Search Results for 'Ger Cafferkey'

I hung around for a while outside Croke Park last Sunday evening chatting about the game. I got the impression that Mayo people were not too disappointed with the result as the general consensus was that we were beaten by a better team. We have come away from HQ on other occasions with our heads bowed, but this time, I like many others, was proud of the fact that we gave it our best shot but just were not good enough on the day. And yet, had we taken a few of the goal chances that were created things might have been so different. I got a text from a friend 20 minutes into the first half suggesting that Kerry were very beatable and were there for the taking. I did not disagree as we were leading by a couple of points at the time and Kerry appeared to be quite ragged. Jack O’Connor had an agitated look on his face and his team were leaking heavily in a few positions. Long ball into Donaghy was being mopped up by Ger Cafferkey and the Gooch had barely touched the ball.

Kerry 1-20 & nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; Mayo 1-11

Mayo manager James Horan will wait until this evening to announce his starting team for Sunday’s All Ireland semi-final against Kerry. It had been expected that the Ballintubber club man would announce his side on Wednesday night, but he has decided to wait until this evening to unveil his starting selection. Horan is waiting on the fitness reports of both Trevor Mortimer and Peadar Gardiner who picked up injuries in training for the county side and in club action respectively over the past few weeks. A third name was added to that list of worries on Tuesday night when Swinford’s Aidan Campbell picked up a knock at training in preparation for the clash.

Both the Mayo senior football team and hurlers will finish up their league campaign’s with trips to Monaghan on Sunday afternoon. Last Sunday’s win by the footballers over Cork ensured their division one status for next year, while on Saturday the hurlers saw off the challenge of Sligo to keep their 100 per cent record intact. However anyone who hoped to travel to the Farney county and catch a double header of football and hurling action between the two counties will unable to do so, with the hurling team who have already booked their place in the division 3B final playing in Clones at 2.30pm and the footballers playing in Inniskeen, 40 miles away at the same time. All games in both the national hurling and football leagues will be throwing in at the same time on Sunday across all the divisions, the reason being that no team in any division will have an advantage knowing results that may affect them beforehand.

Just under a year ago Mayo travelled to Pairc Ui Chaoimh to take on Cork in the final group game in division one of the National Football League and came away with a 0-16 to 0-11 win and a place in the final of the competition. Only a few weeks later both sides squared up again in Croke Park and from the minute the ball was thrown in that day both teams’ seasons veered off in very different directions, Mayo’s ending on a Saturday evening in Longford eight weeks after that league final defeat and Cork’s on the final day with the ultimate prize.

It seems now that Mayo's dreadful display against Cork in the league final earlier this year was not a once off, but a fair reflection of where this team and management currently stands. In that final we played like a division four team. We looked every inch a division four team again last week. I realise that winning performances are not always associated with dazzling displays of individual or team brilliance. A winning performance is achieved by relentless work, harrying, hitting, running, tracking back, tackling, winning dirty balls. This is a basic requisite to be successful in championship football. That's what we wanted from our evening in Sligo. As a result of the defeat Mayo has also missed out on an attractive home tie against our old friends, Galway, in a few weeks’ time. It was planned to coincide with the official opening of the new stand, but that too must be shelved for the time being. This missed opportunity also means a very significant loss of revenue for the County Board and another hit to local businesses.

Sligo 0-15

Mayo 0-16

Mayo 0-12

Time has ticked by very quickly since Mayo took their final bow in the championship for 2008 on a warm August Saturday in Croke Park, slipping out of the championship at the hands of the eventual winners, Tyrone, by a solitary point. And with Cormac Reilly’s final whistle that day attention turned to 2009 and the talk of the pubs and sidelines as to what went wrong over the past two years. Well one thing is for sure, John O’Mahony is still in the hot seat and will remain there for the next couple of years after being given a new deal in the autumn. Who will make up his side this Sunday and for the rest of the year will be talking points for the next few weeks as a side begins to take shape as the opening rounds of the National League slip by.