Predicted Team for Armagh:

Reape
E O'Donoghue McHugh Hession
Callinan McBrien E McLaughlin
Ruane Thornton
O'Flaherty D McHale Flynn
Boland Irwin C McHale

Boland for Towey. Boland had a stinker and got dropped. So fair is fair and Towey should be dropped, and Fergal got his scores from the bench the last day. Cian McHale to get another chance (hopefully wind assisted).

Darren McHale to get an opportunity to build some form. I want to give Reid and Neary a rest tbh, Reid after a black card and Neary only got himself a single. O'Flaherty and Thornton were the guys on the bench, but if Carney, Touhy or Diarmuid are fit they may come back in.

Mattie showed better with Flynn in there.

Defense was better. Callinan in for Coen. Would still like to see more of Morahan and Kelly, and I'm unsure if Brickenden is injured or dropped, but doubt we'll change much at the back this weekend.

Quick shout for the other big game on Saturday in the Hogan Cup Semi-Final:

Coláiste Mhuire, Mullingar v St. Colman's, Claremorris
Padraig Pearses Roscommon - 1pm

A brilliant young Claremorris side with huge futures ahead of them. Fingers crossed for the weekend.

If Donegal can play Finbarr Roarty at 18 surely we should be looking at Darragh Beirne Claremorris and Tom Lydon The Neale.

Donegal are a lot of people’s favourites for Sam this year and the league and there is common perception that they’re a better team than us.

However when you think about it and put our panel of players down on a sheet alongside theirs, have they a better squad of players than us? I don’t think so and they have no underage pedigree either…and they’re bring back M Murphy ..at 35!

My point is if we’re managed correctly we can do as well as anybody….IF!

@Sam og: Very interesting chat about that kind of decision from Mike Quirk (the big, big fella on the Kerry line last year) & James Horan on the recent Examiner pod. Well worth a listen if you can grab a hold of it.

@Spotlight fully agree there.

Those Examiner podcasts are now behind a paywall I think.

I think Armagh are there for the taking. They partied hard, and why not, so it will take them time to get back. One we should be targeting.

Spotlight, Armagh proved last year that panel size isn’t as important as people make it out to be. No point having a panel of 30+ if 10/12 of them aren’t going to offer anything on match day. A panel of 25 men, 10 of which are interchangeable is what you need.

My argument being, if you took 3 Donegal forwards off and replaced them with 3 others, would they weaken? So far in the league it proves they have not. If ROD and AOS are out for us, our entire attack looks blunt. With the exception of Neary ( who’s raw direct approach will soon, unfortunately be coached out of him). No doubt some of this has to do with mgmt as you noted. Not to mention Donegal, Galway and a few others are all building very physical teams. Our panel looks to be lacking big time in the S&C department.

My personal opinion, donegals top 22 players are very much stronger than our top 22. Maybe we have an edge from 23-35 but they don’t affect match day enough.

As for Murphy, his size and football brain will keep him around for a good while. Seriously intelligent player. His first point last week was proof of it. Anticipating the short kick out, cut it out and slotted it over off the left with ease. Plenty of composure in the shot, after Donegal had kicked 2/3 poor wides in a row. Personally I think that type of skill is something you’re born with, but can develop to an extent with good coaching. Outside of ROD, I don’t think our players are coached to think or act that way. And if Donegal do use Murphy as an impact sub, it further highlights my earlier point. The strength of the 5/6 men coming in needs to be as good if not better than what’s already on the field. Jim Gavin called them “finishers”. I don’t think we have them.

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh on Cian McHale but surely he’s got to get himself into the game more? There seems to be a sense on some podcasts of let us see him with the wind at his back and he’ll float over some easy long distance scores. I don’t remember thinking this way about other up and coming forwards that would rely on a breeze.

Look at the way Neary has just took the bull by the horns and got stuck in games.

@Green&Red: "So far in the league it proves they have not."

Based on?

Donegal have the 3rd smallest panel used so far, joint 2nd smallest number of players seeing over an hour of play, joint smallest number of different starters and the joint 3rd highest number of players that have played every minute for them so far (with 10 of the lads over 3 hours of the 3 1/2 hours played so far and a couple more just shy of it). They've been working with a pretty tight deck of players so far.

You'd expect Doherty, Gallagher & Langan to see more minutes, but otherwise I can't think of too many big names they're still waiting on to return. I'd certainly feel if you take away any of Gallen, McHugh, Mogan or McBrearty they'd feel a pinch from it. As would any side losing lads of that quality.

2 years ago Armagh were relegated and lots up there wanted McGeeney out.Now they are All Ireland champions.
It's hard to see it for us right now but things can click.You have to stay the course and hope guys like Reid, Neary, Ivers make constant improvement.It takes years to make intercounty footballers.
I would love to ask Colm Boyle about his own development not cutting it and then becoming an All Star.None of these guys are the finished article same with Callinan.Then of course we have glaring holes especially the lack of ball winning midfield players and 2 point kickers.2 pointers will probably decide this championship.
It's hard coming down from the last 10 years but youhave to accept we won't always be that good.No county can maintain that level from our population base.
I still think there are good years ahead.

Colm Boyle gave a detailed account of his time away from the Mayo panel. A friend advised him on a weights program, he put on muscle mass and increased his power. He had a good run with Davitts and was brought back in.
The weights program was critical for his improvement.

Spotlight. Your absolutely right. As i posted already. Donegal have the same team now as they did with Bonner/Rochford. Nothing wrong with the players. Alot wrong with the previous management obviously. Negative tactics previously in Donegal are now in mayo. Mayo players are as good as any team but they are murdered with possession tactics. You seen it all in the first half against Tyrone. Playing with fear

Craggy I’d agree, we can currently name a team along the lines of:

1. Reape
2. Coyne/EOD
3. McHugh
4. Hession
5. Callinan
6. McBrien
7. McLaughlin
8. Ruane
9. Flynn
10. Reid
11. Carney/Doc
12. Neary
13. McHale
14. AOS
15. ROD

The above hasn’t the likes of Durcan, Conroy and others yet to return from injury to see how they are tracking, I refuse to believe that team cannot be consistently competitive. It also has plenty players well able to
kick a ball but if it becomes slow ball we (like most teams) struggle.

Armagh offers up a good opportunity to get the second win. This league will go down to the wire and Armagh look a good bit undercooked in some departments with mcgeeney being honest in his assessments. I think fans appreciate managers calling themselves out at times.

The first half, I will give credit on that as we were against the wind, so it was smart to kill the clock in that half.
The second half we needed to mix the running and kicking game.
We know we're not a top kicking team. But surely we can mix up the running game with kicking.
The running game I'm not seeing coached pods of 3-4 players breaking hard through the opposition centrally.
The runner gets isolated on the wing and we turn back to the passing around the arc.
For our kicking game we need more players for the passing who kick more through the ball like Conor Loftus and Diarmuid.
If you want to kick pass rapidly upfield you don't want hanging in the air punted kicks or slow side of the boot bounce passes.

@Catcol: Sorry. Missed that last night.

Sure enough alright. If you're on the discord (or twitter/boards - same username) to throw me a DM I'm sure we'd be able to get you a listen. Was very interesting to hear their thoughts.

We really threw that game away 2yrs ago so combined with reigning AI champions at home there should be plenty of motivation to get the win here...especially with Forker and O'Neill missing

I see Martin mchugh is calling for the league final to be scrapped... Hmmmm I wonder why.

We should be targeting a win here against armagh, as much as we live reassuring ourselves we are missing loads of players it's really only Durcan, Diarmuid, Conroy we are missing from the certain starters at this point whereas Armagh will be without Rian o'neill, Forker, very likely Grugan, Burns and Oisin o neill unlikely.

A win here, and oddly enough by the time we get to play donegal I suspect McGuinness will be playing the b team so that could end up being a winnable one too

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-41577025.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawIilMZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHci1_gsfhyqbQf-5OVlKRFYcKnzIbJLESGCryA9lwrWD0DDDEnNZaf3h3g_aem_eUF-0442gM15YVgRyk_Rw

The actual ego of Niall Morgan, easy kick them scores when no one is picking you up and his point about Goalies leaving the game if they change the rule ,off with them plenty of lads to take there places,No one wants to see unmarked Goalies kicking scores.If he was that good outfield why isnt he starting in the forwards. Mayo made him look really good on Sunday, why is there not a plan for a player to leave a weak kicker and pick up and mark the likes of Morgan when hes passed the halfway line.Galway have identified Stephen Coen and Eoghan McLaughlin as weak kickers and often leave them unmarked or not picked up.

Hard to disagree with those sentiments, Sam og! Keepers haring up the field is one of the worst features of these new rules.

Morgan and Armagh’s Rafferty are 2 goalies who absolutely love the freedom the new rules give them, but they also liked to play out the field previously as well and were effective before the new rules came in. Some goalies in lower divisions also very comfortable such as Duncan in Offaly. It does create an extra man but there are risks involved. The Roscommon goalie was nowhere to be see when Monaghan scored a goal last Sunday and the Derry goalie was marked absent for a few goals v Donegal in last year’s championship. It is a risky balancing act. Dublins Comerford didn’t seem too comfortable coming out too far v Kerry and the great Cluxton only liked to venture forward for frees. Systems are being developed in most counties I’d say on how to use the goalie and render the opposition goalie less effective. I am sure like a lot of the other rules it will become clearer as season progresses.

I enjoy seeing goalies coming up the field as it adds a bit more excitement. What I don't understand is when they lose the ball why players can't just shoot for the empty goal. One way of dealing with it would be to give six points for such a goal scored. My take on the rules is solo and go good, 3 v 3 good, restricting back pass to the goalie good. Goal scoring devalued with the 2 pointers and as I'm sick and tired of saying it but I won't stop the elephant in the room not addressed being the back pass. So hopefully Jim Gavin is a fan of your blog Willie Joe!

Lots of teams can’t handle Morgan. I’ve gone from being opposed to outfield keepers to being a fan.

Morgan, and our failure to handle him, was one of the reasons for our loss in the 2021 final

All I hear is grunting from supporters at games when Goalies are up the field.It slows down the flow of the game, its likerugby waiting for a fly half trying to kick a drop goal.A sport I find very boring.
I would much rather watch a inside forward get on the ball where he takes on his man in a one on one battle , throws a dummy or side step and hook kicks it over the bar.Thats what Gaelic football should be.Taking on your man seems to be done away with in Mayo, you cannot bring the ball into contact at all it seems.Kevin McStays main thing he had when he was a player was taking on his man and beating them with a dummy, but hes doesnt seem to encourage it in his players.

Sam oh, is that why Eoghan scores goals against Galway, and generally runs them ragged - last year in Salthill, 21 in Croker?

Catcol
Hes misses a lot more chances than he gets, he actually hit one straight at Morgan down the centre the last day, Just because he gets chances doesnt mean hes a good kicker, his kicking technique looks weak he usually blasts the ball off balance of his laces instead of steadying up and trying to place it with his instep.He gets in them goal positions with his pace not his football ability.He also hasnt much vision when other players are in a better position to score he doesnt see the pass Who will ever forget his wide against Armagh 2 years ago when he had Cillian to his left to win the game.

It’s interesting people aren’t in favour of keepers coming up the field, yet in mayo we had a keeper, who when he played out the field was the top scorer in 1 if not 2 club championship campaigns. If we had a proper mgmt structure and used Reape in the right way out the field he would be our most dangerous option for 2 point scores. But of course none of our mgmt are probably even aware of how good a forward player Reape used to be. He made Reid’s goal against Dublin with the dummy and quick handpass. He moved back into goal because he had a history of being an excellent soccer keeper and at the time I believe the old Knockmore goalkeeper retired. I’d put my house on it that Morgan and any other attacking keeper was never a top scorer in a club championship campaign the way Reape was. But unfortunately no critical thinking or innovation on the sideline.

New pod up on Patreon - Mike with Billy Joe Padden and Paddy Finnegan chatting about the Tyrone match and looking ahead to the Armagh game.

Colm was, of course, part of the All-Ireland U21 winning panel in 2016 as an outfield player as well. I still don't want to see goalies predominantly in attack, though!

@Green&Red if you're looking for tactical innovation, I don't think you'll find much of it under current regime. As I suspected our shot total against Tyrone was woefully low. 21 shots. 21 shots will not win any game in the championship. 12 points will not win any game in the championship. Donegal in comparison had 40 shots! It doesn't take a genius to work out that if you take more shots, you have a higher chance of scoring more. Not to mention the fact that we turned down numerous 2 point free opportunities on Sunday & went short. I think we got 1 point out of those. had we taken on the 3 attempts (which were in Reape or Irwin's range), even 1 out of 3 would have been a higher return! This is even more galling as McStay used to regularly profess of a 40 attack, 30 shot, 20 score philosophy being favourable. More shots also means more kickouts for the oppo to try & restart )and pressing those is much easier now).

What are we actually doing, because I can't for the life of me see anything creative apart from Enda Hession putting his hand above his head & that was cringy!

I think the forward taking on his man went out the window a bit with the arrival of the blanket...
It became known as going into traffic as you were seldom left one v one.
The bigger stronger forward unit , like Clifford was able to create space by using his strength and better range of skills .
The new rules should give more space to the ''tidier''forward again hopefully.

@2 hops: Going into traffic would be getting caught up by a man so that 2 or 3 others can swarm and prevent you getting free (3 hands are better than 1).

Our issue (or a bigger one of) is with the slow transitions we're not creating the 1v1s for someone to really stand up & beat their man upfront. We're left with bodies in front and when a player finally takes them on it turns out to be 1v3 instead of the 1v1 where we might find some joy.

Fair play to Davitt having the pace & energy to take on those risks and still find joy. You'd love to think what he, McHale, Towey or R'OD might do if they found themselves with ball in hand with a 1v1 or even 3v3 without those others in the path.

@TsuDhoNim ya ,what I meant was beat your man fine,but turn and there was another one or two waiting for you.
Strength and direct running was probably more of an advantage against the blanket,but guile , craft and 2 footedness might come back into vogue a bit more now with more space to be found.

I think any weeks to the rules should be done before the last round of the league, at least that would give teams that are out the following week in Championship like Mayo ,Sligo and Donegal time to get up to speed.
As it stands it could be the Wednesday or Thursday before the championship games before teams know the definitive rules for the year

@Jr: All the commentary seems to suggest they're hoping to have them fairly nailed down with the post R5 pre R6 tweaks (so 3 game weekends pre Provincials). They just need to have the wiggle room so that if anything changed then (looking increasingly likely we'll see a tweak to the GK/12v11 going on public player/manager/fan sentiment) turns out a bit broken due to human error.

I'd be surprised if we end up with any changes between the last 2 league games and the provincials. I'd expect it'd only be in the worst case last resort and similar with further tweaks once the Championship kicks in. The integrity of the Competition would suffer a little each time they're adjusted further.

Hopefully we get stuck into them. For me Armagh are the most interesting with these new rules and that's mainly because I just don't think individually they are all that good. They had a great system though and a fine group of athletes, and that's what you needed to win it the past few years.

I look at the likes of Aidan Forker and in my opinion, he's not a patch on the best players in the country in that position.

The most amazing thing about that Armagh team is the only thing they've ever won is last year's all Ireland (bar a few who won a minor in 09). I really expect them to fall off significantly this year.

@Unstoppable.
Your last statement reminds me of the man that complained to the accountant that he got nothing done all week except collecting money. Seems to me that both outcomes are what matters to most.

Nephin - fair comment! I'd give anything to have ended up where Armagh did last season. They could even taken 10 Connacht titles off us for one big win!

But the point is I don't think there's much to fear with them. I think it will be looked back on very similar to Tyrone in 2021. An ordinary team that found itself in the right place at the right time

@Unstoppable to be fair to Armagh, 2022 they lost to Galway on penalties. 2023 they lost to Tyrone in a fairly meaningless round robin game & again went out on penalties against Monaghan. They also lost Ulster Final on penalties in 2023. 2024 they lost to Donegal in Ulster Final on penalties. Moral of the story is for 3 years, they were very very consistent & deserved their day in the sun. They are hard to beat & I would only write them off this year due to the difficulty of defending an All Ireland. I wouldn't question their quality

I disagree on keeper been allowed to join attack a bad idea. Thought Reape would be an asset after Galway game, as was used as offensive player, got into and scored points. But if only going up to maintain possession, stay in goal. See Morgan, attacked defenders, beat them, and scored. We need to be brave, or at least more brave

I think it's been pretty overstated Colm Reape's ability as a scoring forward.
Ask yourself these questions:
1. When he has ventured forward the last two years has he been scoring regularly?
2. Does he look a comfortable inside, through or outside of the boot shooter? In my opinion he looks okay.
3. He had no big track record minor or u21 scoring at county level for Mayo?
So, no he's okay, but he's by the track record not some scoring threat that we're asleep on.
If he is then why isn't he slotting his scores?

Reape would be better advised to sort his kick outs rather than going up the field. They were dreadful last Sunday. I don't buy into keeper s coming out like they are. The risk outweighs the reward

I don’t think Colm was solely to blame for our restart problems, Craggy. There seemed to be little or no movement out the field so he was often left with no option but to drive it long and hope for the best.

Well our score of 12 points the last day is going to win us many (or any!) matches for the rest of this year. So if our keeper can join the attack and get us a score I'm all for it.
Subject to the moratorium on shooting being lifted of course

@Craggy Boglands I would look more at midfield then Reapes kick outs to be honest.

Jp, I’d say like the vast majority of our attack, he’s encouraged not to shoot. It’s worth remembering he actually scored a point and set up a goal against Dublin first day out. Over the last few years, no goalkeeper has been comfortable scoring. Morgan gets up the field but doesn’t be notching up 2/3 points a game. He kicked a shocking wide and put a ball straight into Reape’s hands in the closing stages last week. The point I’m making is that Reape had the ability to kick from distance and it at least might give the opponent something to think about. Right now 6 statues could defend against mayo. We have to try, or at least look to do some new things.

As for his kickouts, I completely agree with WJ, movement is nothing short of pathetic from our middle 8. But no system or plan either. No breaking into space, bunching to one side, isolating good 1v1 match ups. You put Tom Parsons, Seamus O’Shea Donal Vaughan and Lee Keegan around the middle alongside a tiger in Colm Boyle and trust me, Reape’s kickouts wouldn’t be an issue.

There are a lot of complaints across the country (especially defensively minded coaches) about how the keeper being a free man isn't fair.

The FRC was led by Jim Gavin, James Horan and Eamon. Fitzmaurice. Managers who coached there team to press high up the pitch. The keeper cannot receive a pass in his own half, so pressing high makes him redundant. The keeper being allowed receive the ball in the opposition half, punishes the defensive team - as they are outnumbered - a punishment for playing defensively.
I don't like to see the keeper up the field all the time - but teams will soon cop on and figure out your better to play 12 on 12 in the oppositions have than to sit back and try to make 13 with 12 in front of your own goal.

The sight of mayo messing around doing keep ball in Tyrones half was hard to watch but it was Tyrones fault - they had the breeze behind them, were a man up and sat back inside their own 40m arc, watching Mayo runs down the clock until they got back to 15men and had the wind in the 2nd half.
Mayo would have been silly to try to force the game in those circumstances.

If you have the wind and are a man up, you should be pinning the opposition in their own half

Looking to Armagh the next day - they have an attacking keeper who will score 80% (unlike Morgans 40%).
Mayo would be very silly to sit back and let Armagh goalie be the difference maker

I actually thought that some of Reapes kick outs were good last weekend, given the new rules, there is very little room for error and some may have missed but not by much. I would like to see the stats but I would guess that overall we won the midfield battle.
I also like the risk of the attacking goalie, just think that it needs to be encouraged more but as has been stated previously, we take a conservative approach so not taking advantage of Reapes attacking potential.

@Mikey: Most of the sides using the "attacking goalie" are using them for control, slowed phases & kill time rather than aid in offence. Even Tyrone & Armagh, who have real threats from their keepers as passers or shooters, are using them primarily for control and among (along with Mayo) the lowest scorers in the Division as a result.

It's the reason there's a groundswell of support (initially there for a fear of it being too strong offensively, now mostly for it being too strong defensively) around scrapping the 12v11 scenario entirely. Some really strong evidence based pieces by both Cahair O'Kane and Maurice Brosnan speaking out against it being retained as is (both having originally had some support for the intent of it).

Personally, I'd avoid going near any work on that for the next fortnight or 3 weeks in training. There's a real chance it could be gone as an option come R6 or beyond.

What's the point in having 6 forward s if you relying on a keeper to come forward and score. Our forward s will not take on the shot and neither did the keeper last Sunday. What is canny the so called forward s coach exactly doing with this team. Listening to his mate Rochford by the looks of things. Possession at all cost.

Wfat teans are still asleep on is tall middle eight players giving a platform to win a game.
I could see likes of Meath beating a big team in summer as this year they're one of the tallest middle eights around.

Last year at end of January, Mayo beat Galway in Salthill by 2-12 to 0-10. Galway survived in Division 1, Derry topped League, beat Dublin in League final, were everyone expecting Derry to go far in Championship, and Galway to do the opposite. Beat us in Championship for a little help Referee David Gough, but made most of this bit of luck. Galway lost the final by a point, almost done a Mayo on it, completely didn't turn to play, and probably still could have one it.
So I am as bad as next punter, to see glass half empty. But League a funny one, can win it, and nearly suck the life out of ya.
The one thing would say, we need to improve how, how we play in Connaught, still an advantage winning Connaught championship. Think we a great opportunity to peak for Connaught final, as on the more favourable side of draw. But like to see more offensive football, as think our cautious approach wont work in summer

All this talk about a Connacht final is worrying me a little.

Let’s focus on Sligo first off. The way we are playing the Sligo bucks will be aiming for an ambush.