Galway GAA Discussion Thread #2

Clearly you don't like Joyce for some reason. He improved the defence for this match, second choice goalie, the kick outs were always going to be a problem. We won without playing particularly well. Mayo are a spent force. One trick pony.

Why are you giving him credit for scraping over a spent force and one trick pony. Theres a great group of players there but he's not giving them the tools to fulfill that potential. Decimated yet again on kickouts and had mayo woken up 5mins earlier we'd be going home with a loss. There's better teams than Mayo out there, that can actually kick the ball over the bar and press a kickout and we won't beat any of those.

A great victory all the same, credit where it is due.

Super stuff. Big players really stood up and were counted in the second half. Conroy, Comer Walsh and Heaney. Conroy will go down as one of our best ever.

As an aside, loads to work on. Obviously Gleeson is only in because of injury but still, we simply cannot win games giving up that much possession from restarts. It's amazing we actually did win considering. It's just not good enough to even think about being a contender.

On the plus side for Joyce etc, his tactics from open play outside of the restarts were spot on. Bottle Mayo up at the 45 line and break quickly

Ref was no help to us either. A nonsense black card given to us and none given for the mayo drag down in the second half. Take out the injury time jitters and those decisions and it was a comfortable win

All of the Sunday game, twitter and radio says it wasn't a black card in 100 years. So whatever you thought you saw was wrong id say somehow pal.

Clear mayo drag down in the second half and not even a card given, never mind a black.

Mayo living on easy frees. Thankfully Cillian thought he had Shane Walshs class and tried kick one with his bad foot. You can teach buying soft black cards but you can't teach that Cillian unfortunately

I was talking about a clear, well actually two clear black cards, ive no issue with the result, if you are looking for a childish spat, look elsewhere

Never a black card in a million years. O Connor clearly stepped across his run to cause the collision. O Connor has form for it too. Better off concentrating on why ye haven't produced a decent forward line in 40 years than focusing on black cards that never existed.

I was at the game, I saw it, never a card.

Rossies will be very tough to beat.

The 33 year wait was for a win in Castlebar.

Roscommon's previous win over Mayo was in 2001.

Still not great.

I totally agree.

It's the same lack of respect for Roscommon in the clueless national media that drives me insane.

They consistenly know next to nothing about Roscommon or their players and speak in cliches when discussing them - case in point being Gooch recently after the Galway win saying "Roscommon have finally found forwards which has been a problem". Huh? Forwards have been the only area Roscommon haven't had problems with in the last 7-8 years. It was everywhere else that was the problem.

I also remember a preview of a Roscommon championship match in the Irish Independent back in the late 90s which stated that Roscommon were still too reliant on Derek Duggan for scores. Duggan hadn't played for Roscommon in over two years at that stage!

Galway fans seem to feed into this lack of knowledge too, which is why it's quite refreshing to see a number of posters here saying Roscommon will be a tough match. That's assuming Roscommon will be there, which they should be.

I wonder was he fully fit today, he was great, but if you look at all his points and attempts at points he wasn't following through on the kick. He seemed to be chopping it short which isn't like him. He's normally a very smooth striker of the ball.

Has taken a while to come down from that!! Delighted for players (especially PC). Comer showed massive leadership today. Covered every blade grass, showed well for kickouts and added on attack when he could. Shane was imperious from frees and his mazy runs kept them thinking. O'Laoi made some silly mistakes but his black card was a joke. His hard running kept us tight at the back. 1-1 from Heaney. Hard running, great scores and again added massively to the defensive unit.

Defence was strong. Of course silly mistakes were made but this was a step up from division 2 games. Resolute. Tough. Stuck to their tasks well.

Kickouts. Going long is a tactic. Like it or not this was a decision the management made. Maybe wrong. But I don't think it makes them clueless. I think a better kickout plan is needed but any hope of that died with Fla being injured.

To go deeper into this. For me Mayo have two very strong traits. Hard running backs with great support runners and pressing from the front. So for me Galway by going short would of been playing into Mayos second strongest trait. I remember watching Kerry vs Mayo in the league game (not final) and the pressure Mayo forwards put Kerry under was unreal. Not sure our backs could handle it. Even today John Daly took a short one got bottled up and we were lucky it didn't end in a goal. Going long was obviously deemed the less destructive option and Galway only ended up with 60% of their kickouts. Obviously needs to improve but I can still understand the rationale.

Lots to work on. Now have promotion to division one. Beaten Mayo and hopefully overcome Leitrim to be back in a Connacht Final.