Boom ! another GAA journo gets it from the Laois man … it’s fascinating to watch
Where did the list start?
There were other All Irelands that Mayo blew more.
1996, 2013 and 2017 off the top of my head.
There were, but we were talking about Keegans debut season.
The two own goals in 2016 were hilarious. I was in the Canal that day and the despair among the Mayo crowd was something else. I never saw anything like it. Myself and my brother just had to laugh really.
They were robbed in Limerick by the ref in the Kerry replay in 14.Theyd have bate Donegal in the final.
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Mayo didn’t blow 2017. 2013 Mayo were dominant in the first half, didn’t make it pay and underperformed in the second half.
2021 was the biggest blow job of all. It was the first of all their finals since 1989 that they went into as the undeniable favourites. That final hung on the penalty and once they missed it their heads went.
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They didn’t exactly blow 1997 but not often you get to play a very average Kerry side in a final. Certainly a winnable game. Despite Maurice Fitz.
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I don’t hate Dublin at all, that’s just more Dublin fan insecurity.
While I agree that the ref robbed them I wonder would they have beaten Donegal - they probably would have found a way of messing up.
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Like Aidan O’Shea and Cillian O’Connor concussed each other that day in Limerick.
The 2 own goals was the one they really messed up and then the Hennelly fiasco in the replay. Dublin were useless in those games.
You literally couldn’t make it up.
Two points up going into the critical last ten minutes and James McCarthy walked through them for two points without anyone laying a glove on him.
2013 defeat had much to do with Horan taking a well performing Keith Higgins from the forwards back to mark Eoghan O’Gara.
They never looked like winning 2021.
I forgot that!
The last 15/20 years has been some era for attacking half backs.
Tomás O’Se, James McCarthy, Jack McCaffrey, Lee Keegan. If you were picking a team of all time you wouldn’t look outside those four for the 5 and 7 positions.
To go all Roy Curtis on it, each of them epitomised something greater than themselves. O’Se was metronomic, hewn from Dingle rock. McCarthy epitomised an old time Dublin spirit, a man you would entrust your life to, the strong but silent type Tony Soprano wished to be. McCaffrey epitomised an avant garde free spirit, he is a practitioner of footballing free jazz. Keegan the ultimate warrior who carried an entire county and cause on his back, Gaelic football’s Braveheart.
Was Kevin Moran the original of the species of the attacking half back?
There’s a rich Dublin lineage there. Moran-Barr-Curran-McCarthy-McCaffrey.
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See Curtis, thats how you fucking do it.
Em… Paul Curran?
Moran was quite a few years before Curran.
Out of all of them there may have been worse beats for Mayo than the 2017 All Ireland. It is hard to remember there have been so many and they all melt into 1 but the 45th minute of that game when John Small lowered his elbow into Colm Boyle I felt this was it. Finally its Mayos time. It was about to leave Mayo with a numerical advantage and a free straight in front of the posts to level it. Donie Vaughan then in a moment of madness undid all this and the free became a hop ball and it was 14 V 14. In my own head if you were to make a collage out of all of them Donie Vaughan would be the centre of it.
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Lets have a word for 1996 drawn All Ireland lads and Colm Coyle’s point that hopped over the crossbar.
Poor unfortunate gobshites.
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Mayo mainly lost 2017 for the simple reason they were relying on 16 trusted players whereas Dublin could rely on 25 or 26.
You could pick about five or six individual incidents which could have swung that game the other way, the main one would be Vaughan getting himself sent off.
Then were was Jason Doherty’s goal chance, Cillian O’Connor getting pulled back by Philly McMahon when he would have been in on goal, Lee Keegan probably should have had a penalty, Cillian O’Connor kicking the ball up in the air and smack against the post and Stephen Coen losing the ball before the last point.
You could argue it was Stephen Rochford’s fault he had narrowed the focus so much to just 16 players. Or you could argue that the other players just weren’t good enough.
Mayo produced such a great performance overall in that final however - and they scored 1-5 in the last quarter - a total that historically is almost always enough to win any close All-Ireland - that you could not say they blew it. The greatest final.
2013 Mayo made stupid mistakes but they seemed overawed in the second half and didn’t do enough to win it.
2021 was the true bottle job. Moderate enough opposition, a missed penalty to go ahead at a key stage, a meltdown ensued when they lost their heads completely.
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The 2017 final was the day the GAA peaked.
It gets better and better every time you watch it back.
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