Mayo GAA Discussion

Greetings from the middle of the sea between Cork and France.....long day getting to the ferry, boarding etc. so I've been conked out in the cabin for the last two hours.

My 10 year old young fella (Limerick born but Mayo at heart) just burst in and woke me up to tell me the result 😎..... absolutely fukken delighted 😁 I'm old enough to remember heartache versus Meath in the 90's so will be driving south through France tomorrow with a big grin on my face

Hard to sum that up. They showed major fight to dig themselves out of a hole and thats the big thing. Red card helped for sure.

Defence Is still a major problem but I could see us play with a lot of freedom next week after that game. Pressure is off and everything is a bonus from now on.

Woukd be kind of stupid playing Galway in croker, won’t help us meet our emissions targets, but I guess that’s the convention…

After the disappointment of Sunday I reflected and reckoned the extra game can do this young team and manager no harm.

And a performance regardless of the result might do at this stage.

Well we got both the performance and the result tonight, very exciting second half.

But there was one stage late in the game I was worried that he would bring on Aiden O'Shea, thankfully that didn't happen.

Look at least Kobe gets to play in Croke Park. That is special. He will thrive there. I think there is a spectacular performance in this Mayo team. You just never know.

It was in front of me and in real time thought it was a definite red, looked like he hit him in the balls.

Seeing the replay, it was an attempt to strike, which is a red

https://x.com/i/status/2068414010253287871

Wasn't looking good at HT, but they pulled it out of the fire in fairness.

Getting Tommy back into form , and getting more minutes into Ruane's legs can only make this team stronger going forward.

Still think we are missing a trick keeping Kobe boxed in the corner of the pitch , as his raw pace can do serious damage to teams when driving through the middle.

We have good defensive players, but as a cohesive unit we are miles off it and that is my biggest concern because we don't seem to look like we are trying to fix the problem.

bit of a crocker himself at this stage tbh…

A mixed bag. Livingstone saved us at the back again. Meath really could have had 4 or 5 goals, and the goals that were scored were basically walked in. I don't know what exactly we are doing in defence but it isn't working. A more clinical side is not going to miss all those opportunities and we will concede a ton of goals in a game eventually.

Midfield also continues to be a huge problem. We are struggling to win primary possession in every game, and that's how teams get a run on you now. The fear is that a team will put the boot on our necks and won't take it off til the hooter goes. It's basically what the Rossies did in the Connacht championship, so the template is there. I don't know what the answers are at midfield because we just don't have any good out and out ball winners. Some of our options around the middle aren't even really intercounty standard in my view but that's where we are at this time with this squad suppose.

Good to make Croke Park all the same, and it was good to see the team show a bit of steel. I like that when the handbags broke out, we didn't just walk away, we got stuck into them. We need a bit of piggery like that and at least we're starting to show it. Good to see Conroy finding form. He had a couple of small errors here and there, but he is getting visibly sharper every game and you'd think a dry sod in Croke Park should suit him. Diarmuid O'Connor rolled back the years. Very strong physical presence and not afraid of a dog fight. Enda Hession brought to mind Keith Higgins. He had a good day, one of the only players who showed well the full 70 minutes, and deserved his man of the match, I think. The red card certainly helped, but we were getting on top of them before that.

Concerns about Paddy Durcan and Darragh Beirne?

I do think we are still missing something. There is a slight lack of quality about the squad, a good few pretty average players there, but that's the reality of options within the county and the type of players being produced. You also just can't really trust this group. Can they actually develop some consistency? A match with Galway with their squad in the place that they're in could be very sobering I fear. Nowhere to hide in the big spaces of Croke Park. If we draw one of the others, we might be in with a better chance of at least making it a contest.

Side note, but Andy said in a post-match interview that Connacht wasn't the aim, getting to Croke Park was. I find that very hard to believe, but if that's the narrative he wants to go with, I hope that means we'll just go for it now whoever we get cos we might as well.

We really need to see some defensive coordination next weekend, as Livingston can't keep bailing us out every game.

1st half defending yesterday was the equivalent of a junior B game.

Scrape together 6 defenders at the last minute before throw-in, and see what happens.

We are where we are but this could have been structured better during the league so we went in properly prepared for championship and had a real shot at Connaught.

Mayo are what they are.

Being structured better in the league would have made very little material difference.

Yes the loss to Roscommon was bad, but the nature of the current beast means that in the end it didn't mean much.

It would have given Livingston a bit more game time but at the end of the day they are where many hoped they would be, in a quarter final and if they make it to the semi final it will be a bonus.

If they put in a good performance in a quarter final loss (which they have failed to do in the last few quarter finals) I will see it as being pretty accurate as to where they are.

Hopefully Moran and Co are learning, but I don't see how anything more could have done in spring would propel them to be anything more than a semi final team at best.

and Galway look the current top two

What exactly have Galway done to be considered top two ?

Beat a collection of Div 2 (relegated to Div 3) , 3 and 4 (7th second last in the whole country) teams and lose to the team that where ahead of them in Div 1?

He was banking on Hennelly

There always needs to be a top 2 or 3 contenders in the country no matter what.. during the league it was all Donegal and Kerry, after the ulster final Armagh joined the group, Donegal/Armagh have been thrown out after the last week so Galway are automatically the next one up!

Louth cannot draw Dublin next weekend now so that should increase the probability of us getting them for what it's worth?

Hennelly was 1st choice.

It didn't work out and he was dropped.

Livingston has now stepped up and is doing brilliantly.

Andy has shown himself to be ruthless enough and has no problem dropping lads.

Not sure what youre complaining about

Changes next year to give the provincial winners some advantage else the provincial championship will die a death.