Disagree. They possibly require one more scoring forward. Evan Regan perhaps.
Other teams have eventually got over the line without making radical changes. Cork 1989 and 2010, Dublin 1995, Armagh 2002, Wexford 1996.
With Donegal declining, Kerry unlikely to get any better next year and a lack of any other obvious challengers, Mayo should really be getting back to an All-Ireland final against Dublin next year.
The Aidan O’Shea issue needs to be addressed. A world beater up to the quarter final every year and game plan based around him and then targeted by cuter opposition managers in the later stages as a place to hammer the hammer.
Given some people’s comparison of this team with Pillar Caffrey’s Dublin team, they probably do need someone as ruthless as Pat Gilroy was. No heroes and no prima donnas. Just players willing to burst their boll*ox no matter what, hold their discipline and have the mental toughness to stick to and stay focused the game plan. Mayo had prepped all year to defend leads and kill the clock a la Galway and Donegal games but yet crumbled when 4 points up against Dublin. Case in point Seanus O’Shea reacting to Jonny Cooper and getting a black card.
Isn’t that exactly what they’re doing here?
It’s a very similar move to what the Armagh players did after the 2000 championship when they voted to get rid of Canavan and McAlinden.
have no idea about Murphys or Sheeyhs attitude to Sports Science etc, but believe me there is nearly always one lads involved who despises it and has no value at all in S&C.
I have no doubt its a stick used to beat. From what I heard CON has a very good football brain and mixes bthe 2 very well.
They was definitely tension on the line and again I question nobody upstairs. However there is bound to be tension. They did look lost though.
Disagree. I think they have sufficient players in place. They didn’t lack one scoring forward in the games against Dublin, they lacked the nous to get their scoring forwards on the ball. Their play broke down at the opposition 45. They need correction there to stitch the play together and get their inside forwards on the ball. Need more flexibility too for when O’Shea is double marked, they should surely manage a way to take advantage of that. Also, their defence is very generous. That’s two fairly major issues that look to me to have more to do with how they set up than with personnel.
The joint managers, however the fuck that works, need to cut their losses and move on.
Players will always hold the balance of power in these situations and it’ll be to the detriment of mayo football if the lads stay on .
A limerick 2010 scenario would be ideal here.
Cillian O’Connor looks like the banjo playing boy from Deliverance.
Now that you mention it
Conor Deegan was speaking a few months ago about how the Down players voted to get rid of Wee Pete in 93.
It reflects very badly on players to blame managers for defeats when it in fact was the players own fault. 2000 was one Armagh threw away with a string of goal chances not taken. In those type of situations it’s down to the players. Armagh just happened to improve in the years after with most of the squad hitting their prime and the emergence of Clarke and McDonnell really beginning to find his form.
They crumble at crunch times - that’s their problem. They can be doing all the basics right but as soon as the final whistle approaches or they are on the cusp of finishing off teams they begin to make catastrophic errors.
The players have a huge mental weakness.
Look at minutes 44 to 51 from the drawn game again. Andy Moran and Diarmuid O’Connor butchered great chances at a time when Mayo were in control of the game.
If an accurate scoring forward had had some of the chances that Kevin McLoughlin alone has had over the past three seasons, Mayo would have an All-Ireland.
It’s a bit of a contradiction, but Mayo have the players to win an All-Ireland, and yet they don’t quite have the forwards. They’re not quite the best team in Ireland, but have been as consistent as anybody. They’re probably a player or two away, or a bounce of the ball away, very like Dublin pre-1995 and Armagh pre-2002. They need most things to go right for them if they’re win to it.
In some ways they only have themselves to blame for not beating Dublin, and yet in some ways they did extremely well to get as close to them as they did.
The bottom line is that after Horan, who put in place an extremely professional set-up in place in terms of preparation (with some admitted tactical deficiencies) which had total buy-in from the players, the majority of the players feel that a mediocre set up, which is lessening their chance of winning an All-Ireland, is now in place and won’t stand for another year of it.
To be fair to Holmes and Connelly, they can’t put the ball over the bar and they can’t stop Seamus O’Shea hitting out at Jonny Cooper, and in some ways this is a harsh move, but a majority of the players clearly feel it has to be made, and they are the people best placed to make such a call.
That’s nothing you couldn’t say about the Armagh team of 1999-2001, the Dublin team of 1991-94, the Cork team of 2007-2009, the Wexford hurlers of the early 90s, Clare pre-1995, yet they all got over the line.
Jack O’Connor was texting and communicating with the Kerry sideline from Section 404 in the Lower Cusack. Surely they had others dotted around
Lady luck had a lot to do with Armagh to both extremes in 2000 and 2002.
In 2000 they were dealt a cruel blow with Fitzgerald’s late equaliser and misses in those games with Kerry. In 2002 they were blessed with Kerry offering little resistance in the second half and also Ray Cosgrove hitting the post with a routine free to draw the game near the end.
Mayo’s collapses have been far more pronounced and they’ve been on the go for 5 years now with that group of players and always seem to balls it up themselves at crucial junctures.
Luck nearly always plays a part. In 1999 Armagh got extremely lucky against Derry when a point down with a minute of normal time left when a perfect shoulder from Henry Downey on Paddy McKeever was blown up as a free within scoring range, and Armagh won by a point.
After that Armagh displayed mental frailties in pretty much all their big games in Croke Park. In the semi-final against Meath, they put themselves in a great position and completely shit the pot in the second half.
In 2000 they almost pulled off what would have been a massive smash and grab against Kerry in the drawn match but Gerard Reid rugby tackled Kerry player for a ridiculous free in front of the posts with the last attack.
In the replay they were in a potentially winning position but shit the pot again.
In 2001 they had Galway on the ropes after a seven point comeback but Justin McNulty ridiculously got himself blocked down and Galway got the winner.
Even in 2002 against Dublin they did the same thing they’d done against Kerry in 2000 by giving away an easy enough free with the last attack, but Cosgrove missed it.
You could say Armagh shit the pot in all those matches. But they eventually got over the line. That doesn’t necessarily mean Mayo will but you can’t slag off Mayo for mental frailties and not put Armagh in the same bracket.
Go back to luck. In the replay against Kerry last year, Enright should have been sent off early on, Kerry got two highly debatable penalties, Aidan O’Shea and Cillian O’Connor collided with each other which took away from the effectiveness of both, and Cormac Reilly turned one of the most one-sided refereeing displays I’ve seen. He screwed Mayo.
Mayo’s biggest problem is they believe their own hype. Kings of Connach,. also rans in All Ireland. Really lack a player to grab a game by the scruff when its going away from them against the big teams. Some very good footballers when they are let play but the big teams usually have an intensity to them that make you earn the right.This is where Mayo fall down I believe.
Chaps, I’ve no problem with you liking @myboyblue 's Deliverance picture post but please acknowledge I brought it to the forum’s attention by liking my post above it too. I was quietly confident of earning a “nice post” award for it but I was distraught to check back in an hour later to see one mere like. Fuck you all.
As close as they may be i seriously doubt he was texting the sideline.
And if so then its poor management to one, go outside the management team you have and two, to use someone who had to concentrate on their own game just previously.
Hold on mate, I made that comparison a few years ago, and if I didn’t I certainly meant to. So if anyone deserves a nice post award it’s partially me.
You can - Armagh got over the line much quicker and their close calls were nowhere near the spectacular levels of collapse Mayo’s were.