6 championship debuts and 7 days after a league final. A win is a win

Trot im afraid it will be a short Summer and im not talking about the weather

Heavy legs, breather will do us good. Time to work on the training ground and give the debutants and returning players more game time vs Leitrim.

Then full house and vocal support vs Galway or Ros at home and go for it with all we've got.

A welcome rest for the lads and time for injuries to heal .
New faces getting a taste of championship football ( strange or not is a positive!)
The league final definitely took a bit out of the group .
Plenty of criticism for the lads and management on the blog as usual But job done , have a break now , no need to risk lads carrying injuries V leitrim ( as our panel should be strong enough) and then a connaught final.
Don't rule us out of winning that!
Kick left in our bucks yet

Final Whistle pod is up on Patreon.

Aidan o shea had a great game today. Not many left of that great team we had a few a few years ago left. And the players coming through are not at the same level unfortunately. Don't think we'll be making many trips to croke park in the near future.

Expected better today . It’s not a game to gauge your season on either way though in fairness .

Just a quick question about technique of kicking a ball when shooting for a goal , I was always told put your laces through it as hard as you can . What’s the story with the side foot thingy , perhaps it’s the way they do it nowadays , genuine question?

Amazing performance from Aiden today. Without him would we have prevailed? . Aiden has really terrorised Sligo down the years. If the plan is to stay under the Radar, well we managed to do that today.

.....Lot of posters worried about today's performance. I think our team were cruising the whole way through, never in massive trouble and took their win. And heartening to see two more citeogs on the field and taking points....

Aido what a guy . Gets so much undeserved abuse.

17th season now and the man of the match today where we could have well lost it but he won it for us today .

Said before but be a sad day when he hangs up his boots.

I wonder how much did the visit to headquarters last weekend take out of the players and their preparation for today game.
I've no doubt it wasn't ideal as we could see from how fresh the Donegal team looked against Derry...Jimmy knew what he was doing.

Sligo made a game of it. I said it before when it comes to the provincials league divisions mean little, playing the neighbors means pride is at stake.

Got Diarmuid back, played well at times, fair few debuts and a win. LOTS to work on but not as bad as people making it out to be.

The constant comparing of this team versus our peak team is tiresome.
That peak team had many sketchy moments against lower division opposition. In my view they wouldn't be doing dramatically better than our current team. The division one and lower division teams are far stronger now than in those years.

A win is win but a performance against a side that didn't challenge for division 3 promotion left more questions than answers

New york puting it up to Galway ..

If sligo had more belief in there forward play we could have been looking at a embarrassing defeat they didn't use the wind in the second half to their advantage they only stated to in the last seven minutes where they scored two two pointers which brought them within three points at the end
Which by then it was way to late.
Only for Aidan O'Shea who had an outstanding game today we would have been out of the championship.
One area of the pitch that needs to be looked at by the management team is the goalkeeper his kicks outs have been poor all year he has made huge mistakes in a lot of games in the league and again today he could have cost us a goal resultant from his poor kick out.He needs to up his game big time or else he should lose his place in the team before it's to late.

Galway doing very well Clare when you consider the population of New York and tbh I think Galway will beat them .

@sean Burke I think Galway will pull away now to 2nd half ..

Think also Galway will win connacht again sigh...

Hopefully NY beat the handicap, but could be tight to it yet.

@john+McHale, in fairness Donegal have a tougher pathway to navigate. But we do need a rest and we're going to get it.@Sean Burke. We were always told to arch our foot well. In golf terms, make a 3 iron out of it rather than a pitching wedge so that the ball doesn't rise to quickly. That's a serious answer but we didn't see as much soccer in our day. I wonder did Ryan o d, watch a lot of soccer penalty taking in his day?

The game could not have worked out better for Mayo. We will stroll to the connacht final with a win over leitrim and then unleash against galway or roscommon. Mayo will win the connacht final this year.

That's four games in as many weeks since the Derry game. It was a tired team playing in hot conditions. Sligo may have got close at times but I never felt we were in danger of losing. As the lads on the podcast mentioned we were missing key players and finished the game with an inexperienced side. Plenty to work on for the rest of the campaign. Obviously the short kickouts are a problem for us. If the short pass is not on just hoof it down the middle and let midfield contest it. Make the opposition work to regain possession. Good scoring today from midfield but we need more of a platform for winning ball. Defence was cut open far too easily for the second goal. The Sligo man burned his man for pace. I thought the forward play was a lot better but it's hard to know where you are truly at when playing a Div 3 side. I don't think we are going to learn much about ourselves against Leitrim either. Let's hope the team can get rested and recovered in time for the Connacht final should we get there.

I was surprised Frank Irwin didn't get any game time. I thought we would have seen some of today's debutantes in the league but better late than never!

Clare. How can you state Galway will win connacht cause mayo didn't blow sligo away and Galway not up to much against new York and in fact they're getting cleaned on kickouts. Mayo were never in danger of losing today and the last score was 2 yards inside the arc. regarding kickouts it's up to the lads out the field to win the ball when it's kicked out and in most cases he got good kicks away with a few stray ones thrown in

Watching Galway game new York are almost doing to Galway what kerry did to mayo on the kickout and what a freetaker new York have. He's a joy to watch off the ground

@David Rhead.
Welcome to the blog !!!
Today was about getting the win after a longer than expected league campaign..
Not perfect but win never in doubt and so many championship debuts.

The main headline from the galway game is John maher limping off with what looks a v bad ankle injury, if he were to be out for a period of time be a massive loss to them

You would have to question what the plan is.
Last week, played 8 midfielders and 1 forward. Played two big men in the ff line and refused to kick the ball in long.

Today we brought on 3s ubs who didnt get a sniff for the whole league to try to close out the match and ended up with a narrow win.

It looks like every day is a whole new start, with no form or style of play carried through. Its Mayo pre 2011.

Also, no scoring threat in the halfback line at all.
It will be a short summer

Rarely do I comment here but I do tend to check the comments when I can. Today's match.. left me with more questions than answers.

I felt as though we didn't come out of the blocks fast enough at the start. There were moments throughout the game where I felt we were running the ball a lot when a simple kick pass would've sufficed. To be fair, Sligo had a good defensive system in place, and if they had taken a few of their chances, we could've been there for the taking. Having said that, there's a couple of things that still irks me.

[1] Despite Sligo's defensive system, there were a few opportunities to score points from both in and further out the field (unsure about what the wind was like, so benefit of the doubt there). Yes, goals opportunities were there, but this is an area of our game that I felt we needed to work on more as there will be fewer opportunities for goals later in the championship.

[2] Once Aidan O'Shea scored a goal, it wasn't long until we gave away a goal down our own end. I haven't had a chance yet to look at the replay, but from what I looked at initially, I felt as though we could've cleared it. It's not just a highlight of this team, but previous teams down through the years where we put ourselves in a good position and then allow teams to eat into the lead. It may not be fair of me to say this, because I've no ill will towards the team(s), but something that has always stood out to me.

[3] Kick outs are worrying. Teams will always lose kick outs, but it just feels as though we aren't winning enough of it this year. Especially with how the new rules have tweaked things, this is an area of our game that we need to start winning more of. Whether that is winning clean catches or breaking it down to a team player.

OVERALL
These are some of the things that have stood out for me for a while now. Having said that, it isn't outside of our control either. I just hope the team finds another gear in them and build on it from today. I'm not quite sure where we will end up this year, but I hope we will reach the quarter finals again. We've gotta try to get back there at the very minimum if we are to be competitive again.

As for today. Meh.

Got the result which is king. Essentially a month off now too as let's face it our u20 team would beat leitrim, thats going to be an absolute massacre. Fairly ordinary performance tbh. RoD, AOS and McHale the pick of the bunch. Don't think the hype train will leave the station just yet

@No doubt I would love us to win connacht.

I agree we were never in danger of loosing today but we have questions over us ...

On our day we can beat anyone but never know what mayo team will turn up .

But Galway I just think have the edge atm as much as it pains me to say it!!

Hope donnacha is Ok.

Still think we will give it a right go if we get final if we get there but even I can admit Galwegions have the edge over us atm.

I'd love nothing better then to beat them in mchale park in the final but after today just can't see it.

The last sligo 2 point surely that was inside the arc? Looked from where I was sitting that it was inside?

@seanburke., there's a time to put the laces through it but also time to almost pass it to the net..first example..Murphy v mayo 2012..2nd example any of Goochs goals really, canavan v kerry 05..blasting it is a lower percentage shot as it cud go anywhere..but hard stop if on target..placing it...or side foot it in close is better option.

Willie Joe.
Just wondering about your % in the poll. Aidan O'Shea gets 374 votes out of 454 votes which I calculate at 82%.
It also makes me wonder how 70 voters don't have Aidan in their top 3.
As for the match a win is fine but our half backs were destroyed and last week I said that Coen and Callinan were off it and should be replaced but they still persisted with them. Surely we have 1 or 2 they could give a chance to in the half backs.
.

Genuine question here.
Regardless of whether any of us can see a plan for the season do we think the management actually have a plan or is it reactionary management?
Personally I don’t have a clue what to expect from one game to the next. Btw I was for McStay to get the job.

Funny that Reape is getting flack for the kickouts, but who is actually showing for those kickouts? Where are the options? Who are our ball winners in the middle? We have more than one midfielder who is incapable of fielding a ball and winning primary possession. When Aidan came out into the middle, he was able to win ball.

Thanks Larry David .

The lack of ball winning midfielders has been referenced numerous times on this blog over the last 3 years.it is clear that that the players we continue to persist with in this area are not now suddenly going to turn into Willie joe padden or Liam McHale type fielders.

- Good question JoeG, I was wondering about that myself as I left McHale Park. I think that Mayo are going to pick a team based purely on who we are playing against so hence will have the normal 3 changes to the starting team, altering subs list etc.
- Always in control of that game today until of course we weren't in the last few minutes.
-We showed glimpses of lovely long kick passing play early in the game.
- Reape needs to dig out his peaked cap as I think Donnacha and himself were caught in blinding Sun in the 2nd half.
- Davitt will need a solid year of intercounty S&C as he is getting brushed off the ball too easily
- No physicality nor aggression in that match aside fron one great shoulder on Coen.
- Sligo no.17 Lally had a big impact for most of the match and no action taken which is becoming a pattern.
- A month's rest now really, team v Leitrim should be 50% experimental. Aido, Coen and McBrien need to be rested for it. It would be brillant if Paddy D was available for it.

Just wondering what was the official attendance?

We have to work with what we have around the middle atm...we can't magic up high fielders, so the best we can do is work more on breaking the ball, preferably in the direction of a team mate and win more than our share of everything that hits the deck. I think Dylan Thornton will add something in that area in time,and even today I thought he showed good maturity for a debutant. The pedigree is there and I could see a few games bring him on a lot.

New York should be split in two they cleaned Galway on kickouts.

Great win. Connacht title is our aim. People need to realise where we are..:an average team who can beat anyone on our day but are nowhere near the top.

Mad that Derry now have 6 weeks to prepare for the qualifiers.
Mayo playing 5 weeks in a row is not ideal.
I prefer to be sorting out backs rather than our forwards.
Aiden, what a man.

You are right on that 2pointer @Aiden...he was a good couple of paces inside the arc.

@jj Kelly 9,100 I think was announced, looked like more on the terrace than the stand with the nice weather, think it was 35 for a stand ticket,20 or 25 for terrace overpriced for the game and I think this had a big effect on today's turnout

A lot of nonsense posted after the 1st game of the championship with posters saying we won't go any further or we won't win connacht etc. Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying we're going to win the all ireland are anything but I still have them in the same position i had them before the game. Fair enough if after 3 or 4 championship matches nothing changed but hold fire for a while as early predictions can make people look foolish. Think of Galway v sligo last year needing a last minute goal to survive, kerry 2009 v sligo needing a missed penalty to survive or mayo 2011 needing 2 late points to survive v London and I'm sure there are plenty more examples that won't come to mind and remember where they went after those near misses. My point is sit tight and see what happens and bold predictions at this time is just nonsense.. Regarding the game itself something I'd like to see or maybe i should say not see is a player whose 1st instinct is to turn back like when Ryan sent Mcbrien clear on goal and the 1st thing he did Was turn back looking for help instead of attacking the goal

At the end of the day Aidan needs to spend the majority of his days now in a fridge to preserve him. He is some player and so important to us. I hope they don't make a laochra gael about him for donkeys!!

From the Galway blog I understand that they were cleaned on kickouts by NY.

Win is a win , 2 20.in championship is good score.

I'd have learnt nothing new or be jumping two feet into any argument but all I know is same as last few weeks that halfback line needs reshuffling .

No I'm not being melodramatic and comparing it to Keegan. Vaughan and Boyle but where the tenacity to gather breaking ball at all cost .

Mcbrien isn't Chris Barret and won't lock down the center but could do better job on the wing.
Diarmuid may well be the answer to no6.
Sam's not Sam of old and ferocious, think uncle Dave needs to have word with him.
Coen, by order of Mcstay or his own initiative, Coen going forward is not the way to do things.

I think Hession should stay in corner, Mcbrien has to start but other lads can be swapped around, was saying from start of year under new rules Conor and Diarmuid would enjoy roles in halfbacks, unfortunately as is life and more important things we won't have Conor but add Diarmuid into 6, Mcbrien to 7 and proper battle for no5 .

JJ Kelly - the official attendance today was 9,469.

@Outside of the boot, I would have mcbrien at 3 and callinan at 6
Seen a photo of last sligo score at least 3/4 yards inside arc.

A couple of poor refereeing decisions made that closer than it might have been. The 2 pointer was beyond ridiculous. We were poor enough defensively though. Sligo ran through us numerous times and we need to work at that.

A chance for the lads to go away and recharge and I'd be giving plenty of them the Leitrim game off as well. No need for us to be risking the likes of Ryan,AOS,Mattie,Enda,David Mc,Jordan.

It feels like a nice game to ease Paddy and Tommy back in if they're ready.

I've just seen a still of the Sligo 2 pointer at the end. The Sligo player must be at least 2 yards inside the arc and the referee is also in the arc beside him in a straight line horizonrally. The umpire was giving a point and the referee overruled him.
Totally bizarre. In the referees defence at least he was up with play!

Sligo not really getting the credit they really deserve today, Tony McEntee has brought this team on massively since he first took over and they have probably hit or are very near to their ceiling now, hope they can push on and win a Tailteann cup.
I hope CB might consider him if the Mayo job happens to come up soon, thought he set them up so well today.

Breather needed across the board.

It’s all about Galway home in a Connaught final weekend on the May banker.

McStay knows 13 of his team.

1-9 as today , McHale Flynn O Donoghue O Shea the bankers up top with 2 slots up for grabs you’d think.

Too late but I wonder did we miss a trick not trying Boland as a wing back position.

Persist with Neary . He looks like he’s ready to explode .
We still use O Shea as a conventional corner forward .. only in mayo

@No Doubt that's an interesting example from McBrien & something I have seen regularly by a lot of players. Its a symptom of how we've been coached for years. Players programmed to play that way & it will take a while to change that

Job done. Fair play to Sligo for having a right crack at it. Ugly wins count, so mission accomplished.
Must say it'll be a good side that beats Donegal lads. From Patton's kickouts all the way through they are not only very fit but fiercely accurate.
I hope Monaghan beat them (McGuiness factor) but they look formidable.

Must admit that I did'nt notice, at the game, that Sligo's second 2 pointer was inside the arc, even tho' I had a good view and only realized when I saw it on The Sunday Game. I knew that problems would arise with this and imagine if that score wins an All-Ireland Final.

The lads on the pod wondering why Mayo don't kick direct ball into the full forward line especially with Aidan in there. Perhaps it's too simplistic and doesn't justify all our coaches. Fecking around with kickouts instead of going long and endless hand passing rather than kicking it in seems to be a coaching problem to me.

Bear in mind Sligo should have beaten Galway in championship last year

Fairly uninspiring stuff yesterday and I came away from it pretty unenthused with where we're going this year.
On the face of it, we're through to the Connaught semi final, don't appear to have picked up any long term injuries, got more minutes into DOC, kicked 2-20 while leaving another 2-4 on the field and saw 6 championship debutantes. But on the other side off that coin we were unable to put a mid table Div.3 side away, conceded a whopping 2-17 with Sligo butchering another open-goal opportunity!, and never really looked like pulling away to a 10 or 12 point win. Another angle, and not a negative one, but why wait until the 1st Rd of the Championship to introduce three new faces to the side when there were 8 league games where these lads could have been given game time? That is a strange one to me.
At the end of the day we have, in effect, 4 weeks to get ready for a Connaught final. So we have time to work on, fine tune and improve on things. However for me that is the uninspiring bit. We are a month out from the biggest game of the year and we STILL have much to do. No Durkan. No Conroy. No keeper alternative. No kick out strategy. No defined style in attack.
It is very difficult to think of this Mayo side and say exactly what we are. You think of Kerry, Galway and Donegal and you know exactly what they are going to do, how they are going to play, where they are going to attack you, etc. etc. When you think of Mayo it is.............. meh.
I've banged on about it here for the last 3 or 4 weeks but we are wasting our time unless there is a massive, huge improvement on our kick outs. Of all the "top 8" sides we are by far the weakest on this issue. At a time when winning primary possession from your kickouts has never been more crucial, we are getting worse at it. Also, the fact that we had to play a 34 year old AOS for the entire game, and for him to be MOTM, is a worrying sign. If we were truly motoring as a squad yesterdays game is one where he could have been rested.
Much to do.

High balls wanted into AOS - it looks like it is too hard to coach that...

I firmly believe that Mayo are holding something in reserve until the bigger days later this summer. I thought this after ten minutes of the league final as soon as Kerry scored their goal and Mayo never looked like they wanted to push themselves to get back into the game and we saw in the latter stages of the league how they can play when getting somewhat near full flow and they looked awesome at times. They looked very good at times yesterday as well, particularly when kicking the ball quickly into the forwards.

You could see that they started to pull the handbrake a bit every time they got far enough ahead. Now I would be of the school of thought that when you get 5 up you go 8 up, 11 up, 15 up etc and really hammer home a victory but Mayo were never in trouble yesterday, never looked in trouble and played the whole game in 2nd gear.

The kickouts, however, are a problem and much better midfields than Sligo's will take full advantage of that. We have big men like Carney, Ruane, Flynn (when fit) and O'Shea (when needed) to aim at and who can win the ball and fellas like Hession, Kelly, Coen and Neary who are brilliant under the breaking ball so it cant be that hard to come up wit some sort of kickout strategy. I'd love to see Phillips or Vahey given a run against Leitrim the next day and see how they get on.

On the subs, i thought some were very strange. Was Irwin injured that he was named to start and then never got off the bench? What about Conor Reid? McStay seemed to have great trust in him throughout the league and then he doesnt even get a look in yesterday. While its great to see lads making their debut, and a game against Sligo or Leitrim is a great opportunity to run a few new lads, the likes of Morahan, Coggins and Thornton and Dawson barely saw any (if indeed any at all) minutes during the league and are suddenly thrown in for championship ahead of the guys that we've supposedly been building up over the last 6, 7, 8 games. it's a strange one for me but in the end it didn't really matter in the larger scheme of things yesterday and some of those lads could turn out to be absolute stars of the future.

On to Leitrim next and all respect to them but Mayo should be winning that game by 20+ points at a minimum even if running the bench and maybe starting the likes of Coggins, Morahan etc. Would be a great chance for Kelly, Neary, Reid and Irwin to build up more experience and maybe rest the likes of O'Shea, Carney, Coen and McHugh who are going to have to be big players for us if we are going to have a decent summer. There's a Connaught title there to be won before the All-Ireland series and if a lot of the guys were good enough to come off the bench yesterday then they have to be considered good enough to start against Leitrim and let some fellas have a rest after already playing a lot of football this year. These kind of opportunities to rest players dont come around too often and with a minimum of five more games to come its just not reasonable to ask lads to keep playing every single game. There's a panel there for a reason and management should be able to trust every player to perform in every game.

Game won.
Some good kick passes in.
Defense a shambles.
Kick outs__lenght now very important.
Galway had lots of trouble with kickouts in NY.
Great lead in to Connaught final.
Mad that Wicklow and Longford had to play extra time.

It's all to play for really. Referencing Galways last year match with Sligo carries caveat of Galway carrying a lot of injured players into that game.

Lots of teams have issues with kickouts and as we saw yesterday the kickouts can cause huge problems and you can like Derry cough up a rake of scores from poor kickouts.

The Roscommon match is as far as I'm looking, they have good forwards but on a going day I would expect us to put a good score on the board the other end. It's early days with a Connacht title nice but at this stage with two AI lost it's an All Ireland or nothing really.

A job done is about all i can say. Knew it would be tight. Aos and Ryan are carrying us . For how long i wonder. Strange line out. Players playing championship that didn't see much league action. Tommy and paddy needed urgently