Mayo GAA Discussion

Just on your point of suspicions of him not being a good manager. There is no valid argument for those suspicions. He is without doubt one of the top 4 or 5 managers in the country. In his first term he toke Mayo from losing to Sligo and Longford to repeatably beating the reigning champions and making it to 2 finals in 4 years. Second term he toke mayo who were very much in transition to again making it to two all ireland finals in 3 years. He is a very good manager and has shown it again and again. BUT he has also shown he is not good enough to win an All Ireland! Maybe a small detail and me being pedantic but I think there is a very big difference, maybe the difference between being a good manager and a great manager!

Although neither played well in the final,Ruane was arguable our best player all year and is a shoe in an all star.

Loftus had his best year since he started even though he's being played out of position.

I'm not sure how or who they have to "redeem" themselves to.

I see Freeman is back in the Aghamore team, not good news for Knockmore

I think we could struggle tomorrow

As wide open a championship as there has been in a long time, Castlebar probably rightly favourites, I'm hearing great things about Walsh and Heaney coming through from the U-20s, but you wouldn't be surprised if they didn't make it past the group stages. Likewise if we didn't get out of our group it wouldn't be a massive shock. Breaffy, Garrymore and Ballina, Ballintubber are fairly straight forward winners of their groups IMO

Freeman was ripped with flu. He went to close someone down in the corner and didn't have the legs. He signalled to sideline to be replaced.

The bookies have Ballintubber 5/2 favourites and then not much between a group of 5 or 6 teams including Castlebar (5/1).

Don’t know how Ballintubber are favourites especially without COC. I think Ballina will beat them this weekend.

I agree it’s hard to call this year. Breaffy (11/2), Westport (11/2) and Ballina (15/2) all did well in the league. I’d add Knockmore (6/1) to that group and expect the winner to come from that group of 4.

I agree with your point about Jim Gavin. I’d say he would be a massive massive missing piece of the puzzle.

But writing to players to say that, by the way thanks for efforts and sacrifices over the years but it’s back to the queue you go with the others. No way. It’s not good for morale and there’s no need for it. If s was new manager comes in he will pick his own squad anyway in a low-key manner. No need to be over dramatising a situation that has enough drama to it already. The media will spin it in some way to sell newspapers. And we will be in the headlines again for some wrong reason.

Incredible how you want to get rid of a man on the verge of being canonised the evening of the semi-final win.

Very good post. I see exactly what you mean, and I agree with you. It's like far away hills are green, and people think that because someone has a good reputation within the GAA circles or was a good player, that they will walk in and revolutionise Mayo GAA.

I think a lot of it stemming from the Horan-O'Shea factor in the final, where many people feel that Horan was too stubborn to take Aidan off in the final (I think Horan has some Breaffy connection, but cannot remember what, Maybe work??). And it's fairly well know that he may have his favourites, and if you get on his wrong side for whatever reason, you're goosed. So I think a lot of people are proposing the "outsider" appointment on the basis that the internal politics will evaporate.

But sometimes, better the devil you know.

Its sad that some people are making fun of this. Not on here.

RIP :-(

Read a few articles online from various sources and each one of them heavily features the Curse.... absolutely pathetic and very disrespectful to his family imho

Hilarious

I think the point fanofconnacht was making was, no player should ever again be picked for Mayo based on reputation and its the kind of sh*te that's always happened in Mayo. A player played a few blinders against Sligo, Leitrim or London a few years ago and becames an automatic first choice for the rest of his career or had one half of a good game against Dublin or Kerry.

Certain players can be invisible for 65 minutes, makes a few key interventions and then they are called legends, whereas the players who have been consistent over the 70 minutes in a low profile way are ignored.

Mayo need to prioritise finding 3-4 scoring forwards who can each score 3-4 points in big games if required. They need to find 2-3 6ft4/5 inch midfielders who can bully all around them (we don't have that).

And another goalie as competition for Hennelly (who by the way has improved and played a huge part in getting us to the final).

There isn't a hope of Mayo lifting the cup next year, largely because we don't have a team anywhere near the stature and character of the 50/51 team who went out there and grabbed their few AI final opportunities with both hands.

That Mayo team reached 3 finals, 48, 50 and 51. They won 2 and were blatantly robbed of the third. They were a great team, not just for Mayo but in the history of Gaelic football. Probably could have won a couple more AIs but for injuries and immigration.

As you know success is relative. A county like Leitrim or Westmeath winning a provincial title is the equivalent of a bigger county winning an AI.

In any case, there's probably more wrong with Mayo football than just a manager change, but having a manager who knows what they are doing on AI Final day would be a help and we haven't had one of those managers since 1951. The gene pool of tactically able managers in Mayo is shallow as we've seen.

Great line here by John Forgaty in The Irish Examiner

Has there been an email yet or anything official?

Can you name any player that had blinders against Sligo, Leitrim or London and has become an automatic first choice selection on the team from that? Regardless of their other performances.

I can't.