A positive start to the Club Championships in all grades, generally good scores put up compared to last year. I didn't get much info on scorers etc so was wondering who stood out and showed potential or improvement with an eye as always on the County team?

So Ryan o Donoghue missed the biggest game of Belmullet’s season today even though he was sitting on the sideline, because he played a few games in a glorified exhibition competition in Chicago over the last few weeks?

The whole thing around players going to the USA is a joke. First we delay the club championship starting by a month later than it should have. Then the best footballer in the county misses out on his clubs most important match of the year, because of US GAA rules.

mayo_joe it is absolutely crazy and the GAA/gpa ah e to rethink this before congress.The split season is supposed to help clubs but when a team gets knocked out before July 1st then players are being offered huge money to go to the states and when they come back not allowed to play…it should be between the two clubs involved and not a stupid 60day rule

Have to*

Watched Breaffy v Kilmeena and Claremorris v Belmullet. Talk about chalk and cheese!

Breaffy v Kilmeena was littered with unforced errors, poor execution of basic skills, handpassing, picking the ball off the ground, kick passing and shooting. And poor decision making. Little to no high fetching. No big moments. It was a hard watch and lacked any real ‘championship intensity’. None of the county players, senior or u20 level, had performances that would set them apart in any way at all. I felt the Breaffy midfielder Niall Carter, looked industrious and has potential. That was about it.

Claremorris v Belmullet on the other hand was a brilliant match. It had high catching, intensity, slick movement with good accurate kick passing, link play and lots of big moments. Belmullet had fine performances from Nallen in goal (pulled off two crucial saves) and was generally composed. Lavelle at corner back was lively and zippy. Ivers was electric in the first half. If he can play like that consistently throughout championship he should be looked at. He was very strong, lads bouncing off him. He could move with the ball, break tackles and score too. Was a bit more subdued 2nd half but overall an impressive performance. Belmullets two midfielders did very well as did their no.11. Big rangy lads. Up front Murray was jinky and clever on the ball. Put Rod back in and that’s a really decent team. EOD will be very disappointed with himself. Belmullet had control at that time and his dismissal changed the momentum back in Claremorris favour.

Claremorris were really enjoyable to watch. They looked to go direct as often as they could which Belmullet allowed them do for the first 20 mins before somewhat closing space. The young lads Beirne and Niall Hurley were really impressive. Both can be very pleased with their performances in terms of work rate, application and influence. Some lovely scores kicked. I suspect they’ll be afforded less space from now on. The only real obvious area where Claremorris were weak was in their tackling in defence they gave away loads of frees. They’ll need to do better in this regard if they have ambitions to advance further because there’ll be a day when their good young forwards are shut down. Gilmore deserves mention for a solid game, chipped in with two scores. Overall it was a really good match with lots of fine individual performances, so I’m sure I’m leaving out several names.

The Evan Ivers goal was class. I remember seeing Evan Ivers U17 against Roscommon and thinking he had potential. He's quick and he has a bit of weight and timber to him. One on one you won't stop him, he's far too quick and strong.
We need to have better scouting in place, how is a lad that athletic and strong and he's never been in a Winter panel?

Was at 5 games the weekend and the most impressive player i seen was Ivers from Belmullet, serious drive and leadership, lads hopping off him. Also impressed with Liam Lavin from aghamore.

Was at Belmullet v Claremorris game, really entertaining and good football played by both teams. Claremorris have some lovely young forwards and was impressed with Ivers for Belmullet. Felt the sending off completely changed the game as Belmullet were in control at the time and they might feel a bit unlucky as Claremorris players had two very similar incidents to the sending off but only got yellow cards. Good to see two teams really going for it with open foot football

How was Eoin O'Donoghue? Again a player I really like that I think has been underused by Mayo. He's a good kick passer who gets the odd score also. Has a serious Sigerson career under his belt also. He's also pretty rugged and tough.

Was at the kilmaine v kiltane game and it was a great game of football with some fantastic long range scores from Adam barrett and hugh o loughlin and a great corner forward performance from Brendan Sheridan. It was great to see open football with plenty of scores though maybe it was the long range points that made the game look less defensive. Kiltane added to the spectacle also with fine scores but kilmaine put themselves in a great position considering ballinrobe v moy davitts finished level the previous evening

A positive thing was the closeness of the scores in quite a number of the games. Not many one sided games and some decent scores run up as well. Better to see somewhat more attacking play. The whole US thing needs to be looked at. There is a huge temptation for county players to head off once the county team is knocked out of championship and it is now having an impact on club championship some two months later

@JP, Eoin had an average game. That’s about it. Belmullet. Claremorris looked in trouble midwsy through 2nd half and Eoin must have lashed out off the ball (I didn’t see it, but there didn’t appear to be much disputing the decision from Belmullet). It was a time when Belmullet needed calm heads and leadership and unfortunately for Eoin he appears to have let them down. That’s why I said earlier he’ll be disappointed. He’ll miss the next game now and someone like him, having been on the periphery of the Mayo squad, you’d imagine would have been gunning to have big championship to prove his worth. He didn’t do much yesterday and now he’ll potentially only have one game to showcase his ability if Belmullet fail to advance from their group. However, if they play like they did yesterday but don’t leave acres of space in front of their full back line, like they did for the opening 20mins then they’ll trouble any team and with ROD back they have a good chance still to finish in the top two.

Fair play Blondie11 - that's dedication!

How strong are Hurley and Beirne? Can they step up, what about conditioning?

Noticed a lot of draws.

It is absolutely insane that Ryan o Donohue was on the sideline and not on the field of play yesterday. Belmullet would have won the game with ryan playing. It is an absolute joke and the result probably knocks belmullet out of the championship after the group stage.

@catcol, they look in good nick but certainly cannot judge a guy from one senior championship outing and Belmullet gave them a lot of space in the first half. That being said, they looked very comfortable and both took some very nice scores. Its often been said, and rightly so, that someone with intercounty aspirations needs to stand out consistently or over a consistent period of time at senior club level, so let’s see which lads are doing it over the next month or two.

As for at intermediate level. A lad with ambition to play senior intercounty should be burning things up at that level and at junior should be blitzing it!!

We've had too many lads remain on the panel being at best steady at all three grades.

@Jimbo I think it is right,I think next year you won't be allowed play for 3 months after returning.
Not fair to hold up the complete championship to accommodate lads going to USA.
Championship should have started a few weeks ago.

@Jr. What I meant is if players and students are home from America and are not suspended for being sent off in games they should be allowed play. The championship should not be held by anybody. I just hate to see fit players on the sideline and not on the field of play. (Ryan was standing on the sideline all during the game encouraging the team)

Thoroughly enjoyed the Aghamore/Ballintubber game on Saturday but it was bettered on Sunday with the Claremorris/Belmullet encounter. Don't think there's much to add on what's already been posted about both games except to say referee Paul Lydon deserves a mention on his performance. Even handed and unfussy with no histrionics his handling definitely helped make it a real spectacle. Shame he had to red card EOD but the blame lies with the player. Completely agree with the posters slamming the ridiculous rule keeping Ryan out of yesterday's game.

Joeg ref lydon was very good but linesman umpires and sideline officials didn’t help him apart from the linesman on the stand side in second half

@joeg Lydon is one of the better refs in the county, no doubt about that but he did let one particular Claremorris player away with a yellow for a very similar incident to the one the Belmullet player got sent off for, which ultimately changed the course of the game. Would probably have been a different result if consistency was applied. The whole America thing needs to be looked at, unbelievable that a player of the quality of O'Donoghue was not allowed to play

ROD done his hamstring in the US

Players who are trending towards Kevin mcstay having a look at them in fbd league who have never been in with mayo before:

[Deleted].

Evan Ivors, 23 year old bull for belmullet at centre back. Big strong and physical. Worth a look certainly, reminds me of Donal Vaughan.

Caolach halligan, kilmeena. Big full forward who can play ball. Offers a different dynamic than other inside forwards with his running power.

Conor Mcgraynor, man mountain midfielder from Westport, former Louth panelist, would be be interested though? Hard to tell.

Conal Dawson (Westport), half forward who takes free kicks with his left foot.

Shaun Dempsey (Balla) kept Colm moran as quiet as a mouse and is a really good player on the ball also. We aren't exactly stacked in the full back line so worth a look.

Retrocut - I know you're only trying to share informative insights but this isn't the first time you've posted personal information on here about an underage player. Please use a bit more cop-on when contributing here. If a player is underage and still at school you need to be way more circumspect in what you say about them on a public forum.

If as reported on the Irish Examiner some County Bord officials want change in McStays backroom team I would not be surprised if we end up without a manager.

I'm not convinced, yet, that Halligan has the speed for IC level and by that I just don't mean running speed but general movement, turning and kicking. You get far less time at the top level. Split second stuff really. Halligan was easily Kilmeena's best player against Breaffy (not that many played particularly well), he won some ball impressively and kicked some lovely points. He's a big unit and 30 years ago would have been a safe bet to be playing IC but the game has changed, and I said it here last year, that he'd be easy enough marked by a top IC defender. I could be wrong so in fairness to him, let's see what he does in the next two games.

If Haligan was good enough surely Meath would have played him.

JR it's only a guess, but it's more likely that's coming from managements media men than the CB.

Gizmo. Not saying you’re wrong but I don’t understand what the management team would gain by starting a rumour like that. I would have thought it would only bring unnecessary attention to them.

Nephin, vice versa it does nothing good for the CB either who are already getting plenty of it for all sorts, so Why bring heat on themselves? Especially with review tomorrow. I'm sure virtually everyone has heard the persistent rumours around possible changes.

The way examiner piece is written also is unusual it reads like these past 2 years have been Rochfords management team, and McStay may now move some own to put his stamp on things:
"Following a disappointing season, McStay may choose himself to reshape his own non-playing team. The review is expected to be completed shortly.
Stephen Rochford is McStay’s assistant manager. Donie Buckley was also a coach during Rochford’s time as Mayo manager, while Damien Mulligan is a Crossmolina club-mate and former team-mate of Rochford’s. Joe Canney previously played under Rochford when he was Corofin manager."

So rather than looking like the bad guy moving lads along, it's CB who are putting pressure for change.

Of course if Kevin believes that he, and the team he has assembled is what's needed to win Sam, which you'd imagine he must as he's one that sold it to the CB, He'll be telling the CB where to go and continue with his plans with the current backroom team, which has already changed quite considerably in two years.

Ballina going well again all eyes where on westport including mine after their league win but I don't think ballina will let go that easily but it's hard to do back to backs.

Ivers goal was impressive he definetly has some potential...

Regards the piece in examanier interesting.
But not really that surprising if county board do want changes after the way we exited this year and Liam mc hale stepping away it seems off to me.

@Gizmobobs agree with you there I think mcstay will be saying that to but this is the last chance I'd say as I said a semi final is a must as a minimum or else we need a total change we arent far away from the other teams that are out there at the moment but to not qualify for the quarters was soo dissapointing to be honest.

@ JR, if McStay can't see he needs to shake things up a bit, he needs to go. However, I agree with Gizmobobs that the story may not be emanating from the CB.

[Deleted].

Cp - I've had to delete that comment as there's no way of confirming the veracity of the remarks you claim to have heard and it reflects badly on the match official in question, who could easily be identified.

All - this is the second loose comment in a few hours I've had to delete. I'd ask everyone please to consider a bit more carefully what they post before hitting Send.

Jayo anyone?

Feels far more like a "we haven't talked about mayo recently and readers are down" kind of article imo

Willie Joe-Shouldn’t have mentioned officials.wont happen again

No worries, Cp, thanks for that.