The county players stood out for Castlebar. Irwin and Callinan anonymous for Ballina. Have to say John McMonagle looked excellent in the Mitchel's half back line. Mayo's have back is stacked but for a 20 year old he brings huge physicality and will surely be a key player for years to come.

John Mc will be a huge player for mayo in the future.

Might be controversial but I'm glad ballina lost, they play terrible negative football. The way they played against garrymore was a disgrace. They have talented footballers who are stuck playing this dinosaur football. Hopefully next year they let loose.

I'll throw this out there, one last time, but does anyone know the date of this years county senior final ?

And no, its not on the Mayo Gaa website

I havent a clue Paddy and i dont know if its me but i can never get any clear idea of fixtures from that site.Its confusing. I depend on the blog exclusively to know whats going on

Agreed on john mcmonagle, i rate him very highly, thought hed have nailed down his spot with county by now but I think he will in the year ahead. A natural leader too

What is his natural position on the half backline and he can he dispossess of their spot next year

Paddyjoe a rough timeline would be a two week gap between each round, so whatever that works out to be.. But then again if TG4 wanted to show it could change that

Is the county final not the weekend of the October bank holiday every year ?

@robe, he's a natural number 6 but played wing back in the second half yesterday. I had him down for 4 clean dispossessions in the first half yesterday. Best tackler I've seen since Aidan O'Shea and he's deceptively quick.

Mayo will probably have 2 All Stars from their half back like this year but I'd have him ahead of Callinan. Callinan had a very good year but McMonagle has a way higher ceiling.

And standing around 6'2'' John Mc won't be shoved around.
Whether we need him next year in our starting 6 in our hunt for more he's a great option and the coming league is ideal now to blood 5/6 of our more promising 20-23 year olds. Getting relegated or not
next year, will make no difference to our chances of progressing come champo time I feel...why, because we will be reigning champs.and that changes everything .

@Robe Green and Red: Defence is far more about horses for courses on types of match-ups and putting out fires than a "natural position", so wouldn't worry too much about that. You don't want a weak link like someone too short on the edge of the square at 3 or lacking the physical strength to hold a player up coming through the middle at 6, but any team worth their salt will be able to rotate match-ups and aim to punish any of those weaknesses anywhere across a defense these days.

A quick look at the job Donnacha did on Patrick Carr at 2, then Mikey Murray at 8 and then back to Dylan Thornton playing 3 gives a good glance at the importance of that kind of thing. Or Sean Morahan giving up a lot of his own game to help neutralise Sam Callinan yesterday, while spending much of the Sigerson bouncing from 3, to 6 to wherever else needed to cancel out a variety of different threats.

John MacMonagle has great vision and distribution along with the incredible strength and athleticism for generating those multiple turnovers every game, so will always be a fantastic option around 6 or putting out fires in the half-back line. With his reading of danger and defensive instincts can also do a fairly natural job in the full back line (was an absolute rock at 3 for the county minors) and his ability to man-mark can be used to nullify specific threats (e.g. against a tall lad like Fionn McDonagh for Galway if we had Donnacha & DMcB tied up doing other jobs John Mac probably one you'd have in line for that kind of match-up - whether McDonagh pushed inside or dropped deeper to the 40).

@gbxi, was thinking how does he break into the Mayo half backline of this years heroic performance. Great impact sub next year for Hession McBrien or Callinan . Hopefully no injuries to the above 3 though

Mentioned by @2hops that relegation from league division 1 wouldn’t matter to Mayo. I think that playing Division 1 is of paramount importance to Mayo. It’s a huge credit to many Mayo teams that we’ve been up there playing the best sides for many years now.
McHale Park is a special place on league Saturday nights playing the Kerrys and the Galways. I’m really looking forward to the huge crowds being back in McHale Park in Spring.
They’ll be all gunning to beat the all-Ireland champions.So staying up in 2027 will be a bigger challenge than ever.
Roll on the league, looking forward to victorious refreshments with friends in Castlebar Mitchels Sportlann afterwards.

I was so impressed with John McMonagle against Breaffy in last year’s championship. He did one of the best 1 on 1 man markings on Aidan that I’ve seen at club level. The tackles and turnovers he was making were incredible, especially considering he was still U20 at the time. He was excellent again last night, with some of the best tackling I’ve seen from a back at either inter-county or club level in 2026. Throw in Diarmuid Duffy, Hugh O`Loughlin, Colm Lynch and Sean Morahan into the headaches into the half backline for next year also Robe Green and Red.

@MaroonedinthePale
Yes the level of competition in division 1 is very important to a team's development but if we manage our resources well now,we can challenge for major silverware for the next 5 years.
As Andy said the 'B'team were regularly beating our All Ireland winning team in the run up to the final.
So the league should be where a lot of these lads are allowed cut their teeth in the white heat of battle.
Nobody needs to tell Andy and Colm that standing still is not an option and developing our squad will be paramount to future success...and I do think there is a golden era ahead,now that the pressure is off.

Sean Morahan spend his time pulling and dragging Sam, the ref eventually had enough of it. McMonagle did his bit but more needed to break into the county team. A good run in the club championship would benefit both of them. Ballina legs got heavy in the final quarter and Castlebar deserving winners.
CLAREMORRIS 1-28. WESTPORT 6 -11
29 scores to 17 tells the story.
Hard to imagine scoring 6 goals and loosing. Hurley magic accounted for a lot. The Holmes brother accounted for 4 goals, 2 apiece. A bizarre game,

- Bizarre game indeed with Claremorris fully deserving of their win taking some great scores. N. Hurley super.
- Westport backs could not deal with the pace of the Claremorris forwards and resorted to poor tackling giving up loads of frees as a result.

@ontheditch, that may be true about Morohan but I expected so much more from Callinan, really unimpressed given he's his team's star player. It's Andy's team but I'd have John Mc ahead of him next year. Callinan to come off the bench effectively. Agree Castlebar had way more legs in the end.

Well have to agree to disagree on that one GBXI. Calinan, I would short list for an all star, and considering the hectic lifestyle since winning Sam, it would be cruel to judge him on sat evening performance. Lynch the most impressive of the half backs I've seen this year.

@Ontheditch: That's a perfect description of Morahan's performance. Though I feel you're suggesting it's a negative while I'm very much saying it as a positive 😂

It was aggressive, abrasive and a physical battle between the two where you could actively see his opponent lose focus in plays to get involved in the encounter rather than focus on getting involved with the ball. As a man-marker that's pretty much your dream result. He managed to stay (just) the right side of the ref while doing it to not give soft frees away too, so the management will be delighted with how that panned out.

It's not pretty, it's not beautiful and it isn't the stunning Niall Hurley like performance we'll instantly pay in to watch, but having lads that can successfully do that sort of job (& we're blessed to have a couple around the county - whether it was Keegan or Barrett back in the day or Donnacha or a few of the lads now) is often the difference between winning or losing a Championship.
(Shout out too to Thomas Goldrick of Charlestown who put in a brilliant man-marking performance against Jack Carney yesterday too)

What did Paddy Tally say? "Nice lads win nothing".

I'd be more positive on MacMonagle's performance. Against the 3 time time champs & early season 2nd favs for the competition he was a huge part of shutting them down on Friday. Against a lot of lads that are in or around county level he was fairly consistently coming out on top.

A quick glance at Barry Maguire's stats (https://x.com/BillyMc_86/status/2091264661568020604 - amazing to see a county level analyst sharing full tagging info & some personal insights at local club level like this) shows how important Castlebar winning the turnover battle was in the game, with JMacM leading the way in individual interceptions for sure, while being a big part in a number of 2v1 turnovers & being a huge part in breaking the ball or winning the breaks on restarts.

Again it wasn't a tonne of pretty stuff, but in an area like restarts where Ballina would have been favourites to come out on top (even missing Dylan Thornton, Jack Irwin & Luke Doherty around the middle they still have huge strength there) it was huge for Mitchels to come out on top in that battle.

Totally agree on the later point of not judging anyone too harshly on a performance this week or two weeks ago. The context of the last month does need to be kept in mind. Quite telling that quite a few lads who'd have been near the top of lists for county minutes or heavily involved in recent Sigerson campaigns in the last few years among those struggling to capture their best form or even fitness right now. Likely more than just a coincidence there. The fatigue will always hit at some point.

Fair play to Claremorris, a brilliant result against a good Westport outfit..
lots of lads putting their hands up for Andy to consider..
FBD could be interesting!!!!

Great entertainment. Claremorris should and need to be competing for county titles. It’s the third largest town in the county and have had countless lost generations. It’s unbelievable they have not won a county title in so long.

Correction 4th largest after Castlebar, Ballina and Westport.

Claremorris always named with being a big town and producing nothing yet the likes of ballinrobe ballyhaunis swinford and aghamore, who with kilkelly knock aghamore and tooreen have a way bigger pick than them never get any criticism that claremorris do

What position does Darragh Beirne's brother play and is he older than Darragh?

@Glorydays: Mostly a sharp shooting inside forward (it's in the family), though would do a job anywhere around the front 6.

Slightly older. He'd be 2 years ahead in terms of age groups (Adam a Mayo Minor in '21 with Darragh following as a county minor in '23).

@Tsu thanks for that, hopefully we get to see him in the FBD or league