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The Mayo senior hurlers have their first competitive outing of the season with a home game to near neighbours Roscommon this Sunday, February 24, at 2pm in Elverys McHale Park. This is their first game under recently appointed manager Christy Phillips who is hoping to start the League campaign with a win. Phillips and his backroom team of Ciaran Hynes (Westport), Austin Kenny (Tooreen), and Sean Malee (Kiltimagh) have been fine-tuning their preparations for the League since the first week in January, training three times a week at the 3G Connacht Centre of Excellence in Bekan and playing a number of challenge games. The hurlers received a major boost over the past few weeks with the return of Westport’s Aiden Connolly to the panel. Connolly was Mayo’s stand out player last season and his arrival will be a major boost to Mayo’s full backline. Mayo will be looking for strong performances from seasoned campaigners Donal O’Brien, Pa Connell, Shane Morley, Derek McDonnell, Kenny Feeney, and Brian Hunt. Relative newcomers to the panel Ciaran Finn, David Kenny, Adrian Guiry, and Colin Staunton will also be hoping to impress. The match day panel will also be bolstered by the return of All-Star Keith Higgins and football panellist Cathal Freeman.

London 2-15

The last time that the Mayo hurlers made a trip across the water to take on London in competitive action they made the headlines for all the wrong reasons when they missed their flights back from the UK capital. And less than two months on, the gods that governed the draw for the second round of the Christy Ring Cup ensured that Mayo would have to make that trip all over again.

It was a very strange league campaign for Mayo in division 2B of the national hurling league. They were unbeaten against the top two teams in the division yet only managed to finish in fourth place in the table out of six teams. The league campaign was bookended by impressive wins over bottom of the table Roscommon and eventual table toppers Kildare at the very end of the league stages. Both those wins of course did feature the talents of Keith Higgins who, as has become the norm in recent years, is balancing life as an inter-county footballer for one of the top sides in the country, and as the captain and leader of an inter-county hurling team a nice bit down the food chain when it comes to the small ball game. In between those two wins, Mayo held a fancied Meath side to a draw in Castlebar, before being beaten on the road by Armagh and overseas by London.

The last time that both these sides met was in the blistering sunshine in Carrick on Shannon in the National Hurling League Division 3B final last April. But despite blitzing their way though the league stages of the competition where they beat Roscommon in Tooreen on the first day of the league Mayo came up short in the final by two points.

They will go in as the underdogs on Saturday, having never claimed the senior championship title, but Martin Brennan’s charges from the west coast served fair warning last weekend when toppling one of the two east Mayo giants of the small ball game in the county. The narrowest of margins was all that separated Westport when they saw off Tooreen in McHale Park at the semi-final stage on a scoreline of 1-13 to 1-12. But were it not for a late long range goal from Kenny Feeney for the vanquished side, the gap would have been more comfortable for the former Mayo manager’s side. Stephen Broderick was the main man for Westport, scoring eight points for his side in the semi-final and they will need big performances from him along with the likes of Eoin Madigan, Rory Brennan, and Adrian Connolly if they are to knock Ballyhaunis off their perch.

Mayo               1-11

Murt Connolly and Mayo got off to a winning start to 2011 with a comfortable win over Galway and Connacht Intermediate club champions Pearses in Ballyheane on Saturday. An early point scoring blitz by Mayo gave the home team a 0-12 to 0-4 half time lead, as the higher athleticism shone through for the county side. Five first-half points apiece from Kenny Feeney (Tooreen) and Keith Higgins (Ballyhaunis) afforded both a half-time shower, as Murt Connolly took the opportunity to get to know his panel of players.

They have been here before so often, and while familiarity can lead to things becoming stale, there will be nothing stale about the action on the field on Sunday when Ballyhaunis and Torreen get to grips with each other in the Mayo senior hurling final. The game which throws in at 3pm in Ballyhaunis has the makings of another classic, both of these giants of Mayo hurling have been the standard bearers for the small game in the county for decades now.

Following on from last weekend’s win over Cavan in a challenge game in Belmullet, Mayo saw off Westmeath in Tarmonbarry on Tuesday night by 1-13 to 0-11 as their build up to the championship continues at pace. That build up will continue tonight when Dublin head to south Mayo, Hollymount to be precise, where the sides will lock horns with John O’Mahnony’s Mayo in another challenge game with throw in down for 7.30pm.