|
Post by dc84 on Aug 3, 2019 8:58:49 GMT
S bit of shadow boxing in Omagh as Mickey Joe Harte has made 15 changes to the last days team and panel. Dublin doing similar. Connolly named on matchday 26. What a farce that is ! Dubs have made 8 changes as well I think , it would take harte to take things to extremes
|
|
|
Post by Mickmack on Aug 3, 2019 9:11:34 GMT
Gavin increasingly sticking with tried and trusted as history beckons for Dublin For the first time in five summers, no new player has sealed a place in Dublin’s starting XV about 4 hours ago Malachy Clerkin
And so to the last game of the Super 8s. Or, as Dublin chose to use it last year, the day when the end-of-year medal order gets bulked out. A chance for the understudies in Jim Gavin’s extended panel to stride centre stage and send the headline acts to the wings for a bit.
The game against Roscommon on this weekend in 2018 saw the only snatches of game-time all summer for Conor Mullally, Mark Schutte, Paddy Small, Bernard Brogan, Eoghan O’Gara and Andrew McGowan.
It was the only start of the year for Darren Daly, Paul Flynn, Kevin McManamon, Colm Basquel and Cormac Costello. Bit-part players of varying hues, the 11 of them alone scored 3-19 between them that day, all but 0-4 of it from play. A sign of the indecently good health of the team behind the team that was carrying all before it.
But what of them this time around? The circumstances heading to play Tyrone tomorrow are different to last year’s Roscommon game in one significant respect – there is nominally something at stake for both sides in Omagh. Winner tops the group, loser comes second.
As a consequence, you’d imagine Gavin won’t be quite so scattershot with his munitions here. But with an All-Ireland semi-final down for decision six days later, he will presumably want to lighten the load somewhat on a few of the regulars.
He has in the past when the opportunity arose. Gavin’s use of his resources has been uncannily similar this year to what it was at the equivalent stage in 2018. In five games so far this summer, a core group of 10 Dublin players have started every game. It was nine after the first five games last year but presumably would have been 10 had Stephen Cluxton not had to sit out the Leinster final.
All nine of the ever-presents were rested against Roscommon – and eight of them didn’t see a minute of action. Only James McCarthy played any part that day, coming off the bench for Jack McCaffrey at half-time.
A measure of just where Gavin sees the stakes tomorrow will be how many of this year’s 10 he presses into action. For the record, they are: Cluxton, Mick Fitzsimons, McCaffrey, John Small, Brian Fenton, Brian Howard, Ciarán Kilkenny, Niall Scully, Con O’Callaghan and Paul Mannion.
There have been 19 different starters this time around, as opposed to 20 last year – again, Evan Comerford’s only championship start filling in for Cluxton in that Leinster final accounts for the discrepancy. And when it comes to the overall total of players used, the numbers are just as close – 26 this year, 27 last year.
The one figure where there seems to be a comparatively big gap between the two seasons is in the number of players who’ve been involved in every game – this summer it’s 15 whereas this time last year it was only 12. This could, of course, be complete happenstance. But equally, it could point to a certain narrowing of what Gavin considers to be his most trusted group as they set out for a summit no team in the GAA has ever reached before.
Fresh blood A few stray observations would seem to bear this out. For a start, this is the first summer in the past five seasons which hasn’t seen a new player cement his place in the Dublin starting team. A feature of each new title assault has been fresh blood in the side, not just nibbling around the edges but getting in and staying in.
Some had made subs’ appearances before, some hadn’t. But all became mainstays in the space of a season, seemingly learning on the job and dead-wooding the more established names ahead of them. In 2015, it was Fenton. In 2016, it was John Small. O’Callaghan and Scully forced their way in in 2017, while Howard and Eoin Murchan were last year’s additions.
There has been no equivalent in 2019. Indeed Murchan appears to have lost his place in the queue, with Davy Byrne leapfrogging him and featuring in every game so far.
Darren Gavin was widely touted as the coming man after a good spell towards the end of the league and he started the opener against Louth. But despite coming on against Kildare, he got injured soon after and hasn’t been in a match-day panel since.
Costello wasn’t new by any means but for all the sparkle of his occasional cameos down through the years, this was the first time he’d managed to put a string of four starting appearances back-to-back. Unfortunately for him, a shaky night against Cork looks to have seen him play his way out of the side, with Dean Rock back in harness for the foreseeable future.
As a consequence – and for the first time since Gavin took over at the beginning of the 2013 season – the average age of his starting team has begun to rise sharply. The greatest trick of the Gavin era was to build a repeatedly dominant side that got younger year-on-year. But not this year.
The starting 15 that beat Kerry in 2015 in the first final of the run had an average age of 26.7. Through constant refreshment season on season, that number has kept falling, down to 26.2 for each of the last two All-Ireland finals.
To win four titles back-to-back is obviously incredible. For the team that won the fourth of them to be half a year younger on average than the team that won the first is unprecedented.
The great Kerry team aged almost exactly four years on average between 1978 and 1981, for instance. Fourteen of the 15 who started the first final also started the fourth – the only change being Tommy Doyle for Pat Spillane. Doyle is four months younger so it brought the average age down by a matter of tiny decimals. But Dublin were able to shave huge chunks off each year to keep the average down.
This season, however, the pattern has shifted. The average age of the team that beat Roscommon a fortnight ago was 27.7. Brian Howard was the only player under 25 in the side. The Cork game the previous week was the first time Gavin has ever fielded a championship team with five players aged 30 or over.
Shining exception In the normal run of events, of course, none of this would be considered remarkable. Teams age. Great teams in particular age together. Any team going for five-in-a-row in any sport definitely should be older coming towards the end of it than they were at the start. It’s just that under Gavin, Dublin had consistently managed to cheat gravity up to now. For the first time in seven seasons, it looks to have caught up with them a bit.
Moreover, with the shining exception of Paddy Small, the contribution from the bench doesn’t look as threatening as in other years. Small is the only substitute to have been used in every game so far, scoring 0-5 from play. The majority of the other scores off the bench have come from established starters – Rock has brought 0-9 in with him, Michael Darragh Macauley and Philly McMahon plundered a goal each off the bench in the Louth game. All three are likely to start the All-Ireland semi-final next weekend.
The ghosts of subs’ benches past have been curiously quiet this time around. Nobody has scored more off the bench over the course of Dublin’s five-in-a-row seasons than Kevin McManamon – he has 3-7 to his name as a sub since the start of 2015. But only two points of that total has come this season, one of them a late free against Louth. Paddy Andrews’s contribution has been a single point against Meath.
O’Gara has made the match-day 26 four times this summer without seeing a minute of game time. Brogan was on the panel last day out against Roscommon but sat for the duration as well. Seán Bugler came on for the last seven minutes against Louth but hasn’t seen a minute since. Conor McHugh and Robbie McDaid were both in the match programme that day too but haven’t been in the 26 in any of the four matches that have followed.
Dublin’s other new player this year has been another old one. After Small and McManamon, the Dub sub with the third highest minutes off the bench this summer has been Rory O’Carroll. He has come on in four of the five games, adding to the sense that Gavin’s instinct has increasingly been to go with what has worked in the past rather than force something new with the ultimate prize so close.
Churn and flux In this context, the more you drill down into it, the more sense it makes that Diarmuid Connolly has been brought back into the mix. It is of a piece with Gavin’s thinking, personnel-wise, throughout the 2019 championship.
Dublin have gradually gone back to what they know has worked for them before. The fact that Connolly and O’Carroll have been the main additions to the panel – both of them a decade and more after they made their championship debuts – feels significant.
In consistently turning towards the familiar, Gavin and his management have moved away from the churn and flux that were such a feature of the four-in-a-row. Tomorrow in Omagh doesn’t really matter a damn but if he starts a large chunk of his core 10 again it will be another departure from what they’ve done before.
Maybe it’s all coincidental and maybe we’re reading too much into the natural pull and push of team selection based on training performance. But the approach undeniably looks different this time around. If you were suspicious, you’d ponder whether it was the action of a management team looking towards the door after September.
One way or the other, the next month will be a defining one for them all.
|
|
|
Post by Mickmack on Aug 3, 2019 9:17:11 GMT
These counties are daft bringing in these outside managers at huge exspense! Surely the evidence suggest otherwise. Look at what Micko did for Kildare, Laois and Wicklow. Paidi with Westmeath. Davy Fitz with Wexford The list is endless really. John OMahony with Galway The big traditional counties pick from within but there is any amount of experienced ex-players in Cork, KK and Tipp in hurling and Dublin and Kerry in football to look to. If I were a Wexford footballer i would be excited today.
|
|
|
Post by dc84 on Aug 3, 2019 10:32:37 GMT
Wexford football is at such a low ebb at the moment the only way is up. It's a win win in my book if it doesn't work out they can hardly do much worse in the league or championship.
Whatever way it works out he will bring a big interest back to Wexford football they will be the m9st talked about team in div 4 by a mile. The county board might just be thinking it could be a shot in the arm badly needed Also he might help design the jersey! I love the kerry jersey he designed( the green and gold one I won't mention the other!)
|
|
|
Post by Mickmack on Aug 3, 2019 10:58:56 GMT
The two weeks rest for Mayo is a huge thing not to mention home advantage. I think the last time they met was in a relegation playoff and Kevin McLoughlin kicked a late winner. If its true that Ruane and DoConnor could feature it does change things. I some reason i think Mayo will win. But its not based on studying the form as they say with horse racing Clarke is injured. Hennelly in goals. Big swing towards Donegal. Hennelly us capable of one or two major screw ups
|
|
|
Post by kerrygold on Aug 3, 2019 13:25:54 GMT
These counties are daft bringing in these outside managers at huge exspense! Surely the evidence suggest otherwise. Look at what Micko did for Kildare, Laois and Wicklow. Paidi with Westmeath. Davy Fitz with Wexford The list is endless really. John OMahony with Galway The big traditional counties pick from within but there is any amount of experienced ex-players in Cork, KK and Tipp in hurling and Dublin and Kerry in football to look to. If I were a Wexford footballer i would be excited today. Only JO'M & EMcG have delivered the Holy Grail. Plenty of great football people within the less successful counties also.
|
|
|
Post by Mickmack on Aug 3, 2019 14:14:09 GMT
Strong rumour that Dermo will start tomorrow for Dublin.
I am delighted to see Tom Parsons named in the subs for Mayo. A triumph of the human spirit surely after a dreadful injury.
|
|
fitz
Fanatical Member
Red sky at night get off my land
Posts: 1,719
|
Post by fitz on Aug 3, 2019 14:29:13 GMT
Strong rumour that Dermo will start tomorrow for Dublin. I am delighted to see Tom Parsons named in the subs for Mayo. A triumph of the human spirit surely after a dreadful injury. Ruane and Durcan also in subs list
|
|
|
Post by kerrygold on Aug 3, 2019 19:53:30 GMT
Will the Dubs want to play Mayo? Tyrone getting into ropy country with that team selection. Kerry were cat tonight. Interesting tie and outcomes tomorrow in Omagh!
|
|
|
Post by kerrygold on Aug 3, 2019 19:55:30 GMT
No surprise in Castlebar. You'd have to laugh at the pundits tipping Donegal as Dublin's main challengers and Kerry to miss out on a semi final slot.
|
|
|
Post by dc84 on Aug 3, 2019 21:02:10 GMT
Jeez Durcan is some player destroyed McHugh and kicked three himself. Nex5 weekend can't come soon enough
|
|
|
Post by Mickmack on Aug 3, 2019 21:18:39 GMT
Donegal had the toughest route in fairness. Neutral v Kerry and away to Mayo.
I am not sure Kerry would have won in Castlebar tonight.
|
|
|
Post by kerrygold on Aug 3, 2019 21:25:37 GMT
Mayo & Kerry were league finalists Donegal were a Div 2 team. Peel back the media hysteria after Donegal beati Tyrone in Ulster and it's as you were.
|
|
|
Post by Mickmack on Aug 3, 2019 21:57:26 GMT
I found the narrative on TSG before the super 8 started that Kerry and Mayo were competing for second place hard to believe alright.
Donegal were marginally the better team v Kerry but that was in Morans absense.
They would have qualified out of the other group. They were away to Mayo. Mayo were away to Kerry.
Kerry had the handier draw so i wouldnt be getting carried away by any means.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2019 22:10:23 GMT
I think that is fair enough. In the super 8’s there has tended to be at least be one team in each group well below the standard of the other teams. That means whoever has the away game against the weaker team has a big advantage
|
|
|
Post by Mickmack on Aug 3, 2019 23:17:42 GMT
Irish Times
Keith Duggan at MacHale Park Mayo 1-14 Donegal 1-10
Welcome to the bear-pit. If the dream is over, then nobody told Mayo. Not even the summer rain could prevent the Mayo faithful from turning molten as the wild bunch whipped up another 70 plus minutes of beautiful and at times nonsensical chaos.
Donegal discovered, to their cost, what it is that Mayo do so well as their summer was brought to a crunching end over 77 minutes of a blink-and-you-miss-it contest. To play Mayo is to enter the fun-house. It’s to try and play football in the house of mirrors. The pitch is the same, the posts look the same but somehow, everything is different.
In other years, Mayo started with criminal slowness. Here, they had one foot in Croke Park by half-time. They hit the Ulster champions with a ferocious defensive wall which they hadn’t experienced before.
Twenty minutes in and Donegal had begun to lose their coordinates - not to mention the football with a frequency which must have bewildered them. Their only score since the seventh minute was a Michael Murphy free, a score that came with the bonus of a black card issued to Keith Higgins for climbing on Patrick McBrearty’s back after the Kilcar man gave him the slip.
But their attempts to build from the back ended when they met the Mayo threshing machine around the middle third of the field. Mayo’s defenders marked touch tight, Colm Boyle mopped up the broken ball and then the green and red army broke in waves, led by Paddy Durcan and Chris Barrett.
As predicted, Lee Keegan shadowed Michael Murphy and was back to his aggravating best. Donegal’s struggles to simply break the halfway line were so severe that Murphy had to drop back into his own full back line to play quarterback but even so, the visitors couldn’t advance. The only thing keeping Donegal alive was Mayo’s errant shooting: Cillian O’Connor couldn’t find the mark from frees and Durcan, McDonagh and Eoin O’Donoghue all hit pot-shots wide.
But that’s the thing about Mayo. They don’t care about those misses. This was Mayo in their natural habitat: thriving in organised chaos, revelling in a teak-tough game and soldered into the pulse of the local crowds, whose dial was switched to Saturday-night-berserk. By seven o’clock, the local bar managers must have been stocking up big time on the Red Bull. It was turning into one of those nights.
There was no real surprise when O’Connor ghosted behind Paddy McGrath to get a fist to Aidan O’Shea’s flighted ball. Was the Breaffy man shooting for a point or was it a brilliant pass? Who cared. It was Mayo opportunism. Down 1-6 to 0-3, Donegal’s summer was disintegrating in the rain on a night that, if soupy, was a gumbo soup.
Patrick McBrearty and Michael Murphy argue with an injured Aidan O’Shea of Mayo. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho Patrick McBrearty and Michael Murphy argue with an injured Aidan O’Shea of Mayo. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho There was something poignant for Donegal supporters in the sight of Murphy hammering a distant free well wide with three minutes to go in the half. The visitors had only four wides in that first period but that wasn’t a sign of their economy. It was because they couldn’t even get a look at the Mayo posts.
It was as if they ran into a wall composed of pride and hurt and, one assumes, the burning conviction that nothing is over yet for Mayo. The physical difference between the sides was striking: Donegal’s light, classy forwards were simply blown away by the collective fury of weathered Mayo defenders like Harrison and Boyle and Aidan O’Shea, who was happy to put a shift in the trenches.
As soon as Donegal’s new generation - Ciaran Thompson, Jamie Brennan and Niall O’Donnell got the ball, they were savaged. Mayo were rampant. So the finished team - yesterday’s men, all of that - were given a standing ovation at half-time. Donegal looked shattered at that moment. As far as the Everlasting in Castlebar were concerned, they have a brilliant past in front of them.
After the break, Murphy almost single-handedly dragged Donegal back into contention. He won a penalty off Lee Keegan in the 40th minute, then scored it and fired two more points from play. After his penalty, he went toe-to-toe with O’Shea and clattered into Keegan, visual aids to his younger teammates that they weren’t in Kansas or Kilmacrennan anymore.
But for the 15 minutes that Donegal generated a little bit of possession, they simply couldn’t score. They missed five of the kind of shots they had been slotting over all summer and Murphy dropped another short. It was the surest sign of a team that had been knocked out of their equilibrium in the first half and never fully recovered it.
Durcan kept Ryan McHugh under wraps and hit 0-3 himself on the break in a phenomenal hour. At one stage, a comedic series of slips and falters prevented Donegal from coming to within a single point - and a draw would have done them here. It felt fated at this stage: as if the departed members of the old gang of ‘51 had got together and caused a wee bit of mischief on the field.
But it became clear going into injury time that Donegal just couldn’t win this. Neutrals looking forward to see what they might do against Dublin will have to wait for at least another year.
Time ticked on. Mayo defended in numbers and kept their noses in front. Andy Moran, the old stager, clipped two points. Donegal’s efforts became more frantic and despairing. The end game came in the 76th minute when Fionn McDonagh found himself in acres of space and came tearing down in front of the big stand. The goal was on. Castlebar was in full meltdown by now.
McDonagh seized it up and let fly. It went narrowly wide. Nothing summed up Mayo like that moment. Nobody cared. They had found a way, again, against the odds, against the voices, against the wisdom. On they march. Dublin will probably be waiting at five o’clock in Croke Park. Expect a fair crowd from the Padraig Carney country. Expect a battle.
Mayo: 1 R Hennelly: 2 C Barrett (0-1), 3 B Harrison, 17 K Higgins; 5 L Keegan, 3 B Harrison, 6 C Boyle, 7 S Coen; 8 A O’Shea, 9 S O’Shea; 10 F McDonagh, 11 J Doherty (0-1), 25 P Durcan (0-3); 13 C O’Connor (1-4, 0-4 frees), 14 D Coen, 15 J Carr (0-2), 26 J Durcan for 13 C O’Connor (75 mins). Substitutes: 4 E O’Donoghue for 17 K Higgins (15 mins black card), 24 A Moran (0-2) for 14 D Coen (26 mins), 22 K McLoughlin (0-1) for 11 J Doherty (45 mins inj), 12 F Boland for 15 J Carr (66 mins), 21 M Ruane for 9 S O’Shea (72 mins).
Donegal: 1 S Patton, 2 P McGrath, 20 E Doherty, 4 S McMenamin, 5 R McHugh, 6 D O’Baoill (0-2), 7 O McFadden-Ferry; 8 H McFadden, 9 J McGee; 10 C Thompson, 11 N O’Donnell (0-2), 12 J Brennan; 13 P McBrearty (0-2), 14 M Murphy (1-4, 0-2 frees), 15 M Langan. Substitutes: 18 L McLoone for J McGee ((11 mins inj), 21 P Brennan for E Doherty (32 mins), 23 C Ward for 2 P McGrath (42 mins inj), 22 O Gallen for 10 C Thompson (55 mins), 19 E McHugh for P Brennan (63 mins black card), 25 E McGettigan for 15 M Langan (73 mins),
Referee: D Gough (Meath).
|
|
|
Post by ballhopper34 on Aug 4, 2019 1:02:07 GMT
Could Dublin/Tyrone turn into two mass defensive efforts with nobody really trying to break through...a bit like that colleges match from up north earlier in the year. Final score 0-2 to 0-2 and Dublin top the group.
|
|
Hicser
Senior Member
Posts: 381
|
Post by Hicser on Aug 4, 2019 1:30:40 GMT
Could Dublin/Tyrone turn into two mass defensive efforts with nobody really trying to break through...a bit like that colleges match from up north earlier in the year. Final score 0-2 to 0-2 and Dublin top the group. God I dunno 🤷♂️ , apparently Tyrone are going to play a B team, it might not be worth watching or more importantly going to!
|
|
|
Post by Ballyfireside on Aug 4, 2019 2:49:21 GMT
A well enough placed pair from each of the counties fear minimal play, just to stay out of joke book and which must be upsetting for players, KD alluded to this in some paper comparing it to Galway last year when they appeared to take it handy and then couldn't pick up where they had left off before Monaghan. If they beat Monaghan and avoided Dubs would it also not have given their hurlers a lift -they only needed a little?
Maybe all this will propel us up Hogan on 1st Sept!
|
|
|
Post by Kingdomson on Aug 4, 2019 6:57:41 GMT
Today's match of Tyrone vs Dublin has the potential to be one of the most farcical games of senior championship football every played with neither side truly wanting the win. Playing a callow Kerry next Sunday and avoiding the sheer madness of Mayo for one more match is ticket both sides would take if you offered it. Today is about planning the easiest route to an All Ireland final. "A go on, you win it! Nah you win it!" Jim and Mickey in conversation with each other later.
|
|
|
Post by dc84 on Aug 4, 2019 8:05:52 GMT
I doubt either team will be playing to lose. To make an intercounty career you have to be a competitor and once the ball is thrown in they will want to win.
Very risky stuff from harte here Imo, dublin team is still very strong a lot of starters there cluxton,McMahon,Cooper,Fenton,McCarthy,Howard,o Callaghan, then there are others fairly close like Costello. O gara and mcmanamom are with the return of Connolly now playing to stay in the squad. Dublin will hammer that Tyrone team .
I wouldn't be impressed if PK did the same if we were in the same position lining ourselves up for a beating to dublin at home.
|
|
Aodhan
Senior Member
Posts: 793
|
Post by Aodhan on Aug 4, 2019 12:26:37 GMT
I doubt either team will be playing to lose. To make an intercounty career you have to be a competitor and once the ball is thrown in they will want to win. Very risky stuff from harte here Imo, dublin team is still very strong a lot of starters there cluxton,McMahon,Cooper,Fenton,McCarthy,Howard,o Callaghan, then there are others fairly close like Costello. O gara and mcmanamom are with the return of Connolly now playing to stay in the squad. Dublin will hammer that Tyrone team . I wouldn't be impressed if PK did the same if we were in the same position lining ourselves up for a beating to dublin at home. Agree. Dublin will hammer that Tyrone B team in their own back yard. No need to make things too complicated. The Dublin fringe players will not let up with the opportunity to stake a claim for further involvement later on. In a game of inches unconsciously this will be damaging for the Tyrone phyche when facing Kerry next Sunday. Peter Canavan is continuously stating on Sky that Tyrone are not showing their full hand and will do so when facing Dublin in a meaningful game, expecting that to be the AI Final., the main reason for putting out the B team. Supposedly we got a small glimpse of it against Cork when they were in trouble. Unfortunately for them they will have to go full Monty against Kerry next week exposing this super plan in advance to their “real meeting” with Dublin
|
|
|
Post by Mickmack on Aug 4, 2019 14:04:38 GMT
By Peter Sweeney Mayo - the team that refused to die.
It's not the first time it has been said about them and it’s hardly going to be the last.
Eight All-Ireland semi-finals in nine seasons. Four All-Ireland final appearances, all of them losing if you’re not including 2016’s drawn game, and of the three semi-finals they’ve lost to date two of them came after a replay.
This year they sleepwalked their way out of Connacht, stumbled through the qualifiers, got pulled apart by Kerry in Killarney, are hollowed out by injuries and yet here they are, still standing and rolling on to Croke Park.
Ulster champions Donegal arrived as favourites into Elverys MacHale Park in Castlebar and they left with that empty feeling of a team that has just been knocked out of the championship.
Lee Keegan in possession against Donegal Intensity is this Mayo team’s calling card and when they really need it most they turn it up. They’re the only team that has really frightened Dublin during their four in-a-row of All-Ireland wins and they might get another crack at them next weekend.
Against Donegal they brought the noise and the heat. The old warriors stood up again and gave the sort of punishing performances that come from deep within, from a need not to be beaten, from a want not to become irrelevant.
Donegal’s Ryan McHugh and Michael Murphy have been destroying teams with their little and large double-act this season so Mayo boss James Horan decided to attack his opponents’ strongest point - he hammered the hammer.
Former Footballer of the Year Lee Keegan sacrificed his game for 50 minutes to stop Michael Murphy. Paddy Durcan dragged McHugh all over the field, keeping his man scoreless and clipping three points of his own.
Mayo boss James Horan Keith Higgins was back from injury and then black-carded after 14 minutes. No problem, Eoin O’Donoghue came on and plugged the gap. Jason Doherty gave a display of ball-winning and ball-carrying yet when he went down in a heap 44 minutes in Kevin McLoughlin came in and scored a sensational point with his first touch.
Chris Barrett, Séamus O’Shea, Aidan O’Shea and Andy Moran have been around the block so often they’ve lost count, though this also means that they know all the shortcuts and side streets that get them to the ball before their opponents.
During the year Mayo have had to do without Durcan, Diarmuid O’Connor, Séamus O’Shea, Tom Parsons, Higgins and Matthew Ruane for various lengths of time, yet they keep going as a team and give their brothers a chance of playing again this year.
According to manager Horan, Doherty’s injury looks season-ending, though medical advice will be sought before this can be confirmed.
Ruane, shaping up into one of the most impressive mobile midfielders around, is back having been sidelined with a broken collarbone suffered after the Connacht semi-final defeat to Roscommon and got on for the last few minutes against Donegal.
Tom Parsons seems on the verge of one of the most remarkable injury comebacks in Irish sport having suffered a horrific knee blowout in the 2018 Connacht defeat to Galway.
Andy Moran keeps on going despite the passing of the years At the time there were questions over whether he’d ever lace boots again yet here we are, just over 12 months later and he could be playing in an All-Ireland semi-final having been fit enough for the match-day squad on Saturday. This sums up just about everything about this Mayo team.
"Very close," said Horan. "He’s on the 26. You don’t put someone on the 26 for sentimental value or anything like that. So he’s very close. But Mattie (Ruane) came on and he was mobile for us, which was the right thing at that time. He’s very close."
Goalkeeper David Clarke, an All Star winner and former Footballer of the Year nominee, is another injury victim and he wasn’t even fit enough for a place on the bench against Donegal, replaced by former Sligo Rovers goalkeeper Micheál Schlingermann.
A jubilant Aidan O'Shea "Yeah, his ribs are sore after the Meath match," said Horan. "It’s a slow injury, takes time. Hopefully he’ll be in contention for next week along with Donie Vaughan and Diarmuid O’Connor."
About Doherty he said: "I haven’t the medical but it looks quite a nasty injury, so we’ll just have to see how it is."
Injuries have hurt them, a hectic schedule of fixtures have slowed them down, yet nothing yet has stopped them.
They’re the team that refuse to die and whatever happens in next weekend’s semi-final they’ll either still be standing, or they’ll go down swinging, ready for another rattle at the biggest prize again in 2020.
|
|
|
Post by Mickmack on Aug 4, 2019 15:14:05 GMT
Cluxton, Howard, Fenton and OCallaghan not starting. Those are the 4 that have been Dublins top performers this year.
|
|
|
Post by kerrygold on Aug 4, 2019 15:39:29 GMT
Neither Connolly or O'Carroll up to the pace of the inter county game now.
|
|
|
Post by royalkerryfan on Aug 4, 2019 16:03:09 GMT
Super 8s is dead. This is not what championship is about.
|
|
Hicser
Senior Member
Posts: 381
|
Post by Hicser on Aug 4, 2019 16:10:23 GMT
Ah it’s interesting now, finding myself having to go for Dublin, weird!
|
|
|
Post by buck02 on Aug 4, 2019 16:24:17 GMT
I know what I'd love to do with that bell the Dublin fan keeps shaking.
|
|
Hicser
Senior Member
Posts: 381
|
Post by Hicser on Aug 4, 2019 16:47:37 GMT
Phew, now back to supporting anyone but Dublin again. That was a bit of a shambles, at the end of the Supers 8s we got 3 good matches, probably not enough to keep it going,
|
|
|
Post by kerrygold on Aug 4, 2019 17:19:28 GMT
Super 8s is dead. This is not what championship is about. Has no future after the farce/coma in Omagh. Pity, loved the idea at concept. Maybe the four semi finalists playing round robin in a group of four to decide the two finalists would have more merit. Time to kill the 8s anyway now.
|
|