Search Results for 'Conor Loftus'

Mayo left it late, but the managed to earn a hard fought point in their opening league game against Donegal in Sligo on Sunday afternoon.

All roads lead towards Markievicz Park on Sunday for Mayo - as they start their return to life in Division One of the National Football League with a home game against Donegal in the neutral venue in Sligo.

Nothing ever comes easy at the intermediate grade and this year is proving to be no different - last year's beaten finalists are out of the competition after the group stage.

The hardest thing to predict before the start of any championship season is who is going to win the intermediate title.

It was always going to be a game where everything had to go right for Mayo, or at least 90 per cent right. On Saturday they fell well short of that.

It was the first time since 1951 that we entered an All-Ireland final as favourites. Every Mayo person, myself included, genuinely felt this was our time.

This one will sting, more so than the other recent defeats in the concrete caldron on Jones Road on the biggest day of all. 

It all started for Seamus O'Shea in the green and red in a senior jersey on a wintry Sunday afternoon in Ballinrobe in January 2008 - the eldest of the O'Shea brothers got his first game time for Mayo as a senior as sub against NUIG in the FBD League that day.

Nobody knows better than Mayo supporters that anything can happen once the ball is thrown in on All Ireland Senior Final day; two own goals in the first half, the ball bouncing off the ground and spinning up and over the bar, our most important player sent off after playing a minimal part in a mass brawl - all things Mayo fans can remember vividly.

After so many near misses, bad bounces of the ball and agonising moments - Mayo saw off Dublin in the championship for the first time since 2012.