bench will have got word into their players to just boot it over the sideline when hooter goes. They had nothing to gain and a lot to lose by playing on. If we had won posession on that last kick out and scored again, you can be sure Mc Guinness would have been raging at Patton. And yes Donegal management were as gulity as ours of not getting word into Patton to delay the kick out another few seconds. This is not absolutely whinging on my part, we lost and deservedley so.

Ya i can see both sides, but the fact we were behind for so long and managed to grab a lifeline, think we should have taken it, but as you say once we didnt gain posession should have done something. Was at the game so havent seen that last play again but looked liked nobody got anywhere near Moore to d anything

"A team which suffer so many narrow defeats must be responsible for their own misfortune"

This is spot on.

For the whole of the 2010s I tried to convince people that if it hadn't been for small margins like own goals, or a hit post, or a pickup off the ground not called, or facing the team of the century, that Mayo would have won an All Ireland.

But 2021 opened my eyes, 2021 showed me that the Mayo teams lack the intestinal fortitude to win an All Ireland.

You can't lose 11 finals in 32 years and keep blaming it on something other than the team and their (lack of) desire and their (lack of) ability to win it.

How come ever other team "wanted it more", or "were not leaving without the cup" ?

Losing All Ireland finals has become comfortable for Mayo players.

When the fat is in the fire coming down the stretch in an All Ireland final the Mayo player knows that if he can't find that little bit extra to get him over the line it's no big deal, because he won't be singled out, he won't be anything special, he'll just be like the multitudes of other players that have come this far and lost since 1989.

Sure, if he can find the something extra to get over the line he'll be a hero forevermore, but right now it's hard to find it and he can put off finding it, it might be easier to find next year.

The next time Mayo have a team that will be serious contenders, and they will again, someone needs to tell them it's different this time, not winning is no longer an option.

They need to break that cycle within their own minds and within the camp that losing doesn't make them special.

They have to learn that winning will make them special.

No intention of demeaning anyone who pulled on a Mayo jersey at any level.

They are doing things I never could do.

But there has to be something there that is preventing them from winning it all.

They have been in the situation numerous times in 32 years but still somehow fail.

Why does everyone else want it more?

Why does the hurt of losing spur on other teams but not Mayo?

And I think it's because losing is a habit.

If Davit Neary or Conal Dawson have stellar careers but lose multiple All Ireland finals they are not going to be any different from Lee Keegan or David Brady.

They are just going to be great Mayo players who just couldn't win an All Ireland.

I'm not suggesting people turn their backs on the team, but I'm suggesting that within the confindes of the squad the find a way to stop making losing a habit when it comes to it.

And if this is bollix of the highest order can you try and articulate why Mayo have failed to win an All Ireland since 1951, when the chance was right there in front of them?

I’ve maintained for a long time that Mayo would need to fall over the line with a great deal of luck involved to finally beat this final ‘jinx’.

I’m reminded of the comments after the 2006 final when Jack O’Connor sneeringly said that Kerry’s one year drought made them hungrier than Mayo’s fifty five year drought.

I think the truth ot the matter was that a one year drought was a lot lighter of a load to carry in to the final and the losses since have only added to the burden put on subsequent Mayo teams.

We were never going to win it. We'd barely won a kickout all day. Donegal took a chance taking a quick one, but that chance was based on literally everything that had been going on around the middle all day. If they'd been losing midfield, maybe he would have hesitated.

But what O'Connor said kind of makes my point, the 70+ years drought is lighter than the 1 year drought, if you lose another final, so what, it's just another final lost.

That burden of 70+ years is also a get out clause, it allows them to be no different to the years that came before.

Up until 2021 I always thought that what Mayo needed was what happened to Cork in the 2000s

Cork got knocked out in either the All Ireland semis or final by Kerry on 6 occasions in 8 years.

Then in 2010 with Kerry out and facing a surprise opponent in Down, they went and won it.

In 2021 Mayo were in a similar situation.

They had spent a decade losing to a rampant Dublin and now the found themselves in a final against a surprise team.

And what did they do, almost to a man they went out and played well below par.

So unlike Cork who went through the same thing a decade earlier Mayo failed to deliver on the big day.

And it's that that has convinced me that there is something wrong mentally with Mayo football, it doesn't matter what era.

No matter how good a player is , no matter what dedication they put in they still have that get out clause in the back of their heads.

We and fans can't fix it, we can't stop supporting them (even though going by the numbers many have). We can't withhold support until they win an All Ireland and then jump on the bandwagon.

They need to solve it themselves, within the camp, within their own heads.

Jack O'Connor talks about Kerry being hungrier in 2006 from the 2005 loss.

Why weren't Mayo hungrier in 2021 after 2020, in 2017 after 2016, in 2013 after 2012, in 2006 after 2004, in 1997 after 1996 ?

Mean-spirited article IMO, and typical of Sweeney who's always going for the low blows and cheap shots without any understanding of context or nuance. (And this from a Galway man). Someone should post a rebuttal article and tell him he should get out more - see how he'd like that. Why don't journalists berate and constantly write articles about counties that achieve absolutely nothing, might buck them up a bit. Mayo will win when they have enough good players on the field, no other mystery to it than that.

What were Mayo supposed to do in the closing seconds, more than they could do? When you're desperately chasing a life-saving equaliser and trying to retain possession, how can you play with an eye on the clock?

There's definitely a psychological issue on AI day but outside that no. We lost sunday because we weren't good enough and not cynical enough. Nothing to do with another Mayo tragedy or disaster narrative.

Funny how the media forget about that BS when we win connacht titles, AI quarter finals and semis. Most counties can't manage that but they don't get labelled tragic when they just lose a championship game. Real tragedy is what is going on in war torn parts of the world today. Applying it to mid season football competition losses is an insult and just headlines to sell papers by tapping into the public appetite for drama and negativity.

Even our own local papers are at it this week with a picture of in the CT of OShea with his head in his hands under the title DEVASTATED. Give me a break.

Its harsh stuff to hear, but I think you're spot on, unfortunately.

And I say this as a neutral who supported Mayo in every final from 96, but have given up on them since 16.

And my own county team (unfortunately nowhere near All-Ireland finals) has precisely the same acceptance of underachieving in its senior teams and has for a couple of decades now. Once it becomes a generational habit, as it has in Roscommon too, it's really hard to snap out of. It's just ingrained in the back of players hearts and minds that they have a "get out of jail" card. In fairness to Mayo teams, when they have capitulated at times they shouldn't in the past, it's usually been to teams of a similar or higher level. Whereas with Ros, our Championship exits now usually come at the hands of lower division teams who we'd beat in the league in spring.