Search Results for 'Barry Moran'

Since the last time that these two neighbours came together in the senior championship, Breaffy have won their two league meetings, a 2-13 to 0-7 win in 2014, and a 3-9 to 1-12 victory in the spring of this year. But it is the meeting before those two that was the last big one, with Mitchels claiming their 28th senior title on a rain soaked day back in 2013.

What a feast of sport we had last Sunday. Two quality performances by Breaffy and Castlebar in the Mayo championship semifinals followed by as gutsy a performance as you are likely to see by the Irish Rugby team, only to be deflated by the Republic of Ireland soccer team failing to gain automatic qualification for the Euros when they were defeated by Poland.

It’ll be a red v blue final in MacHale Park in a fortnights time after Castlebar Mitchels secured their place in the county senior decider for the fifth time since 2010 on Sunday afternoon with a solid display against Knockmore.

Breaffy v Ballintubber

It was always going to be a tough ask for Aghamore to turn over the 2013 champions in this game, they needed to keep things tight and tidy at the back and try and build up a lead they could hold on to going down the home stretch and hope that it would have triggered some doubts in the Mitchels minds.

Now that the dust has settled and Mayo’s 2015 attempt to win back the Sam Maguire cup for the first time since 1951 came to a very disappointing end, I was somewhat amazed at the way the media and general public analysed the situation. You have to be thick skinned to be a manager of a senior inter-county team; I know I will never be. The knives are most certainly out. Everybody bar the team’s kit man has had some level of blame directed towards them.

The GAA patrons in both Galway and Mayo have one thing in common this week, a frantic search for tickets for next Saturday and Sunday’s two sell-out games at Croke Park. It promises to be a hectic 24 hours of GAA action with Mayo replaying Dublin for a place in the decider against perennial favourites Kerry, and the Galway hurlers trying to bridge a 27-year gap that stretches back to Conor Hayes as team captain in 1988.

As in every game between two evenly matched sides a number of factors will be decisive in sorting out where the winning and the losing of this game will be. We will look at a few of those factors here.

Liam Gallagher once described a gig he played in Slane Castle as biblical, what went in Croke Park last Sunday was nothing short of the same. It was the most anticipated All-Ireland semi final in living memory and it certainly did not disappoint. I arrived early to do a piece with Radio One outside the Croke Park Hotel alongside former Hill 16 favourite Barney Rock and the place was buzzing at 12.30pm. I ran into a few former team mates, namely David Heaney, David Brady, and Kevin O'Neill who had just flown in from the USA for the game. I also had a chat with current Kerry minor and former All-Ireland winning senior manager Jack O'Connor who was rightly cock a hoop about Mayo’s chances. He told myself and Brady that he was coming up to Mayo for a week after they eventually win Sam which he said could be in a few weeks time. I hope he’s right.

Well, have the heart rates returned to normal yet? With just over 24 hours to go until Mayo and Dublin square up again in Ireland's colosseum, anticipation is at boiling point as the gladiators in green and red prepare to do battle once more with the Jacks from the city. While Mayo have named their first 15 on paper already ahead of the skirmish on Jones Road, if we have learned anything this year from Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes' tenure in charge of it is to expect the unexpected. While Barry Moran's inclusion in the quarter-final was a bolt from the blue, the decision to drop David Drake into the cauldron for his first championship start was a bolt from far beyond the reaches of our solar system.