I don't believe that Galway took their foot off the gas, they were just beaten by a team more in need of the win. To be fair, Kerry got away with one as they scored a goal that should never have stood because it was clearly a square ball. That goal came at a crucial time in the 2nd half and Kerry drove on after that. Joyces comments to the media afterwards showed a man pissed off that they didn't gather the single point they needed from their last two games to make a final. They don't get a serious test for a few weeks until they head to The Hyde. He'd have liked another test and he'd certainly would have liked the boost of a national title in the bag heading Stateside.
Dublin are a bit of a mish mash and I don't think they will be in the shake-up for Sam come the business end of the season. They won't be tested in Leinster and are a far way back from the dominant sides they have had over the last 10 years.

To my eye, Donegal and Tyrone will be serious, serious opponents come the Summer. A half arsed, half squad of Donegal came within the width of the crossbar of beating and relegating us yesterday. They destroyed our kick out also. Tyrone have McCurry back on the field and Canavan in tandem also. They have the best keeper in the country, two big units in the middle and a cute, cute operator on the sideline in Malachy O'Rourke. They will have a big say in things yet.
For us, I have to admit in being disappointed coming out of MacHale Park yesterday. From being totally in control of things in the first half, controlled the tempo and pace of the game, were incisive, scored a brilliant goal, created space in attack...... to then being ripped wide open on 3 separate occasions when on another day Donegal would have got three more goals. We have shown zero improvement on our kick out, there appears to be little or no movement out the field for Reape, and when there is the timing is all wrong or Reape doesn't see it. We don't even have anything basic like an overload on one side of the pitch, a "bunch and break" move or decoy runners. That area concerns me because winning your own kick out has never been more important and it is the one constant weakness in our game this league.
For me, I'm delighted we got to the final and, again, I'm not too bothered about the result as long as we are competitive and as long as we continue to introduce 2 or 3 new faces to this level of football. Irwin and Neary have been big pluses and the wide open spaces of Croker should see Neary at his best. Kelly to a lesser extent has shown he can operate at this level but Croker and the big wide open spaces really test wing backs so we'll see what happens there. Another proper test in a big game far exceeds anything we could replicate in training and as long as we don't suffer any injuries we will benefit from it, regardless of the result. In truth, we're not going to be really seriously tested between the league final and the Connaught final so we need this game next weekend.
On a slightly pessimistic side of things, the word on Durcan and Conroy is not as positive as it was a few weeks ago. I'd be surprised if either has much impact for us this season.

Well done to the Mayo Team on winning yesterday and making it to the league final.
After 50 plus years supporting The Mayo Team from Dublin to London, Cork and New York ect .
I have discovered I know nothing about how a Mayo team will play in any given Game..
Some great performances recently from quite a few of our players which is great to see.
It's Croke park again for us and I plan go and just enjoy the day out. as for how Mayo might play
Well I Don't know..
Maigheo Abù

We're in for a massive wake up call next week. Kerry showed what they've been working on against Galway at the weekend and it could be a long day for us if they decide to play the same way. That we were nearly beat by Donegal's second or even third choices is very worrying indeed.

Galway didn't take the foot off the gas they wanted the league final PJ was pissed off after that match no doubt about it they were just beaten by a much better team.

What would have been better to go out and loose yesterday and then get relegated? I can only imagine what would be said on here if we had lost that game yesterday and gone down to division 2 .

I agree with pebblesmeller about Dublin in that they're not realistic contenders for Sam, but I'm not sure they weren't caught out by clever and tricky forwards and that, combined with Fenton's departure in midfield, leaves them very mediocre indeed. Their defence is very suspect.
Don't know what to make of Galway but they'll be there come the business end for sure.
Hard to assess Mayo but it's another confidence booster and warmly welcomed, I'm sure by mcstay and co.

It will be good to get a go at the new rules in Croker against very decent competition. Would be nice to have some silverware but the major thing is to be competitive and avoid injuries. Great opportunity to blood the new players and take it for what it is, a day out. I will always remember the Green and Red being played after the 2019 Kerry win and it felt special. We showed some grit and game intelligence yesterday at the end not and for the first time this season.
Diarmuid O Connor ( Kerry ) looks to be out injured and Kerry may be thinking the same as us and use it as a challenge rather than risk injury before Championship.

Are posters being a bit harsh on reape. I thought he got a few good kicks away yesterday and as the armagh keeper said recently when the press is on it's up to the lads out the field to win the ball when it's kicked out. It's hard to judge things after the game considering the balls made of the system by the powers that be sure the players themselves probably didn't know whether they wanted to win or not. The bottom line for me is that after losing the 1st 2 games they dusted themselves down and went unbeaten for the rest of the league and had no say about who they played against be it understrengt team or not and tho there could be 1 or 2 on here who would have loved to see them fail i give them full credit for topping the table and best of luck in the final though I'm wouldn't be over confident of getting the desired result.

Can anyone say for certain that a league final ticket is now NOT included in the Season ticket? . Need to know before they go on general sale.

It doesn't make it absolutely clear on the Season Ticket website

I sometimes wonder what it would take to make some posters here happy. We have just finished top of the most competitive league in years. This after losing our first two matches. Their was very little between all teams,including Derry as the final table shows. So please cut out the constant negativity and get behind the team and management.

Don’t be fooled by Joyce. His annoyance yesterday was purely based on some players not performing but management definitely eased up. I’d know a few people close to Galway set up. They want to wrap Walsh up before championship. Joyces selection and substitutions yesterday clearly indicated a lack of serious intent with regard to the league. I did believe Galway would target the league, but they absolutely took the foot off the gas in the past fortnight. Just like Donegal but the latter’s fringe players showed better form. Joyce doesn’t want everything rosey in March.

Other than that, I’d fully agree with @Pebblesmeller on your well put together post. I’d share your concerns on our defence and restarts.

@JJ Kelly. Winning Sam is the answer. Certainly not finishing top of a farcical league where several teams pulled up the handbrake weeks ago.

Several teams played with the 'handbrake' on yesterday we're told,and that's why they lost.
Maybe that's why Mayo didn't beat an understrength Donegal out the gate as well.
We did enough to survive, causing us to fall in to a league final,it looked to me like we played in spurts, doing enough to win but not completely empty ourselves, with one eye on bigger challenges in the next few weeks.
So let's get behind them and bring home that bit of silverware that's on offer at the moment.

Glad that Mayp did enough to avoid relegation yesterday despite it not being an overly convincing display. I think we should give the final a right crack as I'm sure that's what Kerry will be doing. I am not sure that we have the team to win All Ireland honours this year but we could take home the silverware on offer next weekend.

Final at 4pm Sunday preceded by kildare v Offaly . why not the Div 2 final ?

Say it’s to do with Ros travelling to London for championship opener

@Paddyjoejohntom

I know the season ticket used to include the league finals, but there does seem to be some confusion over that this year. From last years reporting in the Independent; https://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaa-reveal-pricing-for-2024-league-with-championship-opener-removed-from-season-ticket-package/a1815382913.html

Donegal seemed to do all their attacking in the second half up the stands idea of the pitch. Maybe push McBrien into midfield and coen fall back for kickouts might give us some reward. Also we didn't get any joy out of breaking balls from kickouts. Id like to see the stats on kickouts. Plenty to be working on. No harm having an outing in croke park.
Has anybody worked out what we are at when Hession or Carney are up to when they go hands up.

@michaelincork
Its to do with scheduling. If Roscommon played on Sunday, they would only have a 6 day turnaround for their Connacht Championship opener.

@michaelincork: Roscommon, Wexford & Limerick all have games the following Saturday (while none of Mayo, Kerry, Offaly or Kildare do), so the teams involved pretty much dictated which finals were on Saturday.

Just got email from Gaa Season ticket office confirming League final tickets are included with Season ticket. There was talk they wouldn't be

4pm game Sunday for two teams very far away from Dublin. I might love a good moan but it's always been something that has annoyed me. School the following morning and people from the likes of belmullet or Achill won't be back until at least 11pm, realistically closer to midnight.
Extremities of Kerry the same. I'm sure West Kerry could give us the times!
Look, it's lovely to be there for such an occasion but these things could be considered.

Tsu,
Is there any source for scoring in the league this year as compared to yester years. I am looking for avg. score per league match, the avg number of wides etc. I know that the 2 pointer makes comparisons difficult, but I am trying to get a feel for how the rule changes have impacted the game. I reckon that come championship, scoring from the more potent attacks will resemble the scoring in hurling.
With more shots on and off target, kick outs are much more numerous, and how the goalie performs will have a huge bearing on the outcome, as will the performance of the middle 8. The midfield battle is where momentum is gained and lost. It would be interesting to see the correlation between midfield possession and scoring (winning).

I was at the Galway game yesterday and Kerry were excellent, the best I have seen them in a long time. Their direct kick passing into the forwards with accurate shooting destroyed Galway, scoring 3 - 23 with hardly any 2 pointers(!)
David Clifford was marked well and kept pretty quiet too.

If they can play like that consistently, they can beat anyone.

@Urmanthere: The GIU (newly established Games Intelligence Unit) has performance analysts tagging each game & releases summary reports along those lines alright - https://www.gaa.ie/article/games-intelligence-unit-releases-afl-round-6-analysis

Not quite enough data if you wanted to do team vs team analysis of before vs after, but it sounds like the summary stuff might be enough to paint the more general 'game' picture you're hoping for.

I think it's great for Mayo to be playing in league final, especially this year with the draw for Connaught championship, the younger players need all the experience they can get against top teams, Kerry will fit that bill perfectly, it will be good to see how K McStay & crew will set up the for next Sunday. Whatever the result it will benefit all involved for the Championship ahead. So best of luck Mayo to all involved.

Should the final have been in Ennis or Limerick ?

Really looking forward to the weekend. I wonder will Irish Rail be running a late train?

Jack and Enda named on the team of the week.

Well done lads.

The League Final should have been played in Limerick

Yew Tree. I agree with you that venue should have been considered. Not fair to supporters from North West Mayo or South West Kerry to have a 4 Pm throw in in Dublin. Sense has prevailed for the Hurling. in Pairc Ui Chaoimh.

Anyone know if the bring a friend system for season tickets is in operation for the final?. Can't seem to find it on Ticketmaster

Alive and kicking. I don't have any friends so I don't know the set up

You'll soon gain a few@Paddy,if you have a spare ticket...hah.

- Credit to management and players for retaining Division 1 status and heading the table !
- Hession and Carney were very good, Aido worked hard as did Flynn who messed up a few due to knocks and tiredness.
- Donegals' 10 Dara O' B and 12 S O' Donnell really played hell for the whole match. They were not marked at all.
- Donegal forwards were allowed to cut right through past the first Arc with the Mayo players backed off. As Shuffly Deck said in previous thread we need to play a sweeper all the time against Kerry.
- Once Langan came on we were under pressure at midfield.
- Snatched it in the end.
- For 3 years now the issue of league finals being so close to championship has been highlighted. Where is the GPA with players being flogged with so many matches in such a short time frame.
-Can only see a very small crowd on Sunday. Kerry will be going full tilt at this and O' Connor would like nothing better than to give Mayo a pasting. That means we need to take all the easy chances with no feeble kicks into the goal keeper or stupid wides.

Think we should play the 2nd string Sunday, all thats matters is May 4th Connacht Final against Galway/Ross.No one remembers National League Winners come July.

Definitely play the League finals in Croke Park that's where every player dreams of playing. Go and support our players,a bit of hardship won't kill us for one day.Hopefully we'll have more trips to Croker later in the year

As someone pointed out earlier the management and team deserve a lot of credit for getting to league final. I was one of those who expected us to be relegated but I was definitely not one of those who was going to use it as a stick to beat McStay with. I genuinely believed Mayo were possibly not good enough to survive relegation. But survive they did, dropping only one point in their last 5 games so a huge amount of credit to McStay and the team. Having said that I am still not optimistic. The farce of a last day in the league has catapulted us into a final that we really should not be in. Whatever about Tyrone being relegated on 7 points it is even more astonishing that we topped the table with a minus score difference. But with Jimmy’s losing matches (deliberately) and PJ not fancying another bad day out in Croker we end up in a final we would be better off to avoid. Not only do I reckon Kerry will probably beat us handily enough, it exposes our players to another game, increasing the possibility of injuries, throws a spanner into our last week’s preparation for championship and gives Sligo a boost for the same reasons. Before anyone gets too arrogant to dismiss Sligo remember Galway stole it from them in last year’s championship and I also have horrendous memories of 2010. The anti McStay brigade who have been relatively silent for the last few weeks could be getting ready to sharpen their knives again.

Predicted Team for Kerry:

Reape
Coyne McHugh Hession
Callinan McBrien E McLaughlin
Coen Ruane
D McHale Carney Flynn
O'Shea Irwin R O'Donoghue

One change Eoghan McLaughlin in for Kelly, mainly to tag White.

It's a good game for us. A third league final in four years shows how competitive and hard to beat we generally are.

@Frost we've been very competitive in the league since 2022, but had fairly abysmal championship campaigns. And while I believe we can challenge this year, we need to prove it. Most media have us a bit off the top 3 or 4 teams & had to argue with that until we prove otherwise.

@Frost agree and agree on Eoghan mc going in to.

Meant to be decent weather on Sunday .

Still think it's right to play it in croker good to try the new rules out there to .

Hopefully Diarmuid O Connor starts he needs game time .

Enda hession back to his best is great to see also
Be a tough game on Sunday but there's no reason why we can't beat them but depends what mayo team turns up! ( the one that can beat any team with our fast pace and chaos or one that plays the boring lateral passing! )

Looking forward to hopefully a good day out!

From a practical point of view a Limerick Venue makes more sense, but from a Championship one , playing in Croker is a must. The more exposure we can get there the better and will pay off for championship. I'm assuming most if not all players have had a game there, maybe the likes of the young guns like Neary and Conor Reid could benefit.

@Bonni Boyler: Yeah. Brilliant for the younger lads. Even just the habits of another Dublin game weekend will stand to them going forward.

Even for the lads with plenty of big game experience up there, no harm at all getting another taste of the new rules up there too. A different challenge for defenders trying to handle an aggressive kicking game (who better than Kerry to provide it) with that added pace the Croker surface provides. Different opportunity for the forwards with it too.

Lads'll calling for Cormac Reilly to ref it yet! Come on: this is my first Mayo fixture in a while that I'll be able to walk to from home.

@Tsu 100%

@Wj,I hope it'll be a stagger back for you after some robust celebrations!

We live in hope, 2 hops!

Gaffney's in Fairview has a decent pint of Stout and is never overly busy on Match day. Just far enough away from the madding crowd.

We would all do well to remember this pearl from Mike H

“After 50 plus years supporting The Mayo Team from Dublin to London, Cork and New York ect .
I have discovered I know nothing about how a Mayo team will play in any given Game”

Sooooo true!

https://www.gaa.ie/article/referees-appointed-for-this-weekend-s-allianz-league-finals

David Coldrick confirmed for Sunday.

@to win just once…really good post.

Honest question to all, would you feel like celebrating a trophy despite the fact that several teams didn’t have any interest in it? Look, it’s always a pleasant feeling watching a Mayo captain climb the steps of the Hogan Stand but there’s only one cup that matters and the league trophy has never had less importance and that’s the GAA’s fault. For me, I’d be a bit embarrassed if I saw much or any celebrating. I’d be more enthusiastic after a Connacht title cos at least it’s championship and has some bearing on your All Ireland prospects. A league title has none and history tells us, it’s more of a hindrance. It’s a pity. What the GAA should have done is deemed whoever topped the table as winners. No league finals. It would have meant every team would have gone for it and we wouldn’t have had Jimmy playing a much weakened team and Joyce not playing Shane Walsh.

It really is far from ideal that we play Sligo 7 days later. Bonkers. I’d also be concerned about injuries (playing 3 weeks in a row - Flynn absolutely needs a few weeks off). But because if our terrible score difference in the league, we had no choice but to go and win our final two games to be sure of staying in the division.

The Mayo team wont change much from the last game V Kerry
Colm Reape; Jack Coyne, Donnacha McHugh, Enda Hession; Stephen Coen, David McBrien, Sam Callinan; Frank Irwin, Matthew Ruane; Fenton Kelly, Darren McHale, Jordan Flynn; Aidan O'Shea, Ryan O'Donoghue, Jack Carney.

However Kerry had a much different team from the Mayo game to the Galway game

Kerry: Shane Ryan (replaced by Shane Murphy); Damien Bourke (Paul Murphy), Jason Foley, Dylan Casey; Graham O’Sullivan (Gavin White) , Mike Breen, Brian Ó’Beaglaoich; Diarmuid O’Connor (Sean O brien -positional) , Joe O’Connor; Darragh Lyne (Michael Burns), Paudie Clifford, Armin Heinrich (Graham O Sullivan -positional); David Clifford, Paul Geaney, Dylan Geaney.
In the Subs - they had a lot more experience coming on in Barry Dan O'Sullivan, Tony Brosnan and Killian Spillane

There was a point in it on 49 min - and Kerry brought on the three lads and Damien Burke between the 47 and 54th minute and ended up 8 points up 12 mins later. - A GAA bomb squad.
Galway had a strong team to start but only had Johnny Heaney, Jack Glynn, Jack O'Neill and Cian Hernon coming on to match then - a substitution disaster is ever there was one.

Mayo are normally slow to make substitutions - I fear the game will get away from them when Kerrys bench comes on and Mayo will react to slow.