What a brilliant occasion, when was the last time there was 28 000 in mchale park? It's a shame the wind was so strong. Hopefully it's something that happens again soon because its great for the town and for mayo gaa, the boys will be busy working on the pitch for next weekend though haha.

Great occasion.
What was the attendance in the 2018 championship match v Galway? That was the biggest attendance there in last few years I can remember.

Too much lateral passing from Connaught cost them...imo.

Don't forget ,our u20s are playing there Wednesday evening

What a wonderful and historic occasion and another sporting memory bank. It was brilliantly organized, the ground was a sea of green and the pitch looked great-well done to all involved. Great atmosphere. Pity the result did'nt go our way. It went right down to the wire and our lost line-out at the death may have cost us the win. Connacht made too many unforced errors and coughed up too many turnovers. No fairytale ending, but still very enjoyable. Hope we see it again and spread the game around the province.

15 behind the ball from both teams . They need to learn from football

Our pod from MacHale Park today is up now on Patreon.

Great game

Take away the razzamatazz - at this level , a ponderous game - rest easy GAA

I was watching on TV with volume muted, so was maybe missing some atmosphere, but I thought it was a very poor spectacle as a game.
MacHale Park looked brilliant with a full house, and pitch looked in excellent condition, but the game itself was poor I thought.
GAA could certainly learn a trick or two in terms how to present the occasion though. If they did that, they'd have little to worry about, because the rugby itself was poor.

Very good km79. Great occasion today in fairness, better team won on the end. On the road back to the big smoke tomorrow for the final. Maigh Eo Abu and safe travel to all.

26 named for tomorrow

As above posters have mentioned, Gaelic football has nothing at all to fear from Rugby but as today showed, they have a knack of working well together (GAA facilities on show and an amazing sport loving crowd/ rugby mentality) to create unique spectacles for the public.
What an advertisement for the West of Ireland, the entire county is buzzing regardless of the outcome.
Agree that it wasn’t exceptional rugby (have a look at Connacht V Ospreys last weekend if you’re seeking parallels with Mayo-esque chaos) but it undoubtedly was a fantastic event.
And there weren’t too many scrums so the pitch should be ok for the upcoming games.

Tubberman I don't see much point in watching a match with the volume muted .You're missing all the atmosphere.

What a great occasion in Mc Hale Park. Absolutely brilliant day oul and a credit to everyone involved. Except for a few reckless challenges Connacht should have won! As a Mayo Man I was very proud of the set up Today. I’m hoping we can have many more Connaught Rugby Matches in Mc Hale Psrk. As for Tomorrow I’m hoping Mayo go for it and place a marker down for this years Sam Maguire. We are in a Final I’m hoping Players and Managers WIN.

Have to say McHale park looked unreal today, fair play to ye. I’ve said it many times, but Connacht Rugby need to do this more often. Between Castlebar, the Hyde and Salthill their is money to be made for Connacht and our County boards. Amazing how professional a place can look with electronic advertising boards.

Connacht should have finished out the game .
Mcstay should consider his position !!

Great show today.Connacht GAA should copy some of it. We have an exciting product just add some razzmatazz ,music before matches, get the crowd in early and create a carnival atmosphere. Another thing I noticed there was no kid invasion onto the pitch, the players moved around the perimeters and did selfies and autographs in an orderly fashion.One criticism though there was more Heineken spilt than drank in the stand.

Ah 2 Hops and KM79 that Ref was terrible. Every time our lads got the ball, they were dragged to the ground and we couldn’t get a free.

They kept on passing backward or lateral.

Well done to all. MacHale Park looked fantastic on tv.
Hopefully this become a yearly event. Great for the local economy. As for the game itself, boring would be an understatement. Gaelic football is a much better watch but could learn from right y for “hyping” up the games.

Living in Leinster, Gaelic football has plenty to fear from rugby. Serious inroads have been made into the pool of players available. Despite its being perceived in Dublin as a private school sport, there's quite the expansion around big population areas in Kildare, Wicklow etc
These guys are organised and proactive and as a father I know told his son, if you're going to get hurt or injured, best to get paid for it if you're good enough to feature.
Competition is always healthy.

Extraordinarily naive to think that a professional sports organization won’t press home the advantage of the hype they succeeded in generating for a mid table league game in McHale Park. Are Mayo capable of generating that level of PR around its league games?

When see the number of injuries sustained yesterday, even poor lads knocked out rugby will have bigger issues down the line than competing with GAA, it will be competing and surviving the ambulance chasers that be bigger issue. Especially with the class action suits coming up.

I was involved in a Dublin club some years ago. Both our U21 midfielders had to give up all contact sports as a result of serious concussion injuries sustained playing rugby.