Donât think Dinny Allen played in '87. He played in '88 and '89 alright.
All Ireland TICKETSâŚ
Mayo v Tyrone
Saturday 11 September 2021
Throw-in 5.30pm
One of the lads has two spare premium tickets for the Mayo v Tyrone game. He paid âŹ70 each, but he didnât realise when he bought them that the final was on the Saturday and not the Sunday. So now unfortunately it is going to be the same day as his Covid 19 postponed wedding! If you are interested, he is looking for someone to take his place.
Itâs at Claremorris church at 2.30pm. The brideâs name is MĂĄire, sheâs 5â4", about 8 stone, daycent enough looking, has her own income and is a really good cook.
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Denny Allen didnt play in 1973
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Lovely ditty from Cathal McCarron
Anybody able to post up Darragh O Seâs article from todayâs Irish Times ?
Brian Murphy and Tom Kenny had multiple A/I medals
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Kerry didnât lack hunger or any of the tired old cliches, what was missing was game management
Kerry need to be willing to learn from their defeat to Tyrone and they need to be willing to learn the right lessons.
In a parallel universe, Kerry, having drawn with Tyrone after 70 minutes at Croke Park last weekend, would have analysed the mistakes and the turning points in the game with a determination to put them right for a replay.
In the 2015 All Ireland semi final, the Dublin team I was a part of led Mayo by six points with seven minutes of normal time remaining. It was a time for cool decision making, for players to assess the situation and to take no risks when going for scores. So naturally when Philly McMahon played a pass to me out wide under the Cusack Stand I didnât hesitate before trying to lash a point over from a difficult angle. My shot went wide and from the kick out, Mayo went up and narrowed the gap to five points. A couple of minutes later, it was four, then one and then, with 30 seconds remaining, Andy Moran knocked the ball over Stephen Cluxtonâs bar to level the game.
Unlike Kerry, Dublin in 2015 would get a replay and in our preparation for that game, my decision to go for an adventurous point was one of the situations highlighted in our video analysis as a moment when what the game required and how the individual behaved collided. To win, Jim Gavin would stress time and again, the individual player had to understand what the game requires and, above all else, put the team first.
So when people talk about Kerry lacking hunger or Tyrone wanting it more, I feel that is nonsense. It is also counter-productive. If anyone in Kerry believes that stuff, they will move further from correcting the few areas that, in my view, are the difference between winning and losing in those decisive moments.
Brian Dooher was a central part of the great Tyrone-Kerry matches in the noughties and his impact and the values of his great team were evident in this new look Tyrone outfit. Intensity. Selflessness. Ruthlessness. And above all, clarity on their game plan that was designed to counterattack this emerging Kerry team. Tyrone got the better of the dual of the noughties, and if Kerry donât learn from this game, they will suffer the same outcome as their predecessors.
There were two moments of Saturdayâs game that stand out to me as critical indicators as to why Kerry lost this game, and they should be central to Kerryâs post-match analysis if they want to transition from a good team to a great team.
While many commentators will refer to the goal chances Kerry squandered, one of which injured the wizard himself, David Clifford. For me, two other important moments come to mind: The last play of normal time and the last play of extra time.
While these plays were clutch moments and directly impacted the outcome of the game, they also epitomised why this Kerry team could not break down this organised Tyrone defensive unit throughout the game.
Moment One:
Deep into injury time, Kerry are on the attack with the game level. They transition the ball down the Hogan Stand side and recycle it to Gavin Crowley on the 65. Crowley attempts to execute a 70-metre diagonal ball to Tommy Walsh, behind his man on the D. The ball is turned over and the game ends level.
Moment Two:
Fast forward 20 minutes and Kerry are one point down in injury time of extra time. Kerry transition from their defence at pace moving the ball through the hands. The ball ends up with Tommy Walsh in the Hogan / Hill corner of the field, he shifts a challenge and poorly executes a shot under pressure.
Both of these moments presented opportunities to execute a controlled attack with an objective to create a high percentage shot and manage the game more effectively. I can picture many situations in the past six years where Dublin would find themselves in these situations and they controlled the ball as long as required to create a shot within our 80 per cent zone.
Dublin beat Mayo in the replayed game in 2015 and two weeks after that, we won our first of six All-Irelands in a row. Those moments in matches and how we evolved were critical to our success and they were all part of a greater framework.
I might have felt the point was on when I took that shot but it neither reflected the situation in the game â six points up is a time for patience â or the reality that there were plenty of other players who, when the ball reached them, could take the point as well.
Moments like mine were identified and analysed, resulting in the genesis of our transition from being a âtotal footballâ team to a balanced team that knew when to transition at pace and when to play controlled football.
It is admirable to see Kerryâs desire to want to play the game the âright wayâ and attack with pace, skill and flair; however, it is critical they learn when it is on, to transition at pace and, when it is required, to play controlled football, keep possession of the ball, spread the play and stretch the set defence. Kerry have the talent to execute this balanced game plan and transition from these contrasting styles of play, but moments like these where they failed to play with control were evident throughout Saturdayâs game.
This resulted in Tyrone executing an effective counter-attacking game plan and scoring 2-09 directly from Kerry turnovers. We were always of the belief that good offensive play always led to good defensive structure. If Kerry created good shooting scenarios and put the ball dead, they would have been able to set up our defensive structure from the opposition kick-out. Too many times on Saturday, Kerry were scrambling in defence and were unable to deal with the hard-running from deep of Myler, McGeary et al. Kerryâs ability to transition from attack to their defence was an area of their game I felt they would struggle with and it proved to be the case.
But it doesnât have to be fatal. They need to learn and this is why they are unfortunate to be playing in a covid-related time. Their next championship game is eight months away. Those moments need to be identified in video analysis and used as part of an evolution â that is if there is a clarity that they should be evolving towards something.
Whether they have the know-how within their management set-up to take them to the next level is unknown, but there are plenty of wise Kerry folk who will be sure to have their voice heard on this topic.
In my view, relying on talent alone to win you matches is doomed to failure and it also puts impossible and unsustainable pressure on the talent. The root to sustainable performances is a blend of the right talent that understands and can execute their role in a clearly articulated and appropriate gameplan.
Kerry played a good game on Saturday, and they are an emerging team but no different to any young team. They need to learn from these lessons and layer them onto their arsenal for 2022. They executed elements of their game plan very well. They dominated all kick-outs, in particular Morganâs long kick-outs. Tyrone allowed Kerry to go short and focused on their defensive structure instead. However, they need to translate this positive play and possession into high percentage scoring opportunities through a structured and well-coached offensive game plan.
Tyroneâs well-documented build-up to this game created plenty of headlines, and as expected, Tyrone channelled this energy and used it to fuel their ambush. Tyrone are no stranger to playing the role of the villain, but in my opinion, this sideshow was not the foundation of their exceptional performance.
This performance has been coming for quite some time. They have built a well-conditioned team that have clarity on their game plan. Of course, they have areas to tidy up for their encounter with Mayo, but I have no doubt their shrewd management team will have them well set up for a very different proposition.
Kerry, meanwhile, will have to wait but it is important that they learn from this. That is what experience is, otherwise it will be another bruising defeat wasted.
Paul Flynn won six All-Irelands with Dublin and four consecutive All-Stars. He is a former CEO of the Gaelic Players Association
Darragh Ă SĂŠ: Mayo have beaten better teams than Tyrone have over the past few seasons
Horanâs men have beaten better teams than Tyrone have over the past few seasons
about 3 hours ago
Thereâs an interesting dynamic to this final in that everyone is going for their first All-Ireland success.
The only people in the dressing rooms on Saturday with All-Ireland medals will be Brian Dooher and a few of the Tyrone backroom team. None of the players know what itâs like. All of them are walking around today wondering how it will be. Theyâll be thinking of very little else.
You only win your first All-Ireland once. If youâre very lucky, you get to do it again somewhere down the road but it never feels the same as that first time. Iâm not saying one is better or worse than that other â itâs just a different feeling. You never get that sense of a weight being lifted off your shoulders like you do that first time.
My first one came in 1997. Kerry hadnât won an All-Ireland in 11 years. We hadnât even been in a final. We were a young team as well so, outside of the management, there was really nobody who knew what winning an All-Ireland would be like. Stephen Stackhad been on the panel in 1986 alright. But otherwise we were clueless.
The build-up was hectic. There was no chance of it being anything else â unless you were well into your 90s you had no idea what it was like for Kerry to go a full decade without so much as being in a final. So there was huge expectation and massive excitement. And pressure too, obviously.
On a personal level, all I heard all week in the build-up was how there were doubts about me in midfield. Now, obviously, thatâs not all that was being said in the outside world but itâs all I heard. Pat Fallon was going well for Mayo at the time and he was an All Star in waiting. I was a young fella in his first final â and a nephew of the manager to boot. Sure how could you be depending on someone like that?
That suited me, in fairness. The thing about a final is that it can all get too big if you let it. You can worry about too many things or you can try and hit too many markers. I didnât know it at the time but what all this talk did for me was it allowed me to narrow down my focus for the week. Whatever happens, I know who Iâm playing on, I know what I need to do to play against him.
That said, I didnât sleep a wink on the Saturday night. I had one of those nights where you know you have to sleep so all you can think about is trying to sleep. And then you canât sleep. And then you pass from trying to sleep to worrying what not sleeping is going to mean for you the next day and now you definitely canât sleep. I worried about it all through the Sunday morning. At least it kept my mind occupied.
What I didnât know then â and what would stand to me for any other final I played in â was that even without really knowing it, I had done my sleeping during the week. I had enough sleep banked and had the body rested enough to get me through the game on Sunday even though I couldnât keep my eyes closed on Saturday night.
Winning a final, having a medal, it all gives you that bit extra. Itâs a great badge of honour to have
So that was just one small thing that I took away from that first win. If we had lost, it might have been a different story. I might have blamed it all on the bad nightâs sleep. I might have spent the rest of my career trying to find a way to get to sleep the night before a final. I might have done a million things to fix something that actually wasnât a big problem at all. But because we won, I never worried about sleeping before a final again.
Winning your first All-Ireland changes you. It gives you a new kind of confidence in yourself. Whether thatâs deserved or not is another matter altogether â you will go on to lose plenty of matches in the following years so the confidence obviously doesnât make you bulletproof.
More confidence
But you do come away from it feeling a greater sense of authority. It scrubs away some of the doubts you have about yourself. Am I any good? Can I take on this kick? Should I make that run? On some level, you know the answer to those questions already â you donât make it to an All-Ireland final by sheer luck. But after you win one, you have more confidence in the answers.
You go out to play games at ease with yourself. I can do this. I can be comfortable in this arena. I can express myself here. Thereâs a small bit of arrogance to it, yes. But thatâs often no harm either. Thereâs nothing wrong with knowing how to do something well and showing that when itâs needed. As long as you have the right attitude to it.
Darragh Ă SĂŠ is tackled by Colm McManamon of Mayo during the 1997 All-Ireland final. Winning your first All-Ireland changes you. It gives you a new kind of confidence in yourself. Photograph: Patrick Bolger/Inpho
And thereâs no doubt in the world about it â winning a final, having a medal, it all gives you that bit extra. Itâs a great badge of honour to have. It gives you a fierce comfort in what youâre doing. I donât know if it makes you a better player necessarily. But it sure makes you a happier one.
Who will be happy on Saturday night? Itâs a tricky final to assess. When you have two squads with no All-Ireland medal between them, you canât point to one side or the other and say they have more experience. Both sides have been in finals recently. The likes of Lee Keegan, Paddy Durcan and Aidan OâShea have been through more big days than most so maybe Mayo have an edge on that score. But itâs a small one.
The one thing Tyrone can focus on is the fact it will feel like the rest of the country is up for Mayo
Nobody expected this from Tyrone. The Mickey Harte era ended with most people assuming they had gone backwards and that they would take at least a year or two to get themselves back in the reckoning. Feargal Logan and Brian Dooher deserve huge credit for turning it all around so quickly.
They have brought an intensity to it. They have kept Tyroneâs identity. They have puffed out their chests and said, âWe are Tyrone, like us or lump usâ. And theyâre damn right to do so. Itâs up to everyone else to realise the terms of engagement and deal with it. If that goes into dark arts territory, so be it. Finals are about playing the game that happens on the day and never being disappointed because itâs not the one you were hoping for.
Feargal Logan and Brian Dooher deserve huge credit for leading Tyrone to the final in their first season in charge. They have brought an intensity to it. They have kept Tyroneâs identity. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho
Tyrone have always needed a cause. On the face of it, they donât really have a specific one here because they have no bone to pick with Mayo. The two counties donât have any great history together. There was never any big brawl or bad temper between them.
But the one thing Tyrone can focus on is the fact it will feel like the rest of the country is up for Mayo. Thereâs a romance to the Mayo story that might be a bit overbearing at times but you canât deny that itâs out there. And the one thing Tyrone would never pretend to be is romantic. Theyâll be very happy to rain on the parade.
The championship hasnât been predictable on any level. Certainly not to me anyway! I thought Galway would beat Mayo, I thought Dublin would beat Mayo, I thought Kerry would beat Tyrone. The patterns throughout the summer have been difficult to work out because no two games have followed the same formula.
When it comes right down to it, Mayo have beaten better teams than Tyrone have over the past few seasons
Oddly enough, I think we have ended up with two pretty similar teams in the final. Both of them like it best when the game loses a bit of structure. They both like to get runners from deep going helter-skelter up the pitch and creating chaos. The two of them have goalkeepers who could win the game for them but who could just as easily lose it. Youâd go to war with either of the backlines but youâd still have your doubts about the two attacks.
An edge
The James Horan factor gives Mayo an edge, I reckon. I thought his management of Aidan OâShea in the semi-final was next level stuff. People were making out that it was a huge call to take his captain off but it was really the only option on the table. OâShea was having a right shocker of a match and, in that scenario, it would have been actively bad management to leave him on.
The idea that he was sending a message out to the rest of his squad that nobody is safe from being pulled off is nonsense really. If anyone thinks the players donât know that about Horan at this stage, they havenât been paying much attention to him. But it was the decision to send OâShea back on for the crucial play at the end of the game that stood out to me.
Aidan OâShea: was substituted against Dublin but came on for the vital last play. Photograph: Tommy Dickson/Inpho
In that moment, Horan was looking to defend the square and make sure that Dublin werenât able to turn Dean Rockâs 45 into a goal. But he was also telling OâShea that there were no hard feelings. You played shite, I took you off, but the game is on the line here and I need you to go in and do what you do.
Which he did, by the way. It got lost afterwards because James McCarthy grabbed Lee Keegan while the ball was in the air and got a black card and a free out. But if you watch it again, youâll see that while that was going on, OâShea was the one who guarded the small square and came out to punch the ball away. He didnât just go in there and hide as an extra body. He came on and put his bad performance behind him and got to the dropping ball. He justified Horanâs trust in him.
I fancy OâShea to have a big role to play on Saturday. Tyrone have a couple of big players around the middle but heâs well fit for big lads â itâs the really mobile ones he struggles with. I wouldnât be surprised if people are talking about him having silenced the doubters afterwards.
All things considered, Iâm siding with Mayo. They have pulled themselves out of disastrous situations against both Galway and Dublin. They have showed that when the intensity gets up to the highest level, thatâs where they thrive.
Tyrone knew they could disrupt Kerry by turning up the heat. But the higher they turn the heat on Mayo, the more Mayo like it.
When it comes right down to it, Mayo have beaten better teams than Tyrone have over the past few seasons. They have everything in their track record except the last thing, the most important thing. Nowâs their time to go and get it.
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Both teams heavily backboned by AI U21 winning sides in 2015 and 2016.
Tyrone had 4 starters from their U21 winning team start against Kerry - Hampsey, McGeary, Burns and Meyler with Bradley and McShane coming off the bench. Rory Brennan could also feature if he returns from injury while Lee Brennan is on the panel too. McKenna would have in that age group too but was in Australia at the time.
Mayo had 5 starters from their U21 team in D OâConnor, Coen, Loftus, Ruane and Plunkett with James Carr coming off the bench. The likes of Eoin OâDonoghue and Fergal Boland are still on the Mayo panel too I think.
Thanks for that. Tell us was McNulty a full forward from Cookstown. I was stood beside an auld timer from cookstown that evening who was an utter gent.
Clonoe.
The three Clonoe boys dropped off the panel earlier on in the year. Stevie McDonnell is over them at the min
Ruairi Mullan the corner back was from Cookstown though.
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I donât know if it was posted here already but the Examiner football podcast is an enjoyable listen this week as always. Rouse is a great host who doesnât need to regale his listeners about his drinking sessions or gambling.
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Rouse is a gem. Weâre lucky to have him
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Looks like Mayo have a full pick to choose from, the 4 week delay probably a big boost to them getting everyone back.
Tyrone apart from Rory Brennan will probably have a full pick.
I think the teams will be along the following lines:
- Hennelly
- Mullin
- OâHora
- Keegan
- Durcan
- Coen
- Plunkett
- Ruane
- Loftus
- D OâConnor
- McHale
- K McLoughlin
- Conroy
- AOS
- R OâDonoghue
I reckon they will keep E McLaughlin in reserve but he could start too, Mayo are very short off attacking options off the bench. The likes of D Coen, Walsh, Carr and Flynn etc are very much unproven. Where OâShea is stationed is a big call. Thereâs a lot of flexibility in that Mayo team which will make it awkward for Tyrone to plan for unlike the Kerry game.
I think the Tyrone will probably go with the same 15. They could spring McShane from the start but I think they will want him in reserve. I hope it doesnât turn out to be like Jim McGuinness faux pas in the 2014 AI final where he started McBrearty off the bench. I think Mayo could unsettle Tyrone if they move OâShea about, theyâll want McNamee protecting the edge of the square so might be reluctant to put him marking OâShea if heâs wandering out. If he starts out around the middle Kennedy will pick him up. OâSheaâs biggest danger is probably his distraction value than any footballing threat.
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If AâOS goes to midfield Iâd see loftus going to wing forward & DâOC going to centre forward
The poor lad. The Internet will never forget
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Lovely stuff. Hope he has a wonderful day out Sunday
Yeah.
DOC has played a lot of midfield too. They are quite flexible around that area.
Kilpatrick will pick up Ruane as he has the legs for him.