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They don’t make it easy on the faithful, but the Mayo congregation will head to church at least once more this summer after a dramatic draw with near neighbours Roscommon on Sunday in Croke Park. There were more than a few decades of the Rosary said by the traveling worshipers down the final few minutes of injury time as Mayo created and fluffed a few chances to win the game and the devotions were dedicated to the full time whistle blowing when Roscommon looked to steal it right at the end.

It wasn’t pretty for a long time, but when it came to the crunch Mayo dug deep and ground out the win the required against Derry in MacHale Park. The wide count almost tallied the scores for Mayo on the day, as they looked like they might kick themselves out of the championship and only for a late rally they could very well have been looking at the rest of the summer free from inter-county action.

Mayo take on Galway in the Connacht semi final on Sunday in Salthill in what promises to be a mouthwatering clash to see who will face off against either Roscommon or Leitrim in the provincial show piece on July 9.

Mayo will meet Sligo on Sunday week in Castlebar after the Yeats men survived their trip to the Big Apple defeating the home side by 1-21 to 1-13. For the life of me I could not get my head around all the talk that New York were going to beat Sligo and that this was their strongest ever team in the championship and an upset was on the cards. This theory was mainly based on the fact that they recruited a few big name players and also ran Roscommon to a single point last year and that Roscommon are perceived as a better team than Sligo.

There was more than an air of hope around the county last week that Mayo could go to Croke Park and drive a knife into the heart of Dublin's 32 game unbeaten run in their own back yard. But from within minutes of the ball being thrown in, those hopes were proved to be idle pleasures of an early spring day dream.

And so it begins. With the greatest respect to the FBD league, Mayo's season kicks off in earnest with a home tie against Monaghan in MacHale Park tomorrow evening. I will let someone else tell Andy Moran about the insignificance of the FBD league. Mayo's evergreen full forward was full of passion for the trip to Kiltoom to face Roscommon in the final FBD group game, scoring two late goals to ultimately decide the contest and rub salt to the wounds of the Rossies' who had given him plenty of stick while he was on the sideline.

Over the next two days, MacHale Park in Castlebar will host four big games as the quarter-finals of the Mayo GAA Senior Football Championship are down for decision. Our Sports Editor, Colm Gannon previews the action.

This one is hard to comprehend,very hard. Some are harder to take than others. This defeat is pretty difficult to take. Our 1996 loss to Meath is forever etched in my memory for all the wrong reasons, it's very similar to last Sunday.

Twenty years ago he was in the Nally Stand with a bus load of team-mates from Ballyhaunis when Colm Coyle's shot hopped over the bar and Meath pulled level at the death. Last Sunday week, he was on the field watching Diarmuid Connolly's effort from a sideline sail wide and drop over his head deep in injury time giving Mayo one last chance at drawing level. And thanks to Cillian O'Connor's effort seconds later, he will be back in Croke Park tomorrow evening again with it all to gain.

And we are off again. It has been a long and winding road this year for Mayo on the field and when we thought we had reached the final destination two weeks ago, the car was pointed for home, neither full of joy nor regret, but full of more questions and possible answers. The steering wheel will be turned out on to the road and thousands of cars pointed east to the capital once more, thousands of Mayo fans will make the trek from Blacksod to the bridge in Shrule, full of hope, expectation, and delight tomorrow morning. For this Mayo team have another shot at glory, not redemption. It may be 65 long years since Sam Maguire came here festooned in green and red ribbons, but over the years in between hundreds of Mayo men have donned the green and red and given us some glorious days. Days that other counties could only dream of being involved in, we have been there, we have stood among the greats of the game and we have never done anything but seen our warriors give their all for their families, clubs, towns, schools, communities, themselves, and for us, those cheering them on from the sidelines.