Well the day is getting better and better. Seeing that mcQuillan is near finished.

I don’t know if Mayo can win in Croke Park without kick passing the ball. I can only remember one kick pass by Mayo in the attacking half of the field and that was by Ryan!! Kerry will kick it.

Overall, it's been a solid league campaign, and we've unearthed some new talent in Neary, Kelly, and Irwin, while Mattie and Ryan have found their form again.

McHugh, Hession, McBrien, and Coen have been rock-solid, holding our defense together. I'd like to see Eoin O'Donaghue get some game time in the next match. From his cameo in the league, he’s shown more than Jack Coyne, although I understand the need to give both of them minutes. Sam Callinan has been fantastic going forward but needs to improve his defending—he got caught out today by overcommitting to the wrong player on the goal.

I'm excited to be back in a league final—hopefully, this time it goes a bit better than our last league final against Kerry.

All in all, I think we're in a healthy position. Both the management and players deserve credit for their efforts throughout the campaign, especially over the last 5 games.

Considering the downbeat mood after the Galway game to have finished top of the table is a wonderful achievement and all concerned players and management can take a well deserved bow
Once again we managed to see out a tight finish. What a contrast with last year.
Now we are in the final let's give it a right go. We have. nothing to lose. Let's make it like 2019 and not 2022.

Donnacha McHugh is now one of the first names on the team sheet . Fine footballer.
I thought Mayo would be relegated after the first game bur honestly didn't give 2 shits if we did once we had a stronger panel heading into championship.
Think we have achieved that goal .
Croke park for league final was never on Mayos agenda at the start of the year .
It will be great experience for the old and new lads.
Neither Kerry or Mayo will chance any players carrying knocks
I wouldn't be confident but be assured our lads will give their all. Whether that's good enough. We will see .
Let's hope the Mayo Media and supporters get behind them

The backs were bad. Mcquillan is a gobshite and Kerry will eat us alive unless we get our defense right. The league final will be good for us as we have an easy draw to the Connacht final.

We have a fair squad this year. Hession is outstanding, and makes a positive difference. There are still a few issues to be addressed, most pressing is a kick out strategy. Too often Reape is searching for a target who is stationary or isolated.

McHugh has really become an outstanding back, good marker, got in a great block down and good on turnovers without giving away frees.
We got a roasting up the stand side of the pitch all of the second half. Hard to pin point where it went wrong but needs to be sorted for Sunday.
Carney playing with much more freedom, seems to have thrown the coaching manual in the bin. And Hession is tigerish in his game.
League final is a great bonus....

Did I read sumware hession is the only one of our outfield players to play every minute.

Voted carney motm, a class act today. Pretty sure I voted a difference motm every game on here, bodes well that different guys step up every time

Happy to be in the league final, we could do with another tough game as sligo and leitrim won't be putting it up to us ahead of a connacht final in a month's time

Fair play to the team and management for making the final. We were favourites for relegation before the start and no one gave us hope after the first 2 games.
Good to see Hession and Mcbrien stringing games together after previous injury issues.

Talking of injuries the manager was asked outright after today's game regarding Paddy and Tommy and was fairly non committal. Said something about S&C and medical teams and that they're working away in the background and we look forward to having them back in the squad. He did say the news was good but no timescales given.
Fingers crossed

We got there by the skin of our teeth today, despite our best attempts to throw it away. We were totally outclassed in the second half. They dominated midfield and tore us apart time and time again at the back. They could have hit three or four goals, so I don't know where people saw the evidence that our defense was solid
Delighted we stayed up and another competitive game will stand to us but only if we don't take a tanking from kerry.

“Talking of injuries the manager was asked outright after today’s game regarding Paddy and Tommy and was fairly non committal. Said something about S&C and medical teams and that they’re working away in the background and we look forward to having them back in the squad. He did say the news was good but no timescales given.
Fingers crossed”

Any link to this , I didn’t hear it .

Well now.. I was not expecting us to be meeting again so soon.

The GAA need to really look at thd leagues it's farcical that you've teams not wanting to win it due to schedules.

Imagine getting 7 points and being relegated! And 9 points tops the table. Crazy stuff. Tyrone will be serious contenders come summer.

Don't know how Mayo won that game. Some quality scores when needed by Ryan, Ruane, and Towey. Mayo had the worst scoring but best defense over the 7 games. However today they were lucky. Half back line were muck. No kickers and no pace. Others might disagree but McBrien is not a 6, so much comes thru his channel and he's not doing enough going forward. McLaughlin will have to start against Kerry instead of Fenton. Eoin O'D instead of Coyne as well.

Mayo will want to test players but despite beating Kerry a few weeks ago there's a strong possibility they could take a beating and that could be fatal for confidence going into championship.

@Sean Burke: https://x.com/radiomidwest/status/1903872357669740588

@Supermac: Hession (missed a minute or two with a HIA near the end today, but that wasn't captured in any of the match reports so I'll be recording it as the full 490 minutes) & Reape both managed every minute.

McBrien (missed 9), Coen (missed 14) & Ruane (missed 17) all got very close too.

Thanks TSU , nothing really said though . Very hard to gauge by what he said . We live in hope .!

We probably achieved the lesser of two evils today. A draw would have been a better result for us. Two years ago we got Galway in the final, Now we face the animal that is Kerry who are scoring for fun. We have a difficult enough game the following week v Sligo who have turned around their season. Kerry have the luxury of a long break and nothing to worry about in Munster. I genuinely feel we could get a bad beating from them and then have to head into championship a week later. I have seen before where poor league final performances were followed by poor championship. In 2010 we performed poorly in league final and then Sligo knocked us out of Connacht in first round. The system is crazy. The GAA are responsible for the farce that has a lot of teams in Div 1 trying not to qualify for final. I actually thought Galway would go all out to win today having not won a league title for donkeys years but PJ decided not to play Shane Walsh. McGuinness made it clear that once Donegal had got to 8 points he was happy and had no desire to get to a final. Dublin weren’t bothered about pushing themselves too hard against Tyrone. The only teams who went for it today were those who didn’t want to get relegated Kerry, Armagh Tyrone and ourselves. What a joke of a last day in an excellent competition. Either get rid of the league finals, crown the team that finishes top of the league as champions or move the championship back by a week. This is the third year in a row that this farce has occurred. Where are the GPA. They should be vehemently disputing this system

Willie Joe, when did a defender last win MOTM on the blog? Donnacha McHugh was superb today.

It was last year, Travelling Wilbury. Paddy Durcan. Sam Callinan and Donnacha McHugh were all voted MOTM in League games last year and Eoghan McLaughlin was in one of the Championship games.

Mayo were the better team in the first half and should have powered on and won.
However, we did what we always do and eased off and let Donegal back into it twice and ended up lucky to win at the end.

That attitude won't get far with Kerry in Croke Park.
Someone mentioned the lack of kick passes from defence, I don't county a single kick pass forward from a defender all day.

A league final against the best kicking team in the country is a good way to see if the style of play which has evolved over the past 6 weeks will hold up at the business end of the championship.

Our very poor start to the league and terrible ‘score difference’ meant we hadn’t the luxury of being able to avoid a final, which is what both Donegal and Galway did (Galway’s team selection and substitutions today were a very clear indication of their intentions), and to a lesser extent Dublin.

In an ideal world a draw would have been perfect. Personally I’m in the Nigel Reape camp…. Go quietly away and prepare for the only show in town. Instead now we have to go to Croke Pk and play what’ll be an energy sapping game (like today) and turn around and play a fresh, under the radar Sligo a week later. My main concern is injuries. I’m particularly concerned about Flynn whose had zero break. Can’t understand why Mayo brought him back in so soon after club championship.

The league counts for sh*t. Only championship matters. Next Wknd is an unnecessary distraction.

In terms of where we now stand, I’d be worried about our defence. We are susceptible to being opened up too easily. We also rely too much on Ryan up top. Keep him quiet and you stop Mayo. Mattie has rediscovered his mojo which is great for us, but he’ll not get the same kind of space in championship against bigger teams. We are also a little lacking in aerial strength in the middle.

We really need Paddy and Tommy back. At this point neither might feature much in ‘25 given their lack of football.

On our day, we can beat anyone. So we have a chance but we definitely need to tighten up those gaps in defence. That’s something we can and must do if we have All Irl ambitions. Unfortunately we can’t magic up more scoring attackers.

It's another game and opportunity to soak up experience. Neither side will be tearful if they lose. Can't see Kerry showing too much of their croker game plan for the summer next weekend, but a stern test of where you're at, nonetheless.

Kerry will go for this one. Last time Kerry won Sam they also won the league. It might be one of the last tests they will receive until the qualifiers. We will have our work cut out for us based on Kerry's performance yesterday. I think we should use the game as an opportunity to develop the squad and try some new things in the open space of Croker. If we win great, but just avoid injuries and hope we don't loose momentum if it doesn't work out.

Same could be said for Dublin, in exile. They'll probably win Leinster without much fuss, but surely, as with Kerry, they'd have wanted a testing game? It all depends on where managers see their team in the bigger scheme, I think.
There's no doubting the intent of McGuiness this year.... he's looking at winning it outright. Kerry probably will fancy their chances with the standard of their foot passing and available space for Clifford et al.
With mcstay, he's probably delighted to have saved div 1 status with the added bonus of a day out in Croker.
I'm still thinking Ulster for Sam and wouldn't pass a blind bit of notice on Tyrone's relegation. They exposed the weaknesses in Dublin's defence yesterday time and time again. Great day out ahead Sunday either way.

Don’t think all these scenarios are as multiple choice as people are making out , lll take the valid point that Donegal played with weaker sides once safe but the rest nah , I’m not havin it , Galway wanted croker next week as did Dublin want a league final , they were just beaten by better sides on the day yesterday .

We really didn’t look great yesterday and at times looked very exposed at the back . When Donegal fully committed to win the middle they won it handsomely . We have shown enough in this league campaign though that if it gels together at the right time we could have a right good cut at the championship, what I mean by that is to have all cylinders working at the same time , Mchugh , mcbrien, hession all on top form , Mattie , jordan, aido , diarmuid , Ryan etc etc all to be injury free and playing their A game . To compete to win the all Ireland we will need Tommy and paddy back too . Bookies odds are wrong in my head anyway , you have Kerry , Galway a little bit ahead of a chasing pack , it’s never been tighter . Everyone has their own opinion about power rankings , after the league and considering other factors of players to up their game , players to come in , new rules , squad depth , province you’re in etc etc . I’d have it as follows .

Kerry
Galway
Tyrone
Donegal (I’m not as convinced as I was tbh , white heat of championship might see them fail from where we all thought they were heading )
Mayo
Dublin
Armagh
Derry
Louth
Roscommon
Cavan

@Ever - Looking forward to the day out as well. Like Dublin, Donegal cut through us a few times yesterday that would worry.

@Sean B - Not sure if I'd have Tyrone there. IMO Tyrone are a 'finals' team, they can have mixed form up to the final but boy when they get there they don't usually leave empty handed. Think Monaghan are ahead of Louth and Cavan, possibly ahead of Derry as well.

I honestly thought that Donegal would have gone for the point from the penalty spot. McGuinness' arrogant dismissing of this game should warrant a fine from GAA HQ because he couldn't even be bothered to submit a team to the printers. So we all paid €4 for match program with only one team in it! Some will laud it as mastery of mind games, but I think he and his county board showed total contempt to both sets of supporters yesterday. Who the fxxk does he think he is? Does he think he's above the rules? Does he think he is a special case? Donegall GAA are better than that and they let themselves down very badly.

Definitely slipped up on Monaghan , I should have them slotted in as you say exile . Tyrone are my dark horses tbh , I believe they have the most useful forward bar Clifford .

@Sean - I agree and Monaghan play a nice honest brand of football

Agree Pebbles. Did McGuinness do as he pleased yesterday? Saunter through the first half, throw a few grenades for the third quarter, and take foot off pedal after that.

We were exposed when they did go at us; big time. Thought the wind died a good bit in the second half, so we didn’t maximise on it.

Still. - we’re re staying up - they can’t take that away from us!

One way or the other I think a word of 'well done' is due to the team and management for getting us to a league final. In the old days this would have been a great achievement and it still is something to be proud of.

Howya folks I've 2 tickets for the rugby game on Saturday at face value. Can't make the game anymore so if anyone's looking for a couple of tickets give me a shout on 0834433657

Thanks Willie Joe.

The team v Kerry below was the same as v Donegal
Just moving Kelly, Coen and Irwin around
Colm Reape (0-1); Jack Coyne, Donnacha McHugh, Enda Hession; Stephen Coen, David McBrien (0-1), Sam Callinan (0-1); Frank Irwin (0-2), Matthew Ruane (0-3); Fenton Kelly, Darren McHale (0-2), Jordan Flynn; Aidan O’Shea, Ryan ODonoghue (0-9 one 2pt free, one 2pt line ball, three frees), Jack Carney (0-1). Subs: Seán Morahan for Callinan, Eoghan McLaughlin for Kelly, Paul Towey for Irwin, Fergal Boland (0-1) for Flynn, Bob Tuohy for McHale.

Below v Donegal
Colm Reape; Jack Coyne, Donnacha McHugh, Enda Hession; Sam Callinan, David McBrien, Fenton Kelly; Stephen Coen (0-1), Matthew Ruane (0-3, one 2pt); Jack Carney (1-3), Darren McHale, Jordan Flynn (0-1); Aidan O’Shea, Frank Irwin (0-3), Ryan O’Donoghue (0-6, one 2pt free, one 2pt, one free). Subs: Davitt Neary for McHale, Paul Towey (0-1) for O’Shea, Eoghan McLaughlin for Kelly, Eoin O’Donoghue for Hession (blood), Fergal Boland for Irwin, Diarmuid O’Connor for Flynn.

Flynn looked way off yesterday and probably needs a break till the connacht final (not in his nature though).

It seems that Reid and Neary have fallen out of favour after a strong start to the league - Reid was done a disservice to be shoved into midfield and then dropped after a promising start to the league as a wing forward.

My team v Kerey
Colm Reape; Jack Coyne, David McBrien, Donnacha McHugh, Enda Hession; Sam Callinan, Fenton Kelly; Stephen Coen, Matthew Ruane , Conor Reid, Jack Carney, Davitt Neary, Aidan O’Shea, Frank Irwin (0-3), Ryan O’Donoghue . Subs: Darren McHale, Paul Towey, Eoghan McLaughlin, Fergal Boland, Diarmuid O’Connor, Jordan Flynn.

The more I think about it we definitely need the extra game just looking at the makeup of the game and who has played so far.

Some lads who were late to it need more minutes. Coyne, Diarmuid etc...

Then there are others like McHale, AoS etc who were poor on Sunday and need to blow out more bad diesel

Also, It's a chance for us to try nail down our defensive structure against very good forwards. I think its becoming clear who the personnel's will be back there but where to slot them in the question. Hession (our player of the league imo) will probably get to reaquaint himself with Paudi Clifford who is the lynchpin for all Kerry attacks.

McHugh and McBrien both absolutely nailed on starters at this stage but where to play them? I haven't been dissuaded from my insistence that McBrien needs to be at number 3 at all times, orthodox fullback. McHugh has become our problem solver, he will probably get another run on DAvid Clifford with McBrien on an in form Paul Geaney. I think we will eat them alive at midfield especially with their Diarmuid O Connor out.

It's a great game for us, lots to learn, we would likely have been scouring around the country looking for a friendly anyway in the week off.

I reckon there's 2 positions up for grabs for the Sligo game,I think there's 13 players nailed on to start

Tickets for the rugby are gone. Thanks again folks. And apologies to anyone I missed or calls I didn't get back to. I was in work

Mcstay very upbeat about the league and bringing on players but I don't really agree. Mchugh. Carney. Neary have done ok but I look at a list of fella s that have not. Towy. Mchale. Reid. Boland. Bob tughy. Irwin has been ok but not massively great. Tommy is way better than any of those even on a bad day. We need him badly to take the weight of Ryan.