Are Roscommon Galway and Sligo pulling away from us in terms of underage? Are they doing anything differently that we could learn from?

On the ditch, we've won 3 minor Connachts in a row, no need to overreact off one bad performance, especially with the u20s flying form at the minute.

Minors have won the last few Connacht titles , aisf last year and all Ireland final 3 years ago . We can’t win every Connacht. 3:4 is really not that bad at all . More concerning is star players from minor teams disappearing/ opting out or whatever

Mayo have won the last 3 Connacht minor titles and our present U20s look to be the best in Connacht so at underage in a Provincial sense we're doing OK.

Ontheditch - talk about overreaction after one underage game. Interesting on a Galway GAA forum there is a lot of debate that they are falling behind in underage….

Don't be surprised if both teams meet again Mayo could win.
Minor is peculiar, subs often best players.

Ontheditch ... Stay positive

Jr work will be cut out to overcome Galway to meet the rossies again. They simply look like the stand out team at U17 this year same as it was with Mayo last year with Kobe and co

OK, guys looks like we are all good at under age, maybe some concern about standout players dropping off....good to know.

Take it easy on McStay and company:
Niall Higgins got 6 stitches on the side line last Saturday and Davie Burke brought him back in for Roscommon, stitches obviously broke and not starting against London.

Sean Burke raises a very valid point and one that seems to have been brushed under the carpet. There’s a serious fall off from the minor team that reached the All Ireland in ‘22. Of the team that started that final 3 years ago, 7 of them haven’t kicked a ball so far at u20. That’s a concern.

Have they dropped off, are there better players emerging, are they still playing for their clubs, are they still living in mayo , then look at the Davitt Nearys. But I agree there should be some monitoring of the situation.

@Mayonaze: Only 3 of the 20 lads that featured in that final against Galway weren't involved with the u20 side at some point this year. All 3 of those still going well at club level, so no worrying drop off in lads not playing the game or even progressing there.

When it comes to lads starting, a lot can change in 3 years. Especially now we've changed from 18s & 21s to 17s & 20s. The lads from the younger age groups can catch up on the previous physical advantages of u17s (rare to get a double minor - only Mortimer, Duffy & Lydon managed that from the current squad) and start pushing harder to compete. We're fortunate to have u19s like Beirne, Lydon, McGreal & Mortimer that are already putting pressure on senior club (or county) players, never mind pushing other 20s.

Glancing at some "is the system working" numbers around this years squad:
34 - Players
27 - Played minor (79.41%)
13 - Played u20 before (38.24%)
7 - New to County (20.59%)
24 - (*minimum, possibly lots more - hard to find the data there) Were in u16 Dev squads (70.59%)
[Interestingly, 5 of the 7 new to county among those I couldn't find confirmation of being in a younger dev squad - likely later developers, which is possibly a positive sign IMHO that the setup isn't missing pulling lads like that in down the line]

21 - Minors from '22 (61.76%)
12 - Minors from '23 (35.29%)
1 - Minor from '24 (2.94%)

Even seeing the newer lads (O'Loughlin, Howard, Coggins, Gordetskyy, Clarke, Staunton & Slattery) pushing some of the previous lads out I'd consider relatively positive, assuming their club form &/or ability warranted those calls. Always a couple of individual situations that'll be disappointing (e.g. Silke or Slattery's injuries after showing well last year or a talent like Clarke or Hurley missing out) but on the whole the system looks pretty solid.

Brilliant stuff as usual TsuDhoNim . No point over reacting to one defeat at U 17. Roscommon genuinely looked like a good team tonight but it’s u 17 so no need to panic. Galway and Roscommon are entitled to win the odd game now and again, Mayo do not have a divine right to win every game. By the way Sligo have given us a lesson at u 20 for a while now. Don’t take Sunday for granted

@ontheditch, I definitely wouldn’t say we are ok at underage..we’ve not won a Connacht u20 in 7 years. Considering u20 is a much better barometer of future senior health, compared to u17, then we are far from ok. Aside from the 22 minors, we’ve not had any team anywhere close to being All Irl champions. I’d say we’ve been quite a bit off the pace at underage for a long time. Let’s see how this u20 team fares, but from what I’ve seen so far, they’re way too open defensively to win an All Ireland. Not sure we’re strong enough around the middle either.

Our minor team this year look very weak.

@tsudhonim. Great piece of work there. Confirms the drop off rate is not significant and clubs doing a good job retaining players through difficult years.
I don't think anyone is panicking but you've always got to be looking at ways of doing things better. Credit to Roscommon for dismissing us with such authority.
I agree with poster above. Sligo had enough consecutive under age teams to have the makings of a useful senior team. And they did give Galway z scare last year.

@ mayonaze, thanks for clarification. They are the facts. Putting 1 and 1 together, while we are retaining players, we are not getting teams up to the competitive quality that we would like?
If so, why. I'm a bit sceptical of coaching. Do we coach them to do the right thing and not the imaginative thing. I often think, if coaches got their hands on k McDonald, he'd have walked away. Neary and McLaughlin don't seem to be at a loss for limited coaching. But it's only my opinion, I'd be interested in other opinions as to why we are not producing leaders, standout players, players with winning mentality. Thanks again mayonaze

@Mayonaze if Mayo U20s don't win Connacht it will be on management than the players for messing up. The Ulster winner will likely go on to win the All-Ireland again.

It's always difficult to judge underage players of course, but the likes of Lydon, Beirne etc are seriously talented prospects. That 2 pointer from Lydon in first half was glorious. He sprinted at full pelt to collect the ball outside the arc & pinged it over into a stiff enough breeze. We just don't see that sort of play in the senior set up.

These lads needs to be developed very carefully. Because they have the ingredients to be special

@Tsudhunim

Brilliant analysis as usual.
Posts like that cut through a lot of the hysteria and bullshit.
Opinion based on facts and reality.

Mayo were very poor around midfield in both u17 and
year year u20 this

@Mayonaze: I'd question judging success/failure of the underage setup purely on winning/losing of underage competitions rather than the development of players. Despite the obvious perks of success on motivation or morale those two are more often than not mutually exclusive for players (hundreds of global research papers written about this - even more relevant here in GAA given our smaller player pools), where the focus should always be firmly on the development leaving success an unintended consequence that may sometimes happen when things fall into place.

You've mentioned being open defensively at u20 there - but slightly missed we had a late change in keeper setup with a quad injury hampering last years 1st choice (fair play to Colm grabbing his opportunity with both hands), lost two potential starters back there that featured well in last year's side (Silke & Slattery) to long term injury, lost another to date (Coghill) who'd been flying in pre-season & picked up more along the way (Coggins hamstring) that have seriously impacted options. Down those kinds of numbers they've down a pretty impressive job keeping Galway (Costello) & Leitrim (Cox) senior players pretty quiet along the way. I'd have considered it a display of fantastic strength in depth in context rather than an area of concern long term.

We've had a horrid 7 years at 20s in Connacht, but have produced some fantastic talent in that time. Serious questions to be asked in that period, though I'm not sure how much of it would be aimed at the players being produced (we'd have been red hot favourites for a number of those campaigns & unquestionably had the players capable to win them).

In an ideal world it'd be great to see Hession, McBrien, McHugh, Carney, Callinan, Coyne, Neary (he was involved with a 20s squad for a while), Morahan, McHale or Kelly winning a Connacht 20 or challenging for an All Ireland, but it wouldn't dramatically change them as players. They'll always have their own paths & motivations, whether that's built on success or failure at underage.

Very valid questions to be asked on what Derry & Tyrone are doing that the rest of us nationally are missing out on, they are ahead and on a different level. For years before the success came coaches & those around underage were talking about the terrific innovations happening. It won't be a major shock to those folks to see the success that followed in those counties.

However I'd be pretty happy seeing the great work being done across schools (Geralds, Colmans, Ballinrobe CS, Rice College, Muredachs) that have successfully & consistently challenged nationally in GAA, soccer & basketball in recent years punching well above their weights for numbers of pupils. Similarly with clubs, great to see Cross' national success built on young talent or Kilmeena's similarly. Or hearing positive comments on folks involved in our underage coaching (going back to lads like Austin O'Malley or Ciaran McDonald or among the current ranks with someone like Boyler frequently receiving glowing praise).

There's an awful lot more data sets to look at than the winner of a Connacht u20 title. On the majority of those we'd appear to be trending (pretty significantly) up. Always more work to do & areas to be significantly improved (COE, coach coaching, GDOs, etc right up to the S&C or nutrition our recent review seemed to focus on) but I wouldn't get hung up on Connacht u20 as the main focus of that or as a main goal going forward more than just a byproduct of getting good lads playing good football.

Was at the match and no it’s only u17 and young lads but we seem to very small bar one or 2 lads and the manner in the way we lost the second was shocking with a strong. Wind at our back , I know we can’t win them all but Mayo and Galway are lot bigger than Roscommon and should have lot more to pick from and have strong teams ,,if they met again could be different story but Roscommon are strong and have 6/7 lads from last year and mayo don’t , also their fans are so ignorant tonight and allways are so no love or never will for them ,,
Where is Ronan Clarke from the minors few years back he was one of the best forwards ,

Tsu…thanks for the detailed message. I’m always really interested and you’ve clearly got an inside line in the finer details surrounding players so genuinely appreciate you sharing it. I note the injuries and it’s a pity those lads are out. I hope it doesn’t hamper their development and potential to go to Senior with Mayo.

I am well aware of the studies and papers on player development vis a vis success being quantified by trophies, but surely there’s an element of them going hand in hand to a degree. Also being around long enough and having watched decades of football allows one to be able to identify talent, ability and progress.

Derry and Tyrone have set the benchmark in recent years. Mayo are not at that level and to me, that’s a failure. There’s no reason why Mayo shouldn’t be at that level. Why can’t we be leaders? We have the numbers, tradition and interest. The ingredients are there. The recipe just ain’t right!

I’m also not sure how progress and development can be accurately assessed aside from performance on the field of play? And a high performance generally leads to success. I find it very difficult hearing about great players and talent coming through when these same fellas are getting beaten by opponents. Our results at u20 the past 6 years, aside from the odd exception, have been extremely disappointing. Losing to Sligo several times, and Leitrim. It doesn’t exactly bode well for future success.

@mayonaze. Mayo performances at u20 is certainly a subject worth scrutinising. The current Mayo senior panel does not appear to have any great depth, though there is the promise that will improve over the next few years. You've hit the nail on the head with leadership imo. Even our young crop, McBrein, McHugh, Callinan etc are great players but are they leaders, have we a potential leader that will deliver Sam. And what are the northern counties doing differently? Gaelic is obviously very strong up there at the moment. I'm not being negative but room for improvement would be a modest comment

There isn’t really a lot of skill to Gaelic football nowadays ,perhaps it will be more to the fore under the new rules where a skill set level of an Eoghan Mcgloughlin v a Darragh Canavan (I’m using the extreme here of ball skills ) really separates sides , in the past it’s not really mattered as athleticism can cover over the lack of ball skill . In saying all that size , power and strength has been lacking from a lot of our underage teams compared to northern teams of late . Roscommon minors looked a lot stronger last night . Would it be too simplistic to suggest these counties seem to have better access to gyms , didn’t ros just open a new gym specifically for their GAA teams last year ?

Where do mayo teams train ? Development sides ? Any word on progress of the land gifted for centre of excellence?

I think the performance of Mayo u20 underage teams in recent years reflects the calibre of players playing. My belief is that between 2019-2023, the quality of players in u20s has just not been good enough.

For example Cian McHale was in Mayo u20 squads in 22&23. His performances were nothing outstanding. Conor Reid similarly was in there. If they struggled at u20 level, what do we think will happen when they move up to Senior level? Sean Morohan is hugely hyped, a two time u20 captain. As captain of those two recent teams, I don’t recall heroic performances from him to drag his team to Connacht titles. There’s references in the thread above around the great talent from previous underage teams but they’ve done nothing at underage to demonstrate high level capability. Most of them haven’t been better than their peers in Connacht

We will see will this current u20 team deliver a Connacht title but if they do, I’d expect it to be the best players like McMonagle, Gilmore, Hurley, Beirne or Lydon to lead them forward and if they do win it, it’ll be because the players are a higher standard

Maybe there not eating their wheatabix in mayo but it's unimaginable that we go 6 or 7 years in the doldrums and claim that the players aren't there. That's to simplistic for me.
Resources should be looked into tho I'm sure our bill for our county u20 campaign is at least in line with other counties. The players are the consumers, have we ever gathered feedback from the players in a formal way that might be useful in revising our methods. And the obvious one is to tap into the Derry/Tyrone set up.
But one thing is very clear, we need to look into the big picture and ring in changes.
I have attended coaching sessions over the years. Players almost feel they are called up for a trial with a top UK soccer club. They are coached the ' right' thing' to do. In recent years, keep possession. Players are afraid to show flair in case they make a mistake. That's the reality. Coaches with too much control.
McLaughlin and Neary are the two that escaped the coaching net. Durcan and Conroy are our two other flair players.
There's a lot of raw talent in our county at underage and it's taking the easy way out by blaming them for our lack of success.
We should dig deeper, if we want to get back on the tracks.

The leadership debate is an interesting one. How many of our senior team stand out in terms of leadership. Aido and Ryan, mostly by their on field efforts, Diarmuid, maybe when he's playing. Last year in particular when we were underperforming I don't recall anyone doing an 'Andy' on it in trying to rally the troops or looking for a reaction from the terraces.
It could be argued of course that it's a relatively new team but in players like McBrien,Flynn,Mattie and Carney I'd like to see a bit of bollicing given when needed to get extra effort. But I suppose leadership quality depends on an individual's personality.

GAA+ coverage is like someone with an iPhone is doing it.

@2 hops I agree and leadership has been a big issue down all the years. You want a guy that will win a game for you.The young breed you mention are all potential leaders in the making. And leadership only comes with confidence in your own ability. But they have to be encouraged into leadership.
I know Carney was very frustrated with his role last year, where all that was expected of him was make himself available and handpass on to a runner.
He's more taking things into his own hands this year.
I'd love to see him trying the long incisive pass.
Bit harder for Ryan to lead from corner forward but you are right, he is capable.
Tomorrow's game is interesting in that we probably have a but of scope to experiment or let the hair down.

Ryan is a natural leader. Durcan too. After than I’m not sure we have many. Coen has leadership qualities and Cillian was a big leader on the field. The problem was management didn’t give him enough game time in 2024. Really underused Cillian.

Mayo keep producing the same type of forwards. Light and skillful. This is grand at underage but doesn't cut it at senior level in terms of scoring. We have struggled to kick points from distance for decades. In '21 we needed to score from distance to beat Tyrone set up... couldn't do it. This year we were the lowest scorers in div one and struggle to kick 2s even from placed balls.
Galway have gone through a similar trend in the hurling. Fantastic, fast, skillfull players at underage but don't really cut it at senior. They were lucky to have had a generational talent to get them over the line in 2017. Unfortunately we haven't been so lucky.
I can't understand for a rural county how we can't seem to find strong kickers.

Safe travels to all supporters tomorrow,we should be good enough to win easily,hopefully a good game with no injuries,the start of our journey for Sam

Lads believe me when I say this like the race horse there's better days a head.give it 2 to 3 years.we are not in a bad place.patience

Kobe McDonald starting and scoring for Crossmolina senior team this evening against Ballintubber.

Actually had 5 of last year's county minors starting today Achill75 .

Did Cillian play for Ballintubber.

He did

Can you tell us a bit more Deel Rover , very exciting team are crossmolina and then to beat Tubber without Conor, Flynn, the 2 Coggins is very impressive

Achill 75, its a strange one, especially when's he deemed too young for the Mayo u20s

Oisìn Deane, Kobe McDonald, Josh Moyles, Dylan Flynn and Sean Og McGuinness would be the 5 Mayo Minors from 2024. Liam Clancy, Sean Heffernan and Patrick O'Malley are other lads that wouldn't be out of place on the squad.

Not a lot to tell really outside of the boot . We deserved the win imo even though it was the last kick of the game that won it . Just great to be a senior club again after 8 years. We were missing at least 7 lads who started the ai final . Think 10 that started tonight were 20 and under , Just hoping we can stay senior this year and compete .

How's it strange , none of the 5 mentioned are involved with mayo under 20's .

Deel Rover I fancy ye for a qf this year. Such talent coming through that I could see ye competing for moclair in 2026

Why wouldn't they stay senior that's a great confidence booster .
Maheady and Kobe are maverick talents, both talents that cant be taught. Deane a class act too, super forwards for future if they keep tipping away .

I hope your right cp lol , but all joking aside , it's important to stay up . Getting out of intermediate Is a tough job.

Maverick is one word alright..

Hard believe Ballinrobe had so many players in and around Mayo senior panel last year.
Ewan Duffy a good freetaker mind.

Championship is where it all counts.
Ballintubber a different animal later in the summer.
Best of luck to Crossmolina

Looking at league results tonight certainly seems to be higher scoring for the most part.

Gizmobobs. It’s great to see although I’m sure not all league games will be played in glorious sunshine.
Knockmore looking very impressive early on with massive wins over belmullet and ballinrobe.
Brolly has them working early….

A lot of talk above about Tyrone and derry at underage and probably rightly so but aren't those the 2 counties who got relegated to division 2 this year at senior. I'm only saying

The most important thing with underage in terms of underage feeding senior is the quality of the best midfielder or forward in each u20 team.
A senior team needs just one high quality player on the attacking side of the field from each team
The senior team capability is all about the quality of the two midfielders and the best four scoring forwards. You'll always pull together the other eight outfield jerseys at a good enough level.