Mayo GAA Discussion

I'm hoping yesterday was a real wake up call for management and some players.

If a team is going to sit back and defend then is see absolutely no point in having Loftus at 6. His kicking (which we haven't seen a whole pile of anyway) is nullified and his weakness is exposed when those teams break. Any decent team will have this targeted by now.

Middle of the park is a big worry. Flynn got off to a great league but is going the other direction. Ruane was bullied and beaten up yesterday.

I've been a little concerned with Reape's kick-outs, but I don't think it's far to criticise them too much given that our midfield were cleaned out and the Rossies seemed first to every breaking ball.

I think the 6 weeks could be a massive bonus if it gives them some thinking time. But we were going all out for the win yesterday and failed miserably.

I haven't seen enough of Conor McStay but he doesn't seem to add much to the team. You couldn't script McHale's head injury, he seems destined to be unlucky.

The one positive I took from yesterday was that I don't think I saw McLaughlin kick the ball. He looked as if he was about to late on but stopped himself and gave a simple handpass instead. It's not much to take from the match but it's something.

The only other slight bit of solace is that if we do get to the latter stages, most of the better teams won't set up as negative.

If coen went low and hard We would be saying how we should have been kicking in more

Oh ya. That first free. I rewinded a couple of times last night to see if there was anything obvious from the recorded match. I couldn't see anything, but in fairness the camera was a fair distance from the alleged incident. Ref was obviously trying to lay down a marker that he could see everything that was going on. Presumably he got the shout in his earpiece from the other officials.

But ya, you'll always get some level of contact between the backs and forwards. Frees are generally given when it is seen that the back is overstepping the mark and illegally prohibiting the forward from a decent chance of the forward gathering the ball. But in that incident I couldn't see any obvious indiscretion.

On the high kick into the forwards, I don't think Mayo are cute enough. When a high ball is kicked into O'Shea, there are inevitablely lads pulling at him, But you'd never see any of our other forwards around him to give a bit of physicality back to the defenders. Why don't they try to block the defenders out of the way. At least in a way that might throw them off their game.

Biggest problem was around the middle. They won very little all day and no one around to mop up breaking ball.

Mayo were afraid to shoot yesterday, that was their biggest problem, a lot of players hadn't the balls to take on the shot, a lot of the time in very kickable positions, Roscommon kicked points from harder angles and distances.

I was gonna say, I'd love to see the stats because it didn't look to me like we were winning much in the middle at all. Back in the day, we had the likes of McLoughlin and Doherty who were really smart around the breaking ball in particular, but no one like that there the last day. No point playing a high press game if the middle is winning nothing - leaves the defence totally vulnerable.

I think Roscommon's last couple of points put a gloss on that. They were cracking points, but their shooting was poor for most of the second half. It was a very poor match in general.

It's a cliché, but the goals definitely won the game on Sunday. If Coen's had went in, I think the Rossies would have probably have had opened up a fair bit more.

This is correct. The goals were absolutely huge. Sure, Roscommon didn't score a point from play until the 60th minute!! Everything went Roscommon's way yesterday but credit to them because they are definitely not man-for-man as good as Mayo but they bridged that gap with organization and intensity in their play. Then when they had some chances to shoot and with the wind at their back they took their chances.

Bar Coen's effort which was a little unlucky, Mayo absolutely butchered their numerous chances. Ryan's pass to Tommy was awful and then Tommy not only missed the point but the pass back across goal to Aiden who likely would have buried it. Jordan Flynn not having a shot from about 40 metres into an empty goal - yes it was against the wind but just kick it hard towards the goal and it likely bounces in before the defender gets back. McStay definitely should have pulled the trigger in the 2nd half too.

My reading of the Roscommon advantage was that he was fouled again, that's why the free was given where it was given.

Each delay on kick out was probably just on the verge of a hop ball but not quite, cumatively very frustrating but each on their own merits probably nothing in it. Excellent by the Rossies it has to be said.

You say that like there was a second foul later in the move, but there was no second foul in the play.

There was other instances also. When ruane unceremoniously kicks the ball back down the field along the ground to the roscommon corner forward from which they get a very soft free, loftus is blatantly held back the arm when he has won possession.

When mayo hold onto the ball for an age before conroy turns it over, d oconnor is fouled in beside the posts, then later in the same move, coyne is called for touching the ball on the ground, when it isnt being touched on the ground at all. Murtagh breaks down the field and scores.

Again, Im not trying to say mayo should have won, im saying that objectively speaking, the rules were not applied correctly.

The ref was poor but I hope the focus remains on our own poor display over the next few weeks. I hope the management have a serious think about some things, none moreso than the CB position. Midfield isn't too far off needing a shake up either.

Loftus or Jason Doc at CB is absolutely bananas imo. I'm hoping they see that fairly soon.

Loads of discussion in the county about the ref, but some of it is clutching at straws - like the comments from MayoAreMagic above. All refs will make some mistakes in matches. When I saw the match live in Castlebar, I thought he was awful. But when watching it back on tv (with the benefit of replay and rewind), he did very little wrong. A O'Shea drew out his left elbow in the second throw up. I'm sure he meant it as a means to give himself leverage to catch the ball. But it connected with the Rossies guy head/neck area. And the ref is there looking at it. I don't see anything wrong with the ref blowing it up. It doesn't matter if it was accidental. Still cant elbow the guy in the head area. I saw Coyne, O'Connor, Conroy O'Shea taking the ball into a swarm of Roscommon guys, but I didn't see any fouls by the roscommon defenders. Just headless play by Mayo. I think AIdan O'SHea was lucky not to receive a red card, never mind a black card towards the end of the game. He wasn't just standing his ground. He stepped to the right to make sure the Rossies guy wasn't going to pass, and he led with his shoulder/elbow. When I saw it as the match, I thought he was gone. And watching it back on TV didn't alter my opinion.

Roscommon may have been time wasting in the first half, but I would hope that our lads would be cute enough to do the same if the roles were reversed. But to be honest, I don't think they would. And that can be their downfall. Not mischievous enough on the pitch.

The 2nd foul was Durcan pulling Smith's jersey (God knows why, very poor discipline from Paddy) just after he already given away a free much further out. The ref had a fine game overall other than not adding enough time for all the time-wasting but that still probably wouldn't have saved Mayo.

Gaelic football when it's wet is so hard to ref anyway. It just becomes a war of attrition. My crazy opinion on this is that as much football as possible should be played in the summer when it's most likely to be dry and we should look at building municipal indoor stadiums in every province.

You could know the rules and still not have a clue how they're being applied, that's the issue.

Did O'Shea deliberately collide (I thought he held his ground more than anything) or did the Roscommon player deliberately accept the contact... Players are highly skilled in accepting tackles and making the most of them these days.

There's a real issue with players trying to win frees / get the tackler carded by falling/diving into tackles. It would be great to see bans handed out for players faking head injuries (only applicable to intercounty/televised games obviously) as a start. It's too risky for a ref to ignore a head injury during play... players / management know that only too well and are making a mockery of the game.

Before anyone thinks this is sour grapes, we're just as likely to do it ourselves. There wasn't much to laugh about the last day but I did laugh at Cillian's miraculous recovery when he had won himself a free late on... the instinct was to hold the head but he bounced off the ground once he realised there was no time for that.

U20 team to play Sligo this evening named:

https://twitter.com/MayoGAA/status/1646134677181276162?cxt=HHwWhIC93Y2xn9gtAAAA

Genuinely didn't think there was a whole lot in it. Would have to watch it again but I'm not putting myself through that.

Anyone know why its not in the Dome, surely with the conditions game should be inside. this Sligo team look pretty good.

Sligo the better team here

Very poor performance for the U20s tonight .heading for double scores .

Showed a bit of heart towards the end but well beaten. Well done to sligo.

Shite format in connacht where it's straight knockout, round robin would be much better for developing players at an important grade