Green and Red

The jungle drums about the possible parachuting of Mick O’Dwyer into the position of Mayo manager haven’t yet fully abated – due in no small part to his cute hoor move to play for time in deciding whether or not to stay on for another year with the Goat Suckers – but a statement by the County Board this evening appears to have all but killed off his chances of a rapid coronation as Mayo bainisteoir.  It’s worth quoting the statement in full:

Following a meeting of the Executive last night (Tuesday), the officers of the Mayo County Board will meet with all of those nominated for the position of Mayo senior team manager. They have been directed to compile a short list of candidates for the position. Following this, a manager appointment committee will be appointed by the Executive, and ratified by the county committee to interview those candidates.

Seeing as James Horan, Denis Kearney, Anthony McGarry and John Maughan have, along with Micko, already been nominated for the job, the campaign that’s being orchestrated to install Micko on an unopposed basis would now appear to be dead in the water, unless the other lads make way for Micko’s coronation.  My understanding is that this is extremely unlikely to happen, which means that the Waterville supremo would then have to take his chances at an interview along with everyone else on the shortlist.

I can’t see the venerable old fox being prepared to jump through such hoops for the gig with us and so, regardless of what his backers may still be saying, the chances of his landing the role now seem remote in the extreme.  It’s little wonder, then, that the odds on Micko to get the job have lengthened significantly in recent days while those on James Horan and, in particular, John Maughan have tightened considerably.

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The job couldn’t be put off any longer: I’ve now copied our full set of senior, U21 and minor results for 2010 from here and plonked them here which means that the results archive on the site has now become one that encompasses a span of sixty-two years.

If I have the required time, patience and energy over the coming quiet months, I might be able to add a few more years to the collection but, as I found when putting together the 1949 set, the going has become harder with each successive year that I tackle.  Come to think of it, 2010 was no picnic either!

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I was out driving round Dublin 9 a bit after six this evening and as I made my way down Grace Park Road, I met a stream of Northern registered cars heading in the opposite direction, most of them sporting the proud red and black of the Mourne County. It would have been a pleasant jaunt back up the M1 for them this evening as they reflected back on their county’s first All-Ireland semi-final victory for sixteen years and started to make plans for a return journey to these parts for Down’s happy hunting ground that is the All-Ireland final.

Anyone who watched today’s enthralling All-Ireland semi-final will readily accept that Down were the better side over the seventy minutes and that in Marty Clarke they possessed the game’s standout performer (those 1/5 odds during the week on Bernard Brogan to win FOTY now look a teentsy bit mean, I reckon). Kildare never really recovered from the fusillade of points late in the first half that sent the Mournemen in five to the good at the break and although the Short Grass County were once again an improved outfit in the second period, they failed to narrow the gap quickly enough to give themselves a decent shot of snatching it at the death. Mind you, had Robert Kelly’s last-minute rasper made it to the net rather than cannoning back off the underside of the bar, it would have been a different story altogether.

Both teams gave it everything today and it was tough luck on Kildare, who once again came up short by a narrow margin. They will obviously be proud tonight about their team’s performance but they have also every right to be as mad as hell at the cretinously incompetent shift put in by Pat McEnaney’s team of umpires. It was bad enough that one lot waved wide a pointed shot from Alan Smith early on in the contest but the failure of the two clowns at the other end to spot the most blatant of square balls when Benny Coulter goaled for Down simply beggared belief.

The Lillies might well have lost had both of these decisions gone the correct way. And it wasn’t as if every dodgy decision went Down’s way: Eamon Callaghan took at least eight or nine steps before scoring Kildare’s second half goal. But what these decisions, in particular the square ball one, did was to alter the course the game was taking up until then. Kildare had started the brighter and were clearly dominating proceedings but the goal severely jolted them and, as they wobbled on the ropes, Down then went on to hit them with the barrage of points late in the first half that ultimately won the game for them. Would the half have turned out the same way if the umpires had done their job properly? It’s impossible, of course, to say for sure but I doubt that it would have done.

This is the second time this year that the outcome of a high-profile match has been largely determined by umpiring incompetence. Enough is enough: it’s high time that the arcane practice of allowing inter-county refs to take a carload of their portly drinking buddies with them to umpire matches is done away with and that umpires are instead chosen from the general pool of referees. While this move may not sort out all of the problems there are with umpiring, it’d nonetheless be a good start.

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Various media source are reporting this morning that the five nominees for the vacant position of Mayo manager are Mick O’Dwyer, John Maughan, Denis Kearney, Anthony McGarry and James Horan.  Understandably, most of the media attention has focused on the candidacy of the Waterville maestro who would obviously be a high-profile appointment.

Despite his long and distinguished track record, however, I don’t see Micko as the man for the job, not least in view of where we’re at right now.  The national media would love it, for sure, as it’d give them plenty of fodder for lazy-minded ‘Micko’s Mayo’ guff and, regardless of how we’d fare under him, there’d be plenty of vomit-inducing copy with which we’d have to cope.  Succeed and it’d be the one about Micko waving his magic wand and turning our vale of tears into a land of milk and honey, fail and it’d be how even the Greatest Manager of All Time couldn’t deal with our deep psychological failings.  Personally, I think this is a circus we can do without.

In his last two stints on the sideline, John Maughan led us to the All-Ireland final on no less than three occasions and, but for the bounce of a ball that will haunt all of us ’till our dying days, he could just as easily be resting on his laurels as The Man Who Led Us To The Promised Land in 1996.  Many of the present failings in our senior team would, we can be sure, be addressed in short order under a Maughan III regime but I’m not fully convinced that, by once more going back to the future, we’re going to end up where we want to go with such an appointment. That said, if it came down to a choice between Maughan and Micko, I’d have the Crossmolina man in a flash.

I know little about the candidacies of Denis Kearney and Tony McGarry – can anyone enlighten the world in this respect? – and so there’s little I can say for or against either of them.  Neither have, as far as I’m aware, a strong track record in this area (though, as I’ll argue in a minute, I don’t think that should be a determining factor in the appointment) and I don’t know what attributes either of them would bring to the job.  Short of being a fly on the wall at the interview stage, I don’t know how one would go about answering these questions.  I guess all that can be said is that they both deserve a hearing but that the ball is in their court to put forward a compelling case as to why they should get the job.

For my money, though, the obvious standout candidate from this quintet has to be James Horan.  He has some management experience at club level (along with Tony Duffy in Ballintubber) but hasn’t done anything so far on the inter-county stage.  I don’t think that’s hugely relevant: Kieran McGeeney, Pat Gilroy and Kevin Walsh were all first-timers at this lark when given the reins of their respective counties and they’ve all outperformed in the role.  What they all have – and what I think James Horan has too – is a strength of personality and a level of footballing intelligence that makes them very effective leaders.  James also knows the club scene thoroughly and, providing he can assemble the kind of backroom teams that McGeeney, Gilroy and Walsh were able to, I think he could be an inspired choice for us.

It’s still, however, early days in this process.  As I understand it, there’s still time for other candidates to emerge and, once a definitive shortlist is arrived at, the whole selection process (in terms of interviews and so forth) has to take place.  As a result, I think any fears about a speedy appointment of Mick O’Dwyer to the job are misplaced.  Indeed, I reckon that any fears at all on that score are likely to be wide of the mark.

If there’s anything we learned from the ill-fated Johnno II era, it’s that appointing the wrong person for the wrong reason is something we’ll be left with plenty of time to rue.  Whoever gets the job this time has to do so as part of a plan to build for the future and while the appointment of the next manager isn’t the be-all and end-all in terms of getting us to the destination we all want to get to – there’s much to do too with regards structures and so forth if we’re ever to have any hope of become a serious footballing power again – whoever we pick has to be part of the answer.  I can see why James Horan would fit the bill in this regard but, despite all he’s achieved in the past, I can’t see how appointing Micko could form any part of such a plan.

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There I was, ten minutes into the second half of today’s All-Ireland minor football semi-final, starting to think idly about who I could tap up for a ticket for the final.  Cillian O’Connor had just stroked over our fourteenth point of the day to send us seven clear and it looked then as if we were going to thump a strangely one-dimensional and ineffective Tyrone team.  Twenty minutes later, however, we were left surveying the wreckage from yet another Mayo loss at HQ as Tyrone engineered a devastating fightback to beat us by 3-10 to 0-16, thus bringing an emphatic end to our 2010 inter-county season.

How did it happen?  Well, their two goals that came in the 42nd and 48th minute respectively obviously turned the game on its head.  We could still have won the match even after they got the second one but by then Tyrone had the bit between their teeth and our lads’ heads had started to drop.  We did manage a late fightback and had Danny Kirby’s injury-time goal attempt come off, we could have snatched a draw so, on this occasion at least, we went down fighting.

But, of course, we shouldn’t have gone down at all.  Coming into the match we were rank outsiders but you’d never have thought that by the way we took command of proceedings in the opening half.  We were three up inside five minutes – courtesy of a point from play by Jack McDonnell and two Cillian O’Connor frees – but they then knocked over 1-3 without reply to go a goal clear on 17 minutes.  We then took complete control and a series of excellent points from play from Cian Costello, Michael Forde, Darren Coen (two), Cillian O’Connor and Jack McDonnell gave us a four-point cushion going in at the break.

At that stage, our lads’ high workrate, their utter dominance around the middle and their keen eye for scores meant that we looked more likely to prevail.  Tyrone, by contrast, wedded as they were to a robotic, keep-ball approach,  didn’t look like a side that was going to trouble us, regardless what the bookies had said in advance.  On the contrary, I felt that if anyone was going to do damage in the second half, it’d be our lads.

We started brightly after the break too, with further points from Cillian O’Connor (two), Darren Coen and Jack McDonnell as we surged seven clear.  Their sole reply in this period, a point from Richard Donnelly, was their first for all of 17 minutes but it was obvious then that they’d need a few green flags if they were to rescue the game.

There’s no way we should have lost the match from there but, of course, lose it we did.  The first of their two second half goals wasn’t fatal and we could easily have righted the ship and driven for home again.  The second was, though, and the galling thing about it was that we should have had a free out around the middle in the run-up to it.  Jack McDonnell was bundled over right in front of the ref but Rory Hickey inexplicably waved play on and Tyrone surged forward to bag their third goal of the day.

By the time Cillian O’Connor claimed our fifteenth point five minutes from time, they’d hit us with 2-4 without reply in what proved to be a devastating match-winning spell.  We did mount a late frantic effort to rescue the game but to no avail and so our hopes of a third successive All-Ireland minor final appearance came to naught.

And then, just to put the tin hat on it, the Dubs contrived to lose the senior semi-final to Cork in a match where they led for all but the last few minutes.  The little lad bawled his eyes out afterwards, the pain of defeat no doubt accentuated by the fact that Dublin had looked more likely to win for most of the seventy minutes but had victory snatched from them at the death.

And so, after the tears had dried, we were left with yet another weary walk away from Croke Park to do, with another year of footballing disappointment chalked down.  The Dubs can at least be happy that their fortunes are on the rise again and we can, I suppose, console ourselves with the proposition (which may not be valid) that the only way for us is up.  The minors put up a good show for much of today, though, and they provided further proof that there’s a good talent pool coming through.  Overall, however, 2010 has been a year to forget for Mayo supporters and we can only hope for better times to come in 2011.

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It’s a big day in the Gaelic football year, what with the first full house of the year at Croke Park, and our lads have a major assignment on their hands when they take on Ulster champions Tyrone in the curtain raiser (throw-in 1.30 pm).

The Red Hand youngsters deserve their status as favourites but this is far from a no-hope assignment for our lads. If we are to prevail, we’ll need an improved showing around the middle and will, once again, be expecting a large return from our star player, Cillian O’Connor.

We have plenty of experience at this level in recent years and although we eventually lost out to today’s opposition in the replayed 2008 decider, everyone who was at the drawn final that year knows full well that we left that one behind us. It would, then, be more than a little appropriate if Tony Duffy’s charges were to settle this particular score on the way to sealing our third minor final appearance on the trot. You can do it, lads – now go and prove it. Come on the Green and Red.

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We’re back in the capital ahead of tomorrow’s All-Ireland semi-final and although, for me, it’s been a case of waiting until the minors made it to Croke Park before going to see them, because we travelled up from Mayo ourselves today it feels like we’ve made the trek up just for the match itself. There were plenty of MO registered cars heading eastwards this afternoon as we made our way back to Dublin and I’d say that there should be a fair bit of support for the minors tomorrow in what’s going to be a packed Croke Park.

Tomorrow will also be the first time that myself and the little buck will head off to HQ together with me in my Mayo jersey and him bedecked in his Dublin clobber.  We’ve signed a non-aggression pact for the day and have agreed to shout for each other’s teams so it’d be great to see a Mayo-Dublin double.  We’re both up against it but, despite what the bookies are saying, I wouldn’t rule out either of us.

Tyrone’s minors have shown superb form in the championship so far but we’ve been okay too and the form lines at minor aren’t as strong as they can often be at senior. As a result, Tyrone’s overwhelming favouritism in the ante-post market might not count for much once the action gets underway.

In the senior game, the Dubs will need to work at least as hard as they did against Tyrone and hope that Cork’s forwards are as profligate in front of the posts as the Red Hand were in the quarters. Kerry have, however, already shown how to beat Cork in this year’s championship and so if Dublin play a high pressure game and all that blue starts to affect the Rebels, then the Jacks could well do it.

It has the making of a fascinating day’s football and I’m hoping that both of us will depart from HQ in good spirits late tomorrow afternoon.  Ah feck it, we might even invade the pitch if both results go the right way.  After all, we have travelled across the country just to be there.

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Today’s the deadline for applications for the job of Mayo manager and, according to this report in the Mayo Advertiser, at least two names were in the hat by yesterday evening.  There’s no confirmation as yet about who they are or if any further applications were received before today’s deadline but I guess there’ll be more news on that front over the coming week.

That same Mayo Advertiser piece confirms that John Maughan isn’t willing to let his name go forward for the job, so ruling out the prospect (for now at least) that Johnno II will be succeeded by MIII. The Indo today claims that Micko could be one of the names on the list but I guess we’ll have to wait a bit longer to find out if this rather alarming development has any basis in fact.

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The minor team for Sunday’s All-Ireland Semi-Final with Tyrone at Croke Park (throw-in 1.30 pm) was announced a short time ago and, as expected, it’s the same as the one that started against Offaly in the quarter-final a few weeks back.  Here’s the team and subs for Sunday:

Mayo (MFC v Offaly): Paul Mannion (Mayo Gaels); Brendan Harrison (Aghamore), Niall Freeman (Aghamore), Ciaran Twomey (Ballina Stephenites); Ryan Quirke (Claremorris), Conor Walsh (Balla), Conor Horan (Swinford); Danny Kirby (Castlebar Mitchels), Sean McGarry (Ballina Stephenites); Fergal Durkan (Castlebar Mitchels), Mícheál Forde (Ballycastle), Sean Kelly (Moy Davitts); Jack McDonnell (Swinford), Darren Coen (Hollymount), Cillian O’Connor (Ballintubber).  Subs: Rory Byrne (Castlebar Mitchels), Mqrk Regan (Moy Davitts), Darren Durkan (Parke), Keith Ruttledge (Knockmore), Conor O’Shea (Breaffy), Adrian Leonard (Lahardane), Cian Costello (Castlebar Mitchels), Brian Gilmartin (Moy Davitts), James Shaughnessy (Claremorris), Brian Timlin (Knockmore), Ryan Warden (Ballyhaunis), Nicky Pilbrow (Claremorris), Josh Roynane (Davitts), David Twomey (Ballina Stephenites), John Sammon (Burrishoole), Eamon McAndrew (Belmullet), Paul Lawless).

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I’m back on Holy Ground for the first time in a while and back on broadband too (Digital Divide how are you?) so I’m gradually starting to catch up with stuff, even if it means that work is beginning to catch up with me too. The minor team for Sunday will be announced tomorrow or the day after but before then there’s a few things that I’ve been asked to mention so mention them I will.

Sean has been on to say that he has started a Facebook group for those willing to retain the Over-40s football grade.  Those of you who are into Facebook (which I’m not, though I suppose I should do something in that arena at some point) and who would like to see the Over-40s grade maintained (which I would) can do whatever one does in Facebook to express support for this cause.

Paul has got in contact to let me know about Thomas Harrison’s campaign to become Ireland’s most dedicated GAA fan.  Thomas is one of four finalists (one from each province) in this particular competition and, if he wins, the prize money (fifteen big ones) will go to Ballina Stephenites and the Mayo Development Fund.  That’s enough reason to vote for him but I kinda think that it’d also be more than a little appropriate if this turned out to be one All-Ireland final where the Green and Red didn’t come off second best.  If you want to help make this happen, you can vote for him here.

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