Sorry WB, I've boycotted mid west radio as a form of protest against their policy of playing only Mary and not Frances Black

NavyNBlue (Dublin) - Posts: 1357 - 22/06/2010 16:58:37    684153

The way Dublin and Kerry get treated by the media isn't the same. Quite a lot of regular columinists/commentators are (not surprisingly) from Kerry, and while they can be critical of The Kingdom at times, it tends to be constructive criticism. The Dubs on the otherhand are considered fair game, and apart from the odd blinkered commentator like good old Barney Rock, most of what they have to contend with is fairly destructive... they get very little balanced press... it's either all hype or all tripe! Mayo do get mocked by the press and by cliche-ridden commentators like Ger 'Who's Playing Today?' Canning... and don't get me started about Pat Spillane... it pains him so much when Kerry do (rarely) get beaten that he starts to spit bile... very entertaining to see at times!

Pericles (Mayo) - Posts: 2521 - 22/06/2010 17:45:10    684205

NavyNBlue - i take your points on board. however as one poster said football is EVERYTHING in mayo. i can honstly say i have never gone out on a sat night without hearing someone mention the mayo team. even junior club football gets tons more coverage in mayo papers than say galway of sligo give their teams. we even have weelky chat shows on mid west radio and other local town rdio stations. you can get away from it and neither can players. i might be wrong but id imagine its easier for dubs to get away from it all in the city.

every year "this is the year" and i do agree that its only since the john maughan era that this hype started. il admit we do loose the run of ourselves. we have heard stories of curses etc put on the team and none of this will go away until we actually win one. we loose any game (not get hammered) and the national media carry headlines of bottlers when in fact mabey we are just not good enough (is that a crime?). mabey dublin havent been good enough either. ye have won one all ireland in 24 years - yet a built up every year. i dont think the teams are all that different.

yew_tree (Mayo) - Posts: 11557 - 22/06/2010 18:18:16    684234

The pressure for Mayo is when its put up to us in a game....and we don t have anyone that ll step up to the plate and stand up and be counted.
No leadership on or off the field..... It'll be all grand if we get a lead against Longford and hold it..but if we were to be level in second half and Longford have a spell like every team does in a match well we'll whimper out like all matches under JOM...and he'll come out with the same aul speel after..well done to whoever!!we ve a young team!!we have the footballers!! etc etc etc..JOHNNO ITS NOW OR NEVER FOR YOU AND THIS SQUAD..ACT LIKE YE WANT TO MANAGE AND PLAY FOR MAYO...
Anyway let the best team win...

Spirit_of_51 (Mayo) - Posts: 13 - 22/06/2010 18:37:12    684252

Have to agree with Mayo Posts, there generally is quite a bit of pressure from the media in the west, on Mayo, its generally always high expectation rather than hope or optimism. Some of the pressure is now off them, but there is still high expectation of a good win in Longford.

Bunch (Sligo) - Posts: 37 - 22/06/2010 19:12:40    684276

Would I be right in saying yew_tree that Mayo's main pressure is more internal than external. I'm just saying that the national coverage Dublin get is completely unbalanced and as Pericles says, the criticsm we get from ex players usually proves more negative than contructive.
You're right in saying that in Dublin we are flavour of the summer as a talking point in the pubs and amongst co-workers. I've always been envious of the GAA culture in other parts of the country in that a much higher percentage of another county's population knows and talks GAA. The amount of birthdays or leaving do's or weddings I've been to when you get chatting to some random strangers and to break the ice you want to talk sport, its rare enough that you meet someone else that shares the same level of interest in gaelic football unless they weren't from Dublin. There are a lot of Dubs out there that do know their football and hurling but the numbers per capita compared to say Kerry or Cork or Mayo just wouldn't be the same.
I suppose in a lot of ways, it annoys me that Dublin have this pressure on them every year from the national media and more so from their supporters. Anyone involved in Dublin football know that we're not going to be pushing for Sam yet every year its the same coverage in the media and its the same expectation from the fans.

NavyNBlue (Dublin) - Posts: 1357 - 22/06/2010 19:41:22    684297

Always good for a bit of foster and allen though NavyNBlue

whiterbannnas (Mayo) - Posts: 2441 - 22/06/2010 19:43:30    684300

The pressure for Mayo is unique and is not fair in a sense that it is past failings that most of it comes from. Some people think it's just Kerry that anything less than sam is not good enough, in a strange way this is the case in Mayo too. Everybody is aware it's 51 since we won it but the pressure comes from being in so many semis and finals without winning it, five finals since 89, so much heartache that only Mayo people know what it's like, to stand on the canal end in 96 and see the flags fly with only 15 mins to go, we were 5/6 pts up there were grown men shaking and near a tear in their eye, we were finally going to bring her to Mayo but it wasnt to be.

You see the pressure is like how i feel, an aI final is not worth a damn to Mayo, we've done that wore the t-shirt but after the Sligo game i think reality started to hit a lot of us, maybe this era is over, we failed to land sam but like i have said before we have all enjoyed some great days out over that period and had the pleasure of watching some great men play in the green and red that some generations never saw, my father grew up in 60/70s and hardly seen Mayo win Connacht.

We will have to dust ourselves down and get ready for maybe a bit of a barron era but i like thousands of others will always keep the faith, football is everything in Mayo, it means an awful lot to us. To try and explain why is hard but for example, no matter where you go or wht you do as a Mayo man, the first question a stranger asks you on realizing you're from Mayo is, " how will ye go in the football this year "?

51longago (Mayo) - Posts: 2981 - 22/06/2010 20:25:43    684342

NavyNBlue
County: Dublin
Posts: 608

684127 Roundball - where is the pressure on Mayo coming from though? I'm yet to see the media hype Mayo up the way they do Dublin or Kerry or for that matter shoot them down after they fail. Not having any ex-players writing columns is a big help in that regard
The supporters then?

Yes the supporters. If anything the pressure in rural, GAA mad counties like Tipp and Mayo is more intense than in Dublin as the players can't really escape from it. All anybody wants to talk to a player about in the fourthnight before the game is the game. Also white actually has a point about local media like The Mayo News and Mid-Wesht. I know in Tipp, The Nenagh Guardian have pull out supplements for Munster Final matches onwards and the first two or three pages of the sports section are usually dedicated to previewing or reviewing even League games. So just because the national media don't hype teams up doesn't mean there isn't pressure, small town Ireland can be a tough place to be for an intercounty player the weeks after a bad loss.

roundball (Tipperary) - Posts: 2514 - 22/06/2010 20:34:44    684352

I think that this is what hits the Dublin players roundball, unlike other parts of the country where the likes of Brendan Cummins or Ronan McGarrity could be walking down a street in their respective county and have any random person just go up to him and look for a chat about last weekends game, the chances of that happening in Dublin is fairly rare considering the population and the level of interest in GAA. I'm sure they'd be recognised in their own area but they could walk into town and just be another face. I remember being at a drinks do with work in Dicey Reillys a year ago and spotting Bryan Cullen there, just said hello and wished him all the best for the championship. Came back over to the work crowd and said "just spotted Bryan Cullen over there", to which a number of people said "who?".
I know there's probably a degree of this in most counties but I would say this would be far more common in Dublin than anywhere else.
Like I said earlier in the thread, I really don't know enough of how Gaelic football is received in other county's other than Dublin and probably Kerry so I can only read or hear about pressure and expectation that is put upon teams within the national media. If you were to go by the national medias coverage of Dublin year in year out which have at least 4 or 5 ex Dublin players telling the rest of the coutry where we're going wrong, we are really made out to be bigger than we really are. This large media presence only heightens our reputation, we become one of those love or hate teams to everyone else, supporters believe the hype and the pressure stems from there.

NavyNBlue (Dublin) - Posts: 1357 - 22/06/2010 21:19:25    684390

NavyNBlue - internal pressure would be higher. as one poster said, every mayo player on the panel will be recognized walking down the street and will be wished good luck or as is often the case "what happened ye". i think trevor mortimer summed it up when he said after least years defeat to meath that he stayed in the house for a week. as you said dublin get more hype and pressure from the media but at least players can try to tune out. interrnal pressure is if anything worse.

anyway best of luck to dublin i their quest for sam. hopefully we might meet leater in the summer, that would really get the media going

yew_tree (Mayo) - Posts: 11557 - 23/06/2010 10:57:38    684580

Is it gonna be the same for Mayo as it is with the England soccer team? If Mayo beat Longford, most Mayo fans will think they can go on and win Sam!

Tongo (UK) - Posts: 1795 - 23/06/2010 12:05:09    684701

Mayo will not have it handy in Longford. With Kavanagh back, Paul Barden after getting a couple of extra weeks back in training and talks of Diarmuid Masterson been fit It will be a tough game for Mayo. Pearse Park is never the handiest place to play in come championship time as Dublin, Kerry and Derry found out in recent years.

Oddball (Roscommon) - Posts: 951 - 23/06/2010 12:08:54    684707

To compare the Dublin media attention to that of Mayo is unfair. Most of the National press wouldn't know a road west if it hit them in the face. The expectation among the people of the county in Mayo is as high as anywhere I've ever been, as is their passion. And for all the slagging they get its hard not to blame them, they have consistently been in the top few teams in the country for the last 15 years, a couple of years excepted, unlike almost anyone except Kerry.

abhainn (Galway) - Posts: 1000 - 23/06/2010 12:45:05    684767

NavyNBlue
County: Dublin
Posts: 613

684390

Yeah that's what I mean exactly NavyNBlue.

roundball (Tipperary) - Posts: 2514 - 23/06/2010 12:48:31    684774

i was wrong well done longford_im lost for words

GerryMc (Mayo) - Posts: 218 - 26/06/2010 20:41:13    687873

Pericles
County: Mayo
Posts: 376

683598 I don't think the pressure is off. Longford will be hoping to have a real go here and if Mayo show the same lack of resolve we've seen over the last couple of months and in the last 15 minutes of the Meath match, it'll be a long club football summer. I'll still be shocked if we lose, but it'd be fair to say that at the moment picking a solid 15 who'll perform (as opposed to the 15 best footballers) is a problem.

I don't know where Meath posters get their arrogance from... we self-destructed in the face of some outrageously poor decisions by the officials that got ye back into that q-f. Without those breaks Meath would still have lost to jokey old Mayo! Next day out ye met a Kerry team that didn't really spark and yet they won comfortably. The true worth of this Meath team won't be measured in Leinster this year, the way things are shaping up, but like ourselves ye haven't got the sort of strong, pacey defenders to shut out the really top class sides and ye, like us, will not be contenders until ye've proven ye possess these sorts of players. It was only 12 months ago that the Dubs took this Meath team apart. Limerick also did a number on ye a couple of years back. In all our championship losses over the last 20 years, we've only taken two real hidings and both of these were in A-I finals (same as Cork). Last time Meath got there Galway gave ye a fair beating too. The biggest difference between Mayo and Meath is that our failures always get magnified, while with Meath they're like water off a ducks back... ye bounce back and expect to win next time or next year... this must be a by-product of Sam having been a recent visitor to your county. If we had won at least one of those recent finals our players and supporters would have a different view of the championship. The only other side who are similarly burdened are The Dubs. Personally I'd be happy and confident if Mayo were to meet Meath again this year... ye're no great shakes really!


Yep thats it perlicles...
#Run down Meath all ya want. Oh yeah, your prescious Mayo would hammer them alright.
Wake up ya ginnit!

Jinxie (Meath) - Posts: 6347 - 26/06/2010 20:53:07    687889

well yeah it is now for another year.

seanie08 (Monaghan) - Posts: 1882 - 26/06/2010 20:53:48    687893

Pressure's well and truely off now. At least there will be no need to cancel the holidays

omaghredhand (Tyrone) - Posts: 3656 - 26/06/2010 20:54:48    687897

GerryMc
County: Mayo
Posts: 185

687873 i was wrong well done longford_im lost for words

I really feel sorry for Mayo fans (real ones, not HS WUMS). They have been let down badly by O Mahony and these players. Time now for a major review of Mayo football and a clear out of certain players. Mayo should be challenging for All Irelands and I don't accept the argument put forward by lesser-brained GAA fans that all Mayomen are bottlers. This is not acceptable.

On the flip side, well done Longford. They've been getting closer to taking a scalp.

roundball (Tipperary) - Posts: 2514 - 26/06/2010 20:55:32    687900