{"id":584846,"date":"2026-08-06T10:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T10:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/584846\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T10:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T10:04:09","slug":"paul-galvin-identifies-huge-gaa-change-that-aided-mayo-all-ireland-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/584846\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Galvin Identifies Huge GAA Change That Aided Mayo All-Ireland Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now ten days or so removed from the emotion of Mayo’s<\/a> All-Ireland victory over Kerry, more analysis will be done on how exactly Andy Moran’s side managed to come out of nowhere to claim a first Sam Maguire in 75 years.<\/p>\n

Very few people tipped Mayo for success ahead of this season, with a new manager and a number of relatively inexperienced players coming into the fold. That was even the case throughout the All-Ireland series, with the Connacht side not viewed as a credible candidate to win the competition.<\/p>\n

Their performance in the final left no doubt that they were worthy winners. They completely outworked Kerry and produced some scintillating football along the way.<\/p>\n

Paul Galvin feels change in GAA helped Mayo<\/p>\n

It will be interesting to see if any other teams can replicate Mayo’s approach in 2026, with one thing in particular seeming to work in their favour for this game.<\/p>\n

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Andy Moran had a very young team, with energy from the likes of Kobe McDonald<\/a> and Darragh Beirne proving to be crucial in their approach.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Irish Times<\/a>, Paul Galvin suggested that the recent rule changes in Gaelic football may have shifted a larger emphasis having very young players in your team at the top level.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re 19, 20, 21, you can just go harder and for longer, so there might be a bit in that.<\/p>\n

Maybe the rules have made the game younger again. There\u2019s a bit more space and a bit more room maybe, so that might be a thing where teams are going to have to look at perhaps going for younger sides…<\/p>\n

But it looks now like younger guys, that mightn\u2019t have been deemed ready in the old game, are very ready now.<\/p>\n

Mayo used new GAA rules to their advantage<\/p>\n

Mayo certainly had a much younger team than Kerry for this game, with their starting XV around four years younger on average. Seven of their starters were aged 24 or under.<\/p>\n

That seemed to have an impact in the game, most notably when it came to Mayo’s ferocious pressing from the front. It must also be point out that their biggest contributor in that area was Ryan O’Donoghue, who just turned 28-years old.<\/p>\n

You can be certain that a number of teams will take inspiration from their approach in 2027, especially in fixtures against more fancied opposition.<\/p>\n

As for Kerry, they might need to inject some fresh blood into their side in order to adapt to the current flow of the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now ten days or so removed from the emotion of Mayo’s All-Ireland victory over Kerry, more analysis will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,8764,43],"class_list":["post-584846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mayo","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}