Can we take a moment for the games this evening…
Westport, insane but are Castlebar holding back??
Burrishoole were in a relegation battle this time 13 months ago. They are now playing Division 1 football. They probably won’t go much further but hats off to Liam OMalley. First year in management..
Tomorrow spells another day. Mayo football alive and well. Bring it on

The manner in that defeat for Castlebar might prove problematic for their championship aspirations. Without Durcan and McHugh they really seem to lack leaders. I’m not sure about Morahan yet. Captained the u20’s and has been talked about but I think it’s a big club championship for him if he wants to make the step up to play senior for Mayo. It’s also a big opportunity for Bob to show what he can do. He did reasonably well at winning primary possession and that’s a part of his game to really work on because it’s an obvious area of deficiency in the Mayo team. No standout ball winner in the middle. Overall Cbar, for me, have a lot of average to decent players but don’t have the depth of talent of Westport or even Ballina (at full strength).

Mayonaze was Morahan playing yesterday? I thought he was out injured.

Like intercounty not sure can pay much heed to league form and results. With lads away on holidays, or in states still or just coming back. Sure were Ardagh in relegation play off this weekend and James Carrs stag on so their main Man and likely a lot more away. Says it all.

20 teams is it in division one? Crazy stuff. The standard of the leagues as go down the way gets very lopsided as a result. With senior and junior teams mixed.

Looking back on last year we kept messing with the team lineout especially in the backs.
Our panel includes most of the best players in the county.
Pick your best and let it settle in and mould together.
They said year 3 so we should know our best team.

I think you're right Mayonaze but maybe Castlebar just weren't showing their hand last night. Still, it's hard to see where their match winners are going to come from and the game couldn't have been more different from th league finals of the last two years. I couldn't get over the physicality and conditioning of Westport last night compared to Mitchels and they seem have a lot of depth in their panel. Agree with poster on the othe thread that mentioned Finbar McLaughlin, I'd really like to see him joining the senior panel.

Also, on an unrelated note, I have never had a bad cup of tea in McHale Park despite it being the coldest place on earth. I'm not sure what they put in it, but kudos to the teamakers. Top notch.

@Anne Marie...might be Moran Barry's Tea.

Was at the Crossmolina game and even without Jordan Flynn and Conor Loftus, their class rang through.

I know I mentioned it before but certain that James Maheady is that maverick, natural loose forward, Mayo could do with having a look at .
He has great movement very accurate and makes his own space .
He's a natural outright forward, if he was in the right setup and environment I'm sure he can improve even more but that illusive streaky shoot on spot, accurate forward is something we are not blessed with but he's a maverick and would bring a bit of chaos to what is currently too rigid of a fullforward line for Mayo .

Fionan Duffy showed well as ever always an accurate forward, the Coggins men bring searing pace and like a reincarnated Peader Gardiner raiding forward from no 5 .
Impressive showing and even with the county seniors and none of the minors integrated

Are all 3 McLaughlins brothers from Westport all good enough to be in the Mayo panel now, based on last nights performance Finbarr looks the best, has more football than Eoghan.

Maheady was on the u20 panel two years ago in 2023. He wasn’t in 2024. Anyone know why!?

Like a lot of lads, he has shown promise and potential but now in his 19 turning 20 year, he needs to really force the issue. There are loads of players with real ability in Mayo in the 17-19 category but only those who really want it and dedicate everything to it, will make it. That means personal sacrifices and huge dedication. The prize is playing senior for Mayo and the possibility of being on the team to end the famine. That’s these young fellas opportunity. It’s there for them to take it, if they really work hard.

@Mayonaze great post.

Exactly it takes a lot of commitment and even if you show it under age and club level county is totally differnt ball game.

As you say the chance is there for them but weather they want to put in that commitment for county level is another thing..

Also agree with you with castlebar mitchelss missing paddy durcan msssive loss and mchugh they lack leaders..

It's only league not even club championship so wouldn't be so quick to call up guys but finbarr mcgh does look like a great prospect but club and county are totally differnt ball games but defintly worth a look at by mcstay and Co.

The biggest myth in the Gaa, Galway produce great forwards!!

But can't you see we are loosing the naturally talented corner forwards to the superfit machine like process footballer .
Too many of the one type and next thing your up against a blanket defense and nobody knows what to do .
The lad who plays off the cuff, has a place in any winning team, them should be embraced brought in and allowed thrive in the county environment, alot of these lads won't ignite their talents untill.embraced rather than told "we're going to run the shite out of you and make.you into a robot" .

Maheady may or may not be that talent but the definition of insanity is doing same thing over and over and expecting different results.
History's thought us if we had Ciaran Mc and Kevin O Neill.in 96 and Kevin in 97 they surely be worth few scores

We're devasted after losing ladies final v Kerry
3-14 to 0-11. Cora Staunton is an excellent GAA football ambassador for Mayo. I sometimes wonder, is there any reason Cora shouldn't be on the sideline advising Kevin on what changes to make.. After all, she is an AI winner..

I agree with you Charlie i would have Cora as forwards coach to show the men how its done. She might have been a bit selfish with the ball in her day but she could score. As Ann Marie said a few threads ago lets see how she geta on coaching the Ballina Stephenites forwards this year before we promote her

Any sign of the Mayo GAA club pass this year, 11 days out from championship
Any sign of the club championship fixtures , dates, times etc 11 days out from championship.

Castlebar were not holding back they were just very poor. Not sure what people think there is to be gained by doing so. It's not like they have Westport in a big game next week. Mitchells played challenges against St.Brigids and Moycullen recently and apparently were well beaten despite Moycullen missing heaps of first teamers so it looks like they are just out of form. Very impressed by Westport movement and accurate kick passing which Castlebar couldn't handle. Agree with everyone on Finbar Mc. he's very elusive and accurate and as the lads in commentary said Brian McDermott is surely worth a look for McStay.
I also think Cora has a lot to offer but I'd prefer to see her involved with the Mayo ladies who seem in free fall under Liam McHale and she is surely one of the most knowledgeable authorities on the lgfa.

Rober ,There is absolutely no need to release championship fixtures till the Friday morning of the weekend they are due to start.

Like, Everybody finishes work at 4pm on Fridays and doesn't return till 8am Monday, so there's no need for Mayo Gaa to release them till the last minute, ya know.

Paddy joejohn tom, exactly right. Never thought of that. Must be the dementia I think I have. Would not like to be a player organising work, family commitments etc. even the supporters would like to plan a bit.

Cora??? Where the hell did that come from, one of the greediest forwards in the game.very little experience of coaching yet.lets see how she goes with Ballina.

Why not get someone proven like Jason Sherlock in , he was in with Westmeath the last 2 seasons.Think he has brought them to there ceiling with narrow defeats to Galway and Armagh.also the sports psychologist has to be addressed with us giving away narrow defeats in 3 big games.Should we not be getting the best out there even go the UK if we have to, or get Kieran Shannon or Caroline Currid in??

Sympathys to all involved in Aghamore gaa. Terrible lose. God help his family.

Awful sad news RIP to the young man from Aghamore gaa and sympathies to all at Aghamore gaa his poor family. Hope that was Ok to post here @willie Joe.

How reliable is the county championship as a pointer to county standard? I tend to look at teams (it's a wrong perspective, but I'm away from it), with a question, who can step up?

But who has stepped up? Look at Ballina for example. Mikey Murray, Frank Irwin, where have they gone? Are we not better to scout players, look at underage performances and try to develop them through the system. If the county championship delivers stars fair enough,, but I'm not convinced, and of course a star club player is no guarantee of transition anyway.

No problem, Clare. Terribly sad news alright, condolences to his family and friends in the Knock and Aghamore areas as well as further afield. RIP James.

@catcol 100% agree with you there.

I read the that Cian O Neill is parting ways with Galway, I feel they were over coached and consequently afraid to shoot and sometimes passed back to someone in an inferior position.i just hope we nail down our backline early in the league and have a consistent top 6 entering the championship.

Don’t think it’s a myth that Galway produce excellent forwards One bad game doesn’t change the fact that Walsh Comer Finnerty etc are very talented.PJ was as good as most I have see. and their 98 01 teams had some marvellous players. And I say that as a non Galway fan

Finnerty had it naturally. He’d have been the exact same player whether he was with Salthill or a Mayo club. Theres very little between Galway and Mayo in terms of the level of talent produced. This ‘Galway naturally produce more forwards’ it’s just not accurate when you actually break it down and look at the calibre of players over the decades.

Just off the top of my head going back as far as 2000….Kevin O’Neill, Ciaran McDonald, Cillian O’Connor, Conor Mortimer, Alan Dillon, Andy Moran. That’s just 6 from our side. Pearse Hanley would have been a Mayo ‘great’ had he not bailed to Australia.

Mayo produce plenty of good forwards. We just don’t always have the best overall team/strategy or sometimes fellas haven’t been played, injured or for whatever reason havnt been available for selection.

What we possibly have been guilty of is not having a strong skill culture that respects and develops the forwards that we get.
There's a bit of a macho culture in Mayo of "get in and do your box tackling drills".
Most clubs wouldn't dream of allowing the players to regularly work purely on technique.
The thing is your kicking technique is not a "whatever works for you".
There's a lot of basic technique guideraiks that are helpful.
There's also some good mental cues.
Stephen McDonnell had two :
1. Pass it over the bar
2. When through on goal he would say "one" in his head and shoot for a goal based on what he seen in that moment.
I often thought why don't teans setup passing tennis as a practice game. Passing it over a mini goals to bounce in a square for your training partner. Right and left foot practicing a 30-50 yard bounce once kick pass. It's such a waste of training time doing tackling drills with young players before passing and shooting skills are at a very high level.

That’s it JP…I just think back to Callinan’s missed effort at the end of the Derry match. Should have been bread and butter stuff…through on goal, even at a tight angle it should still be a 90% conversion rate for an intercounty footballer. That goes over. Mayo win. Could have been a different story then…

Just a note on the Mayo have no forwards. (Bullshit). Look at all the AIL Finals we got to, with no Forwards! That's just absolutely pure dung, spoke by ex County footballers on our national TV. (RTE). I PERSONALLY BELIEVE if we did not concede goals (and we never had a defensive plan) how many of the AIL would we have won with no Forwards? We seem always to go man on man (Lunacy) on the best Teams. The last generation of Mayo footballers were the best in my opinion by a long way. But man to man against the best?

Very sad about James McNieve may he rest in the peace of Christ and may Our Lady of Knock Queen of Ireland console his heartbroken family. Deepest condolences to James's family friends and neighbours in Aughamore.

Don’t want to be harping on again about S&C and I’m conscious of not wanting to specifically make check individuals but looking at the Wport v Cbar match, it struck me again as an area of concern. There are a few lads who have been involved in recent times with the Mayo u20 set up and physically they just look really light. Looking at them it would appear that very little S&C work has been done, if any. Some of these fellas who are being talked about as potentials to bring into the Mayo senior side, have good skills and pace and decent natural ability, but they look about 2 years away from being to capable of handling the physical demands of senior intercounty football.

Getting to the physical level required, takes 18-24 months dedicated work with expert advice. Throwing lads in at 21/22 who very clearly are well behind their peers in other top level counties, increases risk of injury and can hamper development and confidence. It appears to me that there’s a token nod toward S&C in Mayo and that’s about it. We are producing as much natural footballers as most others, but we are well off the pace on S&C. It’s obvious. You simply have to look at players, especially at u20 level AND in the 20-23 category where we have lots of lads not as physically developed as they probably need to be. Ulster have set the benchmark. They swept the board at schools, underage and senior. A glance at the physical condition of their players from 17-22 compared to ours and it’s a glaring gap. So we might have lads in the ‘breakthrough years’ category showing well at club level over the coming weeks and they’ll get talked up as fellas who can come into the Mayo senior set up, but they are at a distinct disadvantage to other counties and unlikely to have the impact we need which is incomparable from a S&C perspective. Maybe there needs to be some questions of where adult football is in Mayo from a S&C perspective. Why is our record in Connacht so poor in the last 5-8 years? I believe we have fallen back.

You reap what you sow. Physically, Mayo aren’t at it. We were in 2013-17 but rivals have upped the stakes and we have done nothing about it. When a Mayo u20 manager references S&C as an area of concern or one that needs addressing, then that speaks volumes of where we are at. It’s the elephant in room!!

Merely looking at lads under 23 already involved with Mayo or lads 19-21 being identified as potential senior players, you’d just be gobsmacked at how underdeveloped they are.

That's a very good post, Mayonaze. S&C, especially between the ages of 18-22 is vital, if you are not physically ready by the time you reach 22, then it's highly unlikely you will make the 'catch-up' physically after this age. (Rushed S&C only leads to more injuries and niggles). The frustrating thing is, Mayo used to be market leaders in terms of S&C only 6/7 years ago, what has happened? Take for example, Lee Keegan, he made his debut in 2011 at the age of 21/22, he was physically well developed at that stage. We currently have a number of similar aged players in the Mayo squad who look like they've never seen a gym. That may sound harsh, but if you can't match the physicality of the Ulster Teams / Kerry / Dublin, then you will never win anything. The reason why Ulster teams dominated all competitions this year is because they are way ahead of the rest in S&C, in order to survive up there, you need to be physically ready. Questions need to be asked of the County Board about the S&C structures in place, it's clear to most that something is off in Mayo.

@Way Out West…thanks. It’s way off where it needs to be. Mayo have completely lost pace with the leaders from a S&C perspective and until it’s rectified we’ll do well to reach where we want to be. S&C is an absolutely crucial facet of the intercounty game now. Not just at senior level but from minor up. We have players in the Mayo set up a few years now who simply aren’t in the shape they ought to be in. We have fellas coming out of u20 who aren’t as physically imposing as 17 year olds in other county sides. Is it being left to individual lads themselves to ‘hit the gym’!?

Other counties are moving to an almost professional level. Mayo aren’t at the races and I can’t understand how this hasn’t been a big topic in local media. Why isn’t it being spoken about? Why is it being ignored? We have three main newspapers and two well-listened to podcasts and there’s hardly a mention of this. No one is asking the hard questions looking to dig deep.

When’s the last time we saw a Mayo player and went ‘wow, he’s in some shape’?

https://mayogaa.com/2024/08/07/club-championship-season-ticket-pass/

New Mayo club season ticket now available to public.

@Against the Tide, I am in agreement. The main reason we lost the finals over the past decade is that we have conceded too much, & usually shocking goals.

We have scored in the finals:
2012: 0-13
2013: 1-14
2016 (draw): 0-15
2016 (replay): 1-14
2017: 1-16 (highest ever score by a losing team)
2020: 0-15
2021: 0-15

Our scoring in the finals (bar 2012) would have won most finals. But we leaked too much at the back.
We regularly conceded 2 goals in the finals, & usually avoidable ones too :(

@Mayo Focus. Agree. Not enough ‘defensive focus’ and therein lies the main problem.

We need to get a proper defensive structure and we need to get our young fellas on ‘proper’ programmes so that they can develop into the players we want them to be. We are hearing a lot about us having plenty of talented players in the 17-21 category and we do, but I think the Mayo structures or rather, the lack of them, are failing these boys. I don’t have any confidence that their full potential will be realised and that’s really sad. How can we expect to win Sam when we aren’t working as hard as our rivals on a national level?

I really hadn't thought much about s & c but if it's as neglected as much as mentioned here by the management who tell us they will leave no stone unturned in pursuit of the biggest prize then that's criminal and amateurish and really needs to be addressed immediately and people held accountable.

@No Doubt, I’m not sure about at senior level. You can only assume they are addressing this. Surely players like AOS, Cillian etc would demand it? I’m much more concerned with the obvious lack of it from minor to u20. It’s just clear as day that we are well behind others. Our minors the past two years were physically bullied by Monaghan and Armagh respectively and these teams were as skilful if not arguably better coached, especially Armagh this year, than our lads. And as Way Out West rightly pointed out, if lads aren’t in the right condition physically at 22/23 then looking to rush them or play ‘catch-up’ at that point can have detrimental effects. Strength, speed and flexibility need to be focused on in the mid teens, not left until 20+. Ah, it’s frustrating. Especially when you can see that we have the natural footballers but we’re just not giving them the best chance. Derry, Tyrone and Armagh are. They’ve got their act together in the past few years. Kerry too. Their minor team this year were like men compared with ours. We still have lads coming out of u20’s with skinny arms and little or no muscle mass in the upper legs or upper torso.

I posted this last summer but I think it’s worth doing again. I met a Clare man on holidays who had a son on the county u20 hurling team. They played Limerick and had a meal together afterwards. A Limerick lad told him that JP McManus gave each member of the minor and u20 players €2k for home gym equipment and this was only to supplement their group sessions. I wouldn’t know anything about Limerick u20 hurling but he said that they were built like tanks and ready for senior when they finished at that level.

I should have added that he said Clare could never compete with this and indeed most counties can’t, as they don’t have someone with deep pockets. But surely we should be doing our best.

@Nephin, and that's how it ought to be. When a player finishes u20 and where he is deemed good enough to play senior or even potentially to play at that level, then there should be no question or discussion around his physical readiness. In fact, most top level players are involved with a senior team before they finish u20's. We have fellas 22/23 who still aren't at the right level physically. The entire system from 15 years old to 20 years old needs to be seriously looked at from a S&C perspective. Coaching and strategy are different matters but they all tie in together.

Our coaching, our S&C, our facilities. We are behind several of our competitors in every capacity. How on earth can Mayo expect to win an All Ireland at senior level when we aren't leaders in any relevant area.

@Mayonaze funnily enough, I think a small tweak in how we committed men to our slow & laborious attack, would have made us more defensively solid. I.e stop committing everyone forward & leave someone to mind the house/sweep slightly in front of opposition attackers. I was fuming watching the Galway game where we repeatedly added people to our attack who frankly were offering nothing, and invariably when we lost it, Comer was left 1 on 1 with McBrien with 50 yards of space in front of him. No defender can stop him when he gets that space. Naivety of the highest degree.
Defensive organisation in general play also needs a lot of work & you need lads who just want to defend above all else.

I really cannot fathom our structure. McConville said it before the Round Robin games. Said we weren't a bad team, but were badly set up.

Re S&C, I'm not so sure the Ulster teams are on the right track, with minors in particular.
These are 16 and 17 year olds, still developing and growing. I'd imagine that would want to be very carefully managed, and not overload them or have too bulked up while they're still growing.
u20 and senior a different story obviously.

@Tubberman, yes obviously it needs to be done right. It's not as simple as beefing up fellas, not at all. It needs to be professionally administered. If the u20 manager is highlighting S&C as a problem area, then this is as good as admitting that it's not being done to the level required and therefore natural to assume, that it's not being done properly at minor level. You only need half decent eyesight to see that.

@mayonaze.i hear ya. Regarding forwards or lack of I'll add a bit to @mayo focus post above. Around 2015 one of the 1995 Dublin winning team wrote a piece about mayo when they were in their pomp and he said mayo's problem was not in front of the opposition post but more at the other end conceding too many goals. Nobody was saying that at the time and it never left my thoughts when reviewing games and i often wondered how nobody in the mayo camps realised this and made adjustments when we had the top players in the country pulling on the mayo jersey. Maybe as the saying goes "can't see the woods for the trees "

We have a fairly good panel of players , just as good as any other County at present. Whats wanted is a more consistant team with players knowing what their position is and know who is in front and beside and behind them for every game. Last year even coming into our final game , nobody knew for sure what our team could be and who would be playing where , exception full forward line which was nearly same for every game with same subs used at same time. The other thing lacking is a bit of physical play, knowing when to hit and run and knowing when to foul and even when to take a card for the team. Just play football and stop the back/side passing and keep playing till final whistle is blown.

Mayo club season pass and mayo tv pass out for €100 .
Excellent value for anyone who will go to more than 1games at a weekend and all the finals

@Culmore my Meath football friends totally agree with you, no settled team.