All the best to them, will need a good defensive display to get through this one...

Agree thedarkyfinn defense will decide the outcome of this one

https://mayogaa.com/2025/05/16/mayo-senior-football-team-announced-24/
Senior team out too, no Diarmuid, Paddy on bench

Best of luck to the lads....I expect a shoot-out.

Meaneys kickouts were very high and took a long time to drop, making life difficult for our fielders. Hopefully, Dolans are an improvement. If they are, I would be confident we will win enough possession to feed our inside trio of forwards. Best of luck lads.

No shhot out i expect Mayo to win it well .If we winning i would be giving the subs a run out .

Thankfully I don’t have too far to travel to this one. For those driving to the game this evening there’s parking in the Axis Shopping Centre, which is right beside the ground. There’s an Esquire’s coffee shop and a McDonald’s in the shopping centre. There’s also a Circle K forecourt very close to the ground.

Good luck to the lads this evening.

Maigh eo Abu

Louth's pace and physicality asking plenty of questions of Mayo in the opening 15 mins.

Could one team wear a white strip.

That full forward line should be out against Cavan, defence not great

Good spell by Mayo U20s to score 4 points in a row to level it up.

We are right up against it here

Like a hot knife through butter for that 2nd Louth goal, haven't improved defensively from the Connacht final.

Wide open at the back. The backs should stay back. Kick the ball into the full forward line.

Omg I’m saying it all this campaign, we are incredibly wide open at the back- we need concede goals for fun. Either management are incapable of formulating a plan or, our defenders are overrated. I dunno. But either way it’s so frustrating.

Ya Louth getting their scores handier...need Mc Greal to come at right corner and,missing Ollie Armstrong 's physicality.
We'll have to work hard to win this one. Will need some of those goal chances to go in 2nd half.
High quality stuff all round though.
Fair play to both.

Very poor standard of football all round first 10 minutes of second half
Feels like Louth are there for the taking though

two fatigued looking sides in the 2nd half now. Serious pace 1st half played in that heat. Big save to prevent a 3rd Louth goal.

Dare I say that Tom Lydon is reminiscent of a young Cillian ……

Mayo 1 point in front there to be won if good enough now.

We have some forward talent coming through for sure

Jesus they definitely should have been allowed the attack at least

Cant really complain about that game...great excitment till the end. The pitch looked short but plenty of two pointers there.Teams very evrnly matched. Mind you I only saw second half.

Hard one to take that defeat.

God almighty, I really don't want to be too hard on them, they are only 19/20 years old, but why oh why there in added time did they mayo guy go kicking the ball out of defence like that, to a 50/50 ball at best. Should have held onto it, they had worked the turn over so well...

A game of fine margins, missing the mark to take the lead and then when we had the ball in defense we just booted it away and handed louth the ball back to win the game with the final score.

That last 2 point free for louth was a complete joke. Can you not put a hand on a lad now, contactless. Then to blow it up on the stroke of 4 mins. Give the ref a jersey. Sickening. Gave up too easy goals for our part, ran straight through us. Can't happen. What a forward line though. What we've been playing for. Up mayo

Yes, they are 19 year olds, so less of the shite about "bottle".
There were a couple of daft decisions, a wild shot for a two pointer when loads of space to work a one-pointer, and the long cross field ball that led to Louth's winner.
Louth had a better structure to their defence, there was never the space for our forwards to exploit, whereas in the first half in particular, there was acres of space in our defence.
I thought we had a few lads play below their best this evening, while others were excellent.
We needed everyone to be at their best. In the longer term, there are several really good prospects for the senior team, which is what it's all about really.

Exactly @culmore.what a daft thing to do in soloing away from goal with seconds left and a point down. I know it might be youth but my god I'd expect anyone in that position to drive towards goal.

Calm down everyone, this was an underage game and reaction to it needs to be tempered accordingly. I don’t like some of what I’m seeing so far and I’m not going to be charitable to those who go OTT. You have been warned.

Can only think the lad holding the ball at the end thought there was a hooter
It’s stupid that they have all the other rules but one one key rule changes depending on competition.

The problem with two points for free was laid bare tonight. A very very soft free was worth two points and a place in the all Ireland final . Have been against it from the start

Fair enough wj , it’s just very disappointing that we seem to be very lost in game management and it’s a common theme with Mayo . Someone said above the ref should of allowed the play develop but that’s the damn point , if you’re watching football all your life you really should know the vast majority of time in that situation the ref will allow it develop if played forward , ya go back that’s it you’re done . I don’t hold any specific player accountable this is a real issue with mayo football these clutch moments in tight games . You need management screaming , what is this beta shit with mayo management , why are we not assertive on the line and deliver the message.

Very disappointing- but thought the better team won on the night.
Louth kicked an array of poor wides at the start or second half.
Mayo couldn’t get enough ball to their hitmen.

Some of the comments are a disgrace. Loads to be positive about and plenty of talent coming through.

Louth didn't win the game because of a soft two point free they won it by a fisted point after we booted the ball away when in possession we just weren't calm enough in the last few minutes these lads will learn, so much talent throughout this group.

Hard luck to the guys . They are young and up and coming . Plenty of time to improve .

The better team won . Also Louth are full of confidence after winning leinster to . They have a good underage system is well.

We still have good talent coming up .

Louth got in too easy for both goals. Mayo only scoring 14 times from 30 attempts proved costly in the end.

After reading some of these comments I'd wonder why a lad would be bothered dedicating his life to try and play for his county In the hope of getting an ai medal. It's worse it's getting

@Deel Rover agree these guys are underage like . One thing for seniors but guys 18 /19 give them a break like . Hugh O Loughlin will be great for us in future as well as some others it's not all doom and gloom .

Mayo fans are the best in the country cliche the last 10 years is the biggest myth, we had a once in a lifetime team from 2012 to 2017 and naturally it brought huge crowds, when the wheels are falling off , even when underage young lads aren’t doing well, were the most negative pessimistic fan base out there, hope I never hear that again that mayo have the best fans because it couldn’t be any more untrue

At least back in the day players would only get abuse if they met some daft lunatic in the street or having a pint after a match ,now it's continually in players faces , these players have family, some who might even read this forum. It's obvious by some of the comments made that some posters here have never had family play the game, otherwise they wouldn't be making such comments.

Disappointing one to lose, but as someone said already I do think Louth were the better team over the whole game. Mayo just seemed to play in fit and starts. The 2 goals we gave away were very soft! But I think we can all take solace in the fact that we seem to have FINALLY found some natural scoring forwards coming through. Going forward I just hope they are well nurtured and well coached so that we can fully enjoy seeing them on the senior team very soon!

Spot on Deel Rover. You'd wonder why they would bother. They are young lads who gave it their best. They deserve our thanks and encouragement,not the negativity and mostly ill founded criticism that came from earlier posters. If we want them to carry on and hopefully develop into senior players we have to stop this carry on.
This was the biggest match of their lives to date and they narrowly lost to a very good Louth team . They have nothing to apologise for.

We just didn’t win enough ball , that was the difference I thought, Louth dominated possession
For long spells.
Midfield so important now and Louth were stronger in That area. We would have won it with a bit
More possession but not to be unfortunately

Feel sick after that. Can only imagine how the lads feel.
KM79. Maybe you’re right about the lad waiting for the hooter but it’s not just in different competitions that it’s used or not. They don’t even use it in every intercounty Senior championship match. Someone said it’s only used in matches that are shown live on TV. Such nonsense, it should be there for every game or none at all.

Colm lynch looks very good. Showed real leadership with those two 2 pointers. Thought mayo played well. Louth have momentum as county and it was always an up hill battle to beat them. See nothing but positives. People giving out about u20 really should stop watching football and stop supporting mayo. You give the county a bad name and we as a county are better off without you

Fair play to Louth, must be serious work going on behind the scenes last 10 years, in what was soccer country.

Should have added, very proud of the team and all they achieved this year. Huge turnaround from last year where we finished bottom of 5 in Connacht. Better days ahead for lots of them. Just disappointed for the lads not to get a crack at Tyrone. I’m certainly looking forward to seeing many of them play senior for Mayo.

To be fair, the Louth #12, Grimes I think looks a real standout player and was the difference between the teams. Had the chances but Louth are a decent team, have strength around the middle third. A number of these lads are likely to play senior but may take a few years.

Match report up, Final Whistle pod up, time to hit the road!

I din't mention it in the match report but I did on the pod - the jersey clash this evening was beyond a joke from a colour-blind perspective.

@facetheball: "We just didn’t win enough ball , that was the difference I thought".

Always relatively true, if you win enough ball eventually at a point you'll win any game, but we had a majority of it so not the winning and losing of it today in my mind.

We won a small majority of our own kickouts (52%), broke even on theirs (50%) and won slightly more turnovers (16 v 15). We had plenty of the ball (producing 30 shots for us to just the 24 for them), we just weren't clinical enough in how we used it or able to cut through their back line in the way they managed to punch through ours for the goals (and goal chances).

They were tighter, more physical in the tackle and had our shooters under more pressure on most of the shots compared to what we could do to them at the other end. Even from set defence I'd imagine we broke even or potentially came out slightly ahead, but the minute they managed to get their running game going in transition we didn't have an answer to it. Whereas they found decent answers to all the questions we were trying to ask, setting up their sweepers perfectly to cut out the majority of balls we've been playing all year.

Very fine margins. A couple of the injured defenders available, a few lads having a better day in front of the posts or a touch more luck on the early goal chances and who knows what might have happened. As it panned out, Louth's setup was incredibly solid, they had the personnel to execute the jobs given and that bit more efficiency at both ends of the field carried them to the line.

Great game. A shame the lads don't get the experience of the big day out for the final, but plenty of development over the year for lads to push on in their development. 8 of the lads that featured today (& 5 of the starters) still underage next year. With plenty of those stepping out of the grade you'd expect to make a big splash on the Club Championship in the year ahead. Exciting times ahead, whether that's next years 20s again or some of the lads from today pushing on to senior competitions.

Big turning point with about 6 to go when Feeney was impeded from taking a quick free, should have been moved forward surely, but wasn't. Play broke down and lead to Grimes-Murphy 2 pointer to put us 1 behind at a time when we were in reasonable control.
It's the little things that catch you.
Great effort though.

Thought our kick outs when we were forced to kick long were hanging to long. Gave Louth a great chance to attack the call or break it. We unfortunately made a few poor errors that cost us. We also had a few players that were taking to much out of the ball, when a pass would have been on. But as already said these lads will learn and are only 19/20 years old. Some nice players involved tonight.I was disappointed to loose tonight but it is no all doom and gloom . Louth were very good and ther number 12 was a great man to carry the ball at speed.

In hindsight having Colm Lynch tagging Grimes Murphy was probably an error by management...he showed what he could do going forward when he got a bit of freedom.
Colm another who put in a massive shift.

@TsuDhoNim how many of tonight's starting 15 and subs brought on are U20 in 2026 again?

@MO2023: 5 of the starters (Mortimer, Coghill, Lynch, Beirne, Lydon), 8 of the lads that saw game time (+ McGreal, Neary, Carey) & 11 of the 24 named (+ Meaney, Guilfoyle, Butler [Daithí was a '24 minor, so underage for another 2 years yet]).

Coggins & Lavelle both featured this year and underage next year again too, but missed out tonight (& a couple of other nights) with injuries.

WJ , I don’t know how you could possibly do a match report on the game being colour blind. I’m in the same boat. I mentioned before that I got colour blind glasses recently and for the game tonight they were a great help. To my eye, Louth appeared to be in what I think is yellow and we were in a dark red. Completely useless in the Connacht final though. Anyway we shouldn’t have to resort to this after all the money we’ve given to the GAA over the last 60 years, or however long in each individual case.

@TsuDhoNim thanks.

2026 Mayo U20s should be favourite to win Connacht with the pick from 2023,2024 Connacht U17 winning teams and should be a few from their years U17s.

@Tsu…good post and an interesting one. Do you put Louth’s ability to defend better both from a structural set up and an individual tackling perspective down to better management and coaching? We have been so vulnerable at the back. It’s been staring us in the face for weeks and to the naked eye, little or nothing has been done by management to rectify that area of obvious concern. It just makes yesterdays defeat all the more disappointing.

The sad thing is that Louth have won Sam more recently than us, and will probably win it again before we do

@Mayonaze: Caveat in that it certainly wasn't helped with the lads missing through injury (Slattery was fantastic last year, Silke showed well last year and had been flying in Freshers, we never got both Coghill & McGreal on the pitch together until the last few minutes of the game yesterday, along with losing Coggins & Lavelle as options), but yeah. I'd never look to simplify it to being the only or the most important factor, but safe to say it was a factor.

Anyone in Louth or who'd watched them knew exactly what we'd face with their strong running game, but we hadn't adapted our own setup to counteract it. Too often the channels were wide open & their runners with the freedom of the park (as Mayo fans we know better than most how a running game suffers when they get clogged). Backing lads to always outplay their opponents 1v1 is lovely in theory, and came incredibly close to being successful yesterday given some of the talent on display (there's even a case for it being better for development where they're learning to play ball instead of learning to play specific tactics or setups), but at the top level it'll eventually fall short when you meet a quality side.

I should point out, saying we got outfoxed on the line isn't a damning indictment. Louth's Fergal Reel has brought success to a variety of clubs & setups before taking charge of their 20s (winning 3 Club titles in a 4 year stint with St.Patricks and then 2 in 2 years with Naomh Mairtin along with a Monaghan title outside of Louth - https://m.independent.ie/regionals/louth/sport/gaa/five-time-louth-gaa-sfc-winning-manager-fergal-reel-i-think-the-perception-is-a-bit-different-to-the-real-man/42257539.html), with some members of his current backroom team with him present on those big days too & who've also followed in his footsteps managing sides to county success. That's an awful lot of experience, success & knowing how to plug problematic gaps that got them over that tight line.