Search Results for 'Conor McManus'

I thought it was going to be close.

A few weeks ago before the county final between Castlebar Mitchels and Ballintubber I envisaged a predicament that Cillian O’Connor could find himself in. I thought nothing of it at the time because I expected Castlebar to retain the Moclair Cup. O’Connor was at the final stages of the trials for the International Rules team, with his skill set and physical attributes I have no doubt he would have been on Paul Early's panel. When Ballintubber won the county final I immediately thought of O’Connor and the predicament, club versus country? It was simple; he was going nowhere and immediately pulled out of the Irish set up to give his full attention to his club.

The four provincial winners have eventually been decided with Dublin and Donegal winning their respective finals in Leinster, and Ulster joining Kerry and of course Mayo. I was in a very precarious position last Sunday at 1.30pm, sitting in 30 degrees of heat by a gorgeous pool in the Algarve, do I stay or do I go to watch potential opponents for Mayo. There was only one winner, I left the swimming pool as I would have been uneasy sitting, wondering what was going on. I happened to meet former Breaffy player Robert Fahy and two of his kids who were there for the same reason as myself, we wanted to see if the Dubs were beatable as most people felt Meath were the team to do it.

And then there were eight. Watching the qualifier between Tyrone and Meath and Ger Canning announcing that Donegal seem to be into the quarter final after a struggle against Laois, I promptly let my Donegal wife Rita know that Mayo could now get drawn against Donegal. I knew it would happen, it was written in the stars, a chance for this Mayo team to right what went wrong in last year’s All-Ireland final. They could have got an easier draw in the likes of Cavan but getting pitted against Donegal - the All-Ireland champions, the team that made us sick to the pit of our stomachs last September means there is little needed in the line of motivation and complacency is gone out the window. It also means not much chat in the Casey house this week. I hope and expect to have bragging rights at 5.30pm next Sunday.

Monaghan 1-18

The Galway footballers were 5/2 in the bookies to be relegated from division one this time last week, but following their poor and inept second-half performance last Sunday against Monaghan (the other team expected to go down), they have been made outright favourites at 4/7 to make the drop to the second tier.

Mayo 2-12

“You go to any club championship game in Ireland and you’re going to get that type of physicality in the game.”

“You go to any club championship game in Ireland and you’re going to get that type of physicality in the game.”

“You go to any club championship game in Ireland and you’re going to get that type of physicality in the game.”