Mod Note Post #1 - The 2022 All Ireland Senior Football Championship.

Kerry were really poor yesterday. Still the same defensive frailties and Mayo held them quite well at the back even though they didn't defend in numbers. Once again if Mayo had any decent forwards then they would have won the game but they can't finish. They kicked wide after wide and messed up goal chances. I don't think Dublin are that great but neither are Kerry. This All Ireland is wide open for any of the 4 left.

Just listening to Pat Kenny this morning. Jaysis you'd swear it was tje rwanadan genocide mark 2 yesterday.

There is no defending the eye gouging or off the ball stuff but melees aren't a northern or Armagh specific problem; it's a GAA problem which is going to remain as long as we allow discipline procedure to be continually undermined; this year it's Clare and Galway but over the year's most teams have been guilty.

Most counties, my own included, have given free passes to county stars when they act the b0llix at club games.

The strength of GAA lies in its tribal nature, but it is also its biggest weakness.

On McGeeney, people might want to listen to what Daniel Flynn of Kildare says about him in the podcast below; it not just his regard for him as a football person but as a man. I've rarely heard of praise as high as Flynn gives above or heard anything but people who know him for all counties talk about him in anything but the highest regard

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0cdy8yk

Will probably only be a kick of the ball between dubs and kerry, kerry always rise for this game.

Dublin under Gavin always found kerry tricky even though kerry would have been deemed weaker.

The officials should have to come out and explain the decision to send off Kelly and Nugent.

Kelly was visibly upset and even after the game looked shattered despite the win.

Nugent seemed to take it a bit better but neither contributed to the melee but could be seen trying to calm their own teammates down (up to the Gouge anyway when Kelly was really angry but didn't do anything worthy of a red card).

Is that the first time there's been a black card given at IC level for mouthing off? It didn't affect the game hugely but it seemed a strange call. FWIW, I'd have no problem with refs implementing that rule so long as they gives teams fair warning that they're going to clamp down on that sort of thing

I wonder will Galway really believe if they make the final. In the 2018 semi they didn't look truly convinced they could beat Dublin. Perversely coming from nowhere could strengthen Derry's self-belief against Kerry or Dublin...

Yeah he was probably the next Galway player across with Comer, Morgan, Forker and Rian O'Neill already milling around.

Seems extraordinarily harsh. Nugent as well was maybe the 15th player in and he spent most of his time sending his own players down the tunnel.

There were some players obviously making things worse on both sides. Andrew Murnin jumped into a crowd of players. McDaid and Creeley threw each other to the ground. Armaghs sub goalkeeper was on the ground with Jack Glynn on top of him.

We need to stop these kinds of incidents. Sending off two of the more peaceful players (who will subsequently get off on appeal) is not the way to do things IMO.

I agree that the officials have it tough with no video evidence. No reason why it can't be used in the future though. Referees can communicate with the Hawkeye official already. No reason why that couldn't have been reviewed by a referee with a monitor. It would require a rule change obviously (and wouldn't be applicable outside of televised games) but Hawkeye is only available in limited cases as well so there is precedence there.

Was just looking at GAA Statsman (Tweets with replies by GAA Statsman (@gaa_statsman) / Twitter) there and the scoring figures make for bad reading from a Mayo perspective:

Shots taken:

Galway 31

Armagh 32

Kerry 28

Mayo 31

Dublin 30

Cork 26

Derry 31

Clare 26

Scored:

Galway 23 (74% accuracy overall, 72% from play, 83% from frees)

Armagh 21 (65%, 60%, 85%)

Kerry 19 (67%, 63%, 83%)

Mayo 13 (41%, 38%, 60%)

Dublin 21 (70%, 57%, 100%)

Cork 10 (38%, 31%, 57%)

Derry 18 (58%, 59%, 50%)

Clare 10 (38%, 31%, 57%)

Mayo's scoring efficiency was that of a D2 team. 

One stat that stood out to me from the first game yesterday was that Armagh had 18 turnovers compared to 12 for Galway; it's rare that you'll see a team win when they lose the turnovers by that much (although Dublin lost on turnovers also, 6 v 10). I guess the high scoring efficiency compensated for that for both teams.

It's very hard to see dublin being able to hold that kerry attack. Their defence seems limp enough?

Thoughts?

A shootout of point scoring is a truly awful suggested alternative. Just imagine how dull that would be, and how pitiful an end it would've been for a game like yesterday's.