Wilie Joe, just a small bit of house keeping, the kerry game needs to be switched to a 3pm start in the fixtures section

Well done Paul. A bright spark on a dark day. Hopefully we see much more of it.

Congrats to Towey. On a crapoy day at least he was a big positive.

I've always thought this lad had something about him. I remember a game Charlestown v Garrymore a few years back when he was knocking them over from all angles and gave a Hession a tough time. That game is on Youtube.

This is a different level of course but the signs are good and he will benefit from a run of games.

Well done to Paul. Good to see him putting his hand up...his patience might be rewarded now.

Well done to Paul, noticeable also that the players high in the votes are relative newbies. Need to keep giving these game time plus a few more. Now there is a risk that Kevin could rush back players due to risk of relegation, he needs to stick to his guns IMO as it could pay off later in the summer. Galway last year where in a similar position and by default ended up finding / bringing in additional players that ultimately paid off albeit they did try and bring back and use injured players to early in some instances.

Mind the House, he roasted Hession (who seems to be back fit and playing well by the way) last year, including beating him for pace which is something that is too often held against Towey. McStay needs to play him in every league game now from the start and give him the backing he deserves. He will flourish.

Put towey at 15 and rod at 11. Rod is a very good creator which is what we need further out the pitch. Hopefully he has a better day against tyrone

Towey played well in the first half but was quiet throughout the second half, save for the last 5-10 minutes of the game. He was still overall probably the best Mayo player on the day.

I hope that he can string a few good performances together back to back now. Nail down a jersey.

in terms of babtising new players, the management need to stick to the plan. a hardened Galway panel are in the realm of serious contenders, for us, a top 8 will be a realistic achievement.
I enjoyed Michael Ds commentary on Sunday, it was a very good 'radio' commentary in that he named the player in possession and their location on the field. if Carney could be limited to analysis when the ball is out of play or there is a time out for injury stoppage
one astute observance from Carney, we are playing old style with new rules. there will be a price to be paid if we do not adjust.
Fair play to Towey and Boland, they took on the posts when the chances presented themselves. the percentage conversions will improve with gametime and we will move into the new game.
Towey gets just reward for perseverance and self belief.

Plunkett, I agree. Something has to be done with Rod as his performances have declined so much. Also, Boland needs to keep his place. He missed his shots v Galway but this is rare and Mayo have so few players who have his courage to take on the shots from distance.

@ontheditch: It's a little early yet to read into any trends, but just starting to put together some numbers on those so happy to throw them out seeing as you mentioned it. It'll be interesting to see how they evolve as the more experienced lads filter back into contention.

- Towey, Reid, Irwin & Kelly have already increased upon their minutes from last years league (between injuries & selection no terribly high bars set for any of them there).
- League debuts made for Neary, McHale & Morahan so record years set for them already.
- The 8 panel exits last year saw a total of 593 league minutes between them (from James with just the 20 mins up to Cillian doubling most of the rest with 158 mins) compared to the 3 debutants seeing 232 already or a total of 652 from the 7 lads that are already ahead of last years minutes.

So already a suggestion of minutes going to the new(er) blood. Forced as it may be at the moment.

Possibly of interest, the (rough - based on the age they'll be on the 31st December this year) average age of the players used hasn't shifted much. We'd have opened last year with ~25.5 & 25.4 while kicking off this year with ~25.2 & ~25.4, though big shifts in the experience of lads involved so much newer if not quite much younger. That's as much a measure of how young many key members of the squad were last year as anything else.

5 of our top 9 minutes from last year yet to see grass (Coyne, Carney, Flynn, Conroy & O'Shea) and 11 of the 36 that saw minutes last year yet to play again (while still being involved), so a lot of room for things to change significantly in terms of where minutes are going over the coming 7 weeks.

Personally, I'd have far more joy in feeling a couple of Reid, Neary, Towey, Irwin, McHale, Ivers, Kelly, Morahan, Coggins, Treacy, Thornton or Morahan were claiming or pushing hard for a Championship spot than I would from scraping 5-6 points for safety (you'd have to think the first 4 are already putting their hands firmly in the air). Plenty of silver lining for us to cling on to in giving up & coming young lads D2 minutes to build that touch more confidence next year if the 'worst case' happened.

Sunday was a tough day, but a beating like that has been coming for a while. We just don't have the midfielders and we won't be anywhere close to an All Ireland until we unearth at least one new option there. For this season our best options are Flynn and the O'Shea for a half when we are with the breeze, he'll struggle for mobility but at least he'll catch a ball and is a good kickpasser. I don't know what's gone wrong with Carney, very poor in club championship and very lateral in his play last season, I hope he proves me wrong and has a cracker of a season but I just can't see it. Tuohy has been pretty disappointing but I do think with some more S&C he's our best long term option at midfield but he needs to get the finger out and push on.

At the back, it's amazing how much gametime Coen and Brickenden have got over the last 2 seasons are so, sorry to say but neither them are up to the required standard. Callinan for me is way overhyped, decent player but looks awkward on the ball and isn't a man marker. I would however give him a couple of games in half back line. We are badly in need of 2 touch tight markers at corner back, amazing to think Mchale from Knockmore and Tighe from Ballina never got a chance. Eoin O'Donoghue and Ivers deserve a chance at this stage, if they aren't good enough then so be it, but we can't afford to be standing off forwards and letting them shoot at will like the last day. Morohan done pretty well and would persist with him. I hate to imagine what score Darragh Canavan will put up the next day if we stick with yesterdays back 6.

Up top, Towey and Neary doing well, Reid not bad either, would be great if he could put on another stone of muscle or so as he's very athletic and could be an option for midfield. Stick with Boland, he's our best kickpasser and always has the head up looking to kick a pass, had an off day Sunday but at least he's having a go. ROD is very out of form, watched him for NUIG against UL and he wasn't at the races that day either, wouldn't worry about him long term. Can't say I was too impressed with Cian McHale the two times I've watched him for UL, played corner forward both days but just doesn't show for the ball enough. He's young though and may be worth a game or two at CHF as he's another who has a good boot on him. Darran McHale has been around the panel for a long time now but can't really recall him ever taking the game by the scruff of the neck. Can't help but feel that Justin Healy would be a super option at full forward for us, baffling to think he's not even on panel. Himself, ROD and Towey would be one hell of a full forward line. Not convinced with Irwin but another who deserves a bit of gametime around the middle as he's a big unit.

DOC's injury record now is very concerning, played a huge amount of football in his early years with Mayo and seems to have caught up with him last couple of years, still worth having as a bench option or potentially at CHB if his injury isn't too serious.

Management for me should have gone after the Derry match, some baffling decisions on the sideline that day and things most certainly have not improved. Don't see what they are offering at this stage and have zero confidence in them, appreciate the time and effort they put in but think they should do the right thing and go now and give a new management a couple of league games to try and get a grip on things, otherwise it will be another limp exit at quarter final stage at best.

If Flynn and O'Shea are available the next day I'd be going with the following:

Reape
O'Donoghue-McBrien-Mchugh
Morahan-Ivers-E McLaughlin
Flynn-O'Shea
Neary-Boland-Hession
ROD-Reid-Towey

Subs-Phillips-Callinan-Carney-Tuohy-F McLaughlin-Kelly-Ruane-Loftus-C McHale-Irwin

Great analysis as always Tsu. It's not all doom and gloom.
I'd love if you could do something on "style of play"
From once we win possession in our own half and initiate a 'Play'. What percentage of our plays involve speedy movement into opponents half and what percentage involve slow build up. How do we compare in terms of a top team in these respects. What percentage of our plays end up as a scoring chance in relation to our 'plays'
I know you would have to put in constraints in terms of categorising our plays etc.
My guess is that our style has not changed from last year. And I'm also guessing we are heavily reliant on slow build up, in Comparison to a top team. I'd also guess that the number of goal chances we create as a consequence is way less than a top team.
Thanks again, your posts always generate a healthy bit of discussion and your analysis has great depth.

Eyesontheball I thought I'd read something recently about Healy being in the panel, it's a shame to hear he's not. He's a super ball winner and we know all about his scoring prowess.

At last the management is giving Towey game time. He is a natural scorer but he is in and out of the team. Find his best position and leave him there. Also he needs service like any good forward.

Another negative of Cillian's absence this year will be the chance for the chasing pack to eat into his top scorers chart,with the outside arc scores. Especially since he was well fit to bag a few of those himself.

Is Aaron McDonnell on the panel? He seemed to play well in one game and was never tried again

Plunkett. He left the panel with the others.

Eyesontheball Best post I've seen on here for years and what most people that know anything about football are thinking. The League is the time to shuffle the deck and your team backed by sensibility does that. As Anne Marie said Healy is available give him at least 2 matches and mgmt will see what he's worth. I don't know anything about him myself.
Congrats to Towey and hopefully he gets a good run. GBXI I'm surprised that Towey has more pace than Hession but I'll take your word for it.

I should have said.
Healy instead of ROD as ROD needs to rest and he will be fine when he recharged the batteries.
Was ROD in USA?

@sticks, I'm not saying he has more pace than Hession, especially when you see the way Hession scythes thru the opposition press when he's in the mood, but Towey's not a slow as people make out.

@TsuDhoNim, brilliant analysis, really great work. Puts things in perspective and offers some hope for the future. The crucial thing though is who will be coaching and managing them because unfortunately if it's the current management then I'd worry.
@Eyesontheball, hard to disagree with much of your post. At the time I had some sympathy for McStay as we had lost games we should have closed out and the players must take the majority of the blame there. But, taking the season as a whole + our lack of progress, blunt and laboured attack + players stepping away + timid presence on the line and with the media + terrible use of the bench, he should have gone once the county board mentioned the review. He should have said back me now or I'm gone.
We are where we are, we have to allow the new players time to grow and make their mistakes and let's see where the next month takes us.

In all honesty how could anyone see a different scoreline when both panels were released. That was Galway with an all ireland final team bar comer whereas mayo had so many newbies. I am years reading here from posters who say the league is meaningless and it is more important to find new players. Well Sunday a couple of new players stood up but I don't see many standing by those ideas now and it seems like the league means something after all. Hold off on the frustrations for a while and see what happens

Can anyone answer me this. You get a black card during a game now, is it 10 minutes of time from the offence or is it 10 minutes on the referees stopwatch. Sorry if it's a stupid question.

Is Rte Player the greatest pile of shite that was ever created ? Trying to find the Galway game on the phone and it ain't there. In fact i can't find any Gaa for that matter.

@Richie duck: Ten minutes of game time on the clock, intended to help remove the head-holding or contact lens finding time-wasting nonsense.

So if it happened at 42:21 you'd be allowed back on at the next break in play following 52:21on the clock (or on the refs stopwatch if no clock is available, but with him also applying the same stops to his stopwatch we'd see in locations with a clock/hooter).

@Paddyjoejohntom: The Mayo v Galway game? It was TG4.

https://www.tg4.ie/en/player/categories/sport-tv-player/play/?pid=6368163845112&title=Maigh%20Eo%20v%20Gaillimh&series=GAA%20Beo&genre=Sport&pcode=746637

Thanking you. Figured as much. Club game's are going to be some craic. League here in Wicklow starts next weekend. Going to be a pantomine

Is Healy available? He absolutely needs some games. If he was from a senior club he’d be with Mayo for years now…..

What’s that??

Divisional teams??? Here’s an absolute fact:- Mayo continue to lose talent due the system and structures our County board oversee. Kerry meanwhile are masters. What the most glaring difference in their club set up? Divisional teams. Look at all the stars they’ve had from small junior clubs.

Beating this drum for years and again cannot understand why media and pods aren’t pushing this more. Way too much pally stuff. It’s a feckn No-Brainer

Sports fans react very similarly in bad times, I follow a soccer team in England (not MUFC) who are currently struggling and many similar comments to what are on the blog these days. While I love different sports, I only dip in and out of the negative stuff, for me, sport is an interest, and while many of the comments are valid, for me, it creeps into OTT territory pretty quickly, which bores me.
So while Mayo's performances are disappointing, I am old enough to not let it get me down too much.I am really interested in the impact of the new rules on gaelic football. I think that these will be a real positive and make the game more watchable. Those teams with good forwards will make hay this year, and it is more entertaining to watch as a neutral. It is true that some teams will take heavy beatings but that was always the case. I wonder did the FRC expect that they would be this effective?

Boyler finally said it we have a bunch of softies.
Jordan Flynn, ROD ,Diarmuid O'Connor, Aidan O'Shea and maybe Enda Hession and David McBrien are the only exceptions the rest are choirboys.

Well done to Towey, took plenty of shots and scored plenty.
I was away for the weekend and having watched back, am not as negative as many here.
Firstly the people talking about our S&C are talking absolute Shite. There's no way Buckley has dropped the standard he set over the years. I didn't see too much difference between the teams on that front, similar altheticism, certainly similar amount of posession and won plenty of our own kickouts (almost 100% in the 1st half). Yes Galway were better (had more turnovers) but we had a rawer team out, put our top 15 vs theirs and there wouldn't be a lot in it. Indeeed it's not out of the question that we did a hard session nearer the weekend than Galway, often is the case in the league with a short Window to Championship. We see teams have a good week followed by a bad one and vice versa.
I have a couple of gripes one of which can be addressed, our poor response to the new rules. This was responsible for almost all of the margin of victory. In contrast, Galway I think only screwed up once in the game. The 2nd free we conceded for 3 up was highlighted to officials by the Galway player when a Mayo man went 1 foot over the line, I wonder did our players miss any such breaches by the opposition and not roar at the officials? Secondly, a very soft 2 pointer was awarded where Conroy ran into Bric and duped the referee. Bringing a rule breach free out for a 2 pointer seems a very excessive rule and it should be dropped. It's punishment enough to be given a gimme free in front of the posts, I say that about all games not just ours. Clifford will bring every one of these out all year and make hay.
I think it's fair that some here are upset at comments McStay made on the new rules so if Management does one thing for the rest of the league, it's get this right.
The gripe that's harder to fix is our lateral play. We had opportunities to get fast ball in over the top with men free and the passer didn't try it. One lovely one to Towey at the end and he scored. Galway were also guilty of lateral ponderous build up play especially in their previous game (sending off helped them) but they stuck at their task better than Armagh and took their opportunities vs us (low wide count).
Another point being made incorrectly is on Ryan's form. He won a good bit of ball and got some class passes off. Teams look to nullify him. He didn't get many scoring opportunities, fair play to McGrath who's the best one v one marker the game has seen since Chris Barrett. Most forwards get little change from him. Ryan got turned over about 3 times which is rare but still had a decent impact on the game. Walsh's impact was overstated (did most damage from frees not play bar a good start to the game); their best player was once again Conroy. Our FB line wasn't roasted or anything like it, in fact none of Galway's starting FF line troubled the scoreboard much and Hessian made many good elusive runs out of trouble in defense. And again contrary to comments some made, Maher didn't bully our lads. More shite talk. I'd be critical of Boland in this game and one or 2 more only because he missed, but he often scores; he's simply trying to take advantage of the new rules so no major gripe. Also we had 3 goal chances. Galway had one or 2 also which were lamely hit at Colm who closed down fairly well as did Devanney at theother end. Donnacha McHugh had free a man outside for his and hit a poor shot off his left, the other 2 were under a bit of pressure. The newbies all showed a bit better than the Dublin game and despite the scoreline (Morahan was probably the quietist of them but still looks unfazed at this level). I'd persist with them all. When the posse returns, Bric is the one I'd drop (for Flynn) and bring McBrien back to 3 where he's physical and his attacking is not noticeably better than any other of our half backs so we won't lose anything bringing him back. Further up, when AOS arrives back, I'd leave Irwin on until he tires and bring on Aido as a sub.
Another area I think we're behind most teams is in natural goal scorers. I think we need to do a lot of drills for this. Fair enough most teams are currently focused on 2 pointers not goals for now but Kerry bagged a hatfull Sunday so we need to plan for the days when we make those chances so we take them. I'd hazard a guess Aido is statistically our biggest goal threat, we need 4 or 5 who can stitch them.

Good post Shuffley Deck. Most importantly highlighting our need to have variation in our play. Players have been conditioned to think lateral when regaining possession in the Rochford/McStay era. We don't want the newbies to be dragged down to this level of thinking. Let's hope we start seeing fast ball over the top becoming a more active part of our play.

New pod up on Patreon - Rob and Mike joined by Colm Boyle and Billy Joe Padden to reflect on the Galway defeat and look ahead to the Tyrne game.

Nailed it their Shuffly, naivety on the rules gave them to many handy points. In the longer term this game could help him them to. To much lateral play in and around the arc and D need to be a bit more direct at times and take the shot sooner than the excessive recycling

Wonder, what is the chance of seeing Flynn, O'Shea next day, does Jack Carney have a injury, is Paddy Durcan & Tommy Conroy close to return. What D'OC out for a long time. is Jack Coyne still on panel. Love to see Conor Loftus back as well, but that going to be a hard personal decision. E Hession and M Plunkett, still on panel, or injured. While great to see new starters, such as C. McHale, C. Reid, and Neary, to deepen panel, need to start getting a system that works for us, and maybe the missing soldier are going to make a difference, but that an if

@mayotillidie: Hession has started both games, so certainly on the panel.

Jack Coyne has an injury we'd known about some time now. Was mentioned a few times by the lads on the pod in the lead in to the league.

Jack Carney was our planned ff/target man (helps put Frank's contributions there in context when he'd played most his pre-season around the middle to be parachuted in as first choice late on) and played well in a number of the challenge games. Picked up an issue very early against the Rossies, made it back to play against Westmeath but then injured again (a surprise to most so possibly last minute - similar with Eoghan) before the Dublin match. Expected to be back in contention for ~R4 or 5 (& like Eoghan or DO'C might yet surprise us in R3).

Michael Plunkett (along with CO'C, Byrne, Hennelly, Carr, O'Hora, McStay, McDonnell & Hunt from last year) isn't involved with the panel.

As for club/rested lads coming back.... Will all depend on their specific situations. You'd expect the Cross lads could do with a break given the emotions of events. That said, depending on the individual the normality of being in with the panel (you'd hope like family) could aid the mourning & grieving so swings & roundabouts. For Aido or injured lads very much a piece of string time. Could be R3 or R7.

Understand people say results aren’t important in the league if you’re making progress in player development but I really think we need to beat Tyrone if only for a confidence factor , too many losses won’t bode well for a squad like ours that look fragile enough mentally .

Towey is certainly accurate when he has a bit of space - which it certainly looks like the new rules will provide inside forwards. I was at Gaelic Park the day he kicked 1-18 in the Chicago championship, and I know you'll all say it was summer ball, 13v13 etc. But he was marked by Michael McKernan from Tyrone that day and 1 v 1 Towey roasted him. At one stage Rian O'Neill went to full back to throw Towey some physical stuff and it didn't bother him in the slightest. Hopefully he gets a proper run at this, he's the only 1 even attempting to put his hand up as a scoring inside forward right now.

To windy city, how right you are. He needs to be played more often. No having him in and out of the team. He knows how to score, but needs quality balls in.

@Shuffly, I agree with a lot of your post but disagree on Ryan. He has regressed in my opinion. He hasn't been good since before McStay (no slight on the management). He's had some good games but generally his form has declined and especially since the start of 2023. He turns over a lot of ball in position and doesn't score from play much at all. He's link play has never deteriorated. I'm not being harsh but he's supposed to be the marque forward for Mayo and he's in his prime. There isn't a notion of him being dropped so hopefully he plays his way back into form.