Garda traffic and security planning Iâd guess.
Please stop talking so much sense.
The less these fucking northern teams win the better
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Even supporters are completely burned out.
Yesterday was Derryâs 19th competitive game I think in less than 6 months.
I doubt the Derry fans are complaining that they are winning too much!
These arbitrary time differences make such a massive difference to traffic and crowd safety and indeed general public safety. Avoiding disaster all hinges on these arbitrary time selections.
I mean you couldnât have had the 2016 Dublin-Mayo replay at 6pm because it would have been unsafe and caused chaos in Dublin. It had to be 5pm.
Likewise the 2019 Dublin-Kerry replay had to be at 6pm. Having it at 5pm would have caused chaos.
Itâs utterly unthinkable what could have occurred had Dublin v Monaghan taken place at 6pm rather than 5:30pm. Itâs the difference between a nine euro meal and one for âŹ8.50.
Iâd love it if the Gardai insisted that the Ireland v Holland qualifier had to start at 7:15pm rather than 7:45pm, thereby flouting the UEFA convention on kick off times.
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Hopefully they donât attempt to copy his actions on the sideline at club matches.
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Youâd know the Dubs are back alright
Occasionally a run of consecutive games can benefit a team, but particular circumstances have to apply. Consecutive games can occasionally wake a misfiring team out of a slumber, as with Dublin hurlers in 2013 or Kildare in 2010. But more often than not itâs a negative, and I think particularly so with this system. I think under this system rest is everything.
Mayo had to struggle enormously to get to the semis in 2017. They were very lucky against a poor Derry team, couldnât get going at all in the first half against Clare, then Lee Keegan turned in a Tour de France and their superior conditioning told. They were out on their feet against Cork, and then against Roscommon, but both times got lucky. The second time round against Roscommon they made no mistake then had 13 days to prepare for Kerry. That put them through the gap. By the replay against Kerry they were so battle hardened they couldnât be stopped.
Yesterdayâs Mayo were like the Mayo of 2019 against Dublin. In 2019 they had a knock out game against Donegal the previous Saturday while Dublin could afford to put out the espoirs in a dead rubber in Omagh.
In 2019 Mayo gave Dublin bags of it in the first half, but as soon as the second half started they were done. It was the exact same this time, but Dublinâs football didnât have to be as good this time to pull away. Mayo were done before half-time yesterday in truth, Dublin had taken control in the last five or six minutes coming up to half time.
I think the evidence of this weekend shows the extra game the previous week is a big handicap. That said I donât think this a great Mayo team at all. I think theyâd been winging it up to now. Yesterday is the last full stop of that Showtime era of Mayo football. Really it ended with that final defeat to Tyrone. Theyâve had so many sickening defeats now that the whole county might psychologically need a bottoming out period for four or five years, to go away before dreaming it all up again under Coach Horan in 2028.
Kevin McStay needs to become John OâMahony II.
Just put down 4 years of nothingness to allow them regroup. Theyâd be better off not seeing Croke Park again until 2027 at least.
Yeah we are.
We never went away bro
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The regrouping thing will be harder now though because of the round robin. Instead of two defeats or even one defeat per championship season as happened under OâMahony and under Pat Holmes in the early 2000s, you might be shipping four defeats in a championship season - one in Connacht, two in the round robin and one in the last 12 or a quarter-final, and some of these defeats could be heavy, which could drive demoralisation.
Mayo have never really fallen into a prolonged Meath/Kildare/Down/Derry style slump in my lifetime like they did in the 1970s but thereâs nothing to say that could not happen.
The reality about Mayo football is the team of the last decade has been a once in a lifetime team. The 1996-99 team were one of the top three or four teams in the country for those years but still not a patch on the team of last decade. Before that Mayo hadnât had a genuinely top tier team since the 1951 team. The 1989 team were probably around the fifth or sixth best team in Ireland while reaching the 2004 and 2006 All-Irelands was a mirage, they reached those finals mainly because of Ciaran McDonald and in reality were about the sixth or seventh best team in Ireland.
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Indeed. Itâs great for those of us at the gaa coaching coalface every week. Those of us babysitting 9year olds to create the great blue wave of 2035. Those of us spending hours* in commuter traffic, trying to keep the dropouts low in the face of competition from vulture sports like sailing clubs and lawn tennis, tirelessly working to eradicate skill and individuality from their game.
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Thatâs Dublin GAA for you.
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Dublin must have outscored Mayo by about 1-14 to 0-3 from the 30 minute mark onwards. That was quite a stark statistic.
I would say the Mayo team were fading in 2018 and 19â tbh. They had shown very little to suggest they had that fire of old for a few years before that second-half comeback against Dublin in 2021. That was a bit of an outlier looking at subsequent results. I remember the Sunday Game having a segment lauding the rebuilding James Horan had done as it was suddenly a team with a plethora of lads in their early to mid 20âs.
I wouldnât as pessimistic for the future of Mayo football. Theyâll be comfortably enough amongst the top 6 or 7 counties for the foreseeable.
Agree on that. But they donât seem to have as many top class players among their younger generation as they did a few years ago, so theyâll be closer to the sixth or seventh spot Iâd say, so itâll feel more demoralising. Maybe next year is another window.
Oisin Mullen is a huge loss alright and the new generation of defenders just donât seem to have the same dog in them as Colm Boyle, Keith Higgins and Lee Keegan.
Things could have worked out very differently if theyâd just avoided defeat against Cork in the last round of the group though. Theyâd have beaten Tyrone and theyâd be facing into Derry or Galway now in a semi-final with Kerry and Dublin on the other side.
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âIfs buts and maybesâ the yearly Mayo review
Agree on all that. A lot of talk today about the system being unfair on teams out the third week in a row, but that completely misses the point. The system is actually spot on. The importance of finishing top is emphasised which raises the pressure for group games next year.
Counties can fade into mediocrity very quickly.
In 2001 I doubt anybody foresaw what Meath would become. Galway and Armagh sank into mediocrity very quickly having been perennial contenders.
Galway sank despite having Michael Meehan and Joe Bergin in prime age and Podrick Joyce with a decade of football left in him.
Teams are based on leaders and Mayoâs were Keegan, Boyle, Higgins, Moran and Cillian OâConnor. This David McBrien chap looks like a potential leader and Ryan OâDonoghue has plenty of dog in him but they need a lot more.