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It’s been a long wait and it's nearly over. Since Mayo last tasted competitive action almost every other county has been involved in championship action, with Sligo the only side to have not got their summer underway by the time Mayo throw in against Galway on Sunday. This will be the first proper test of the Holmes and Connelly management ticket in the white heat of championship action and they couldn’t have asked for a more traditional joust than a meeting with Galway in their own back yard.

With Mayo’s involvement in the National League over I had a brief look back at their games to do somewhat of a summary of their performances throughout the competition. There is no question it was a roller coaster campaign with lots of highs and lows involved.

The Connacht Championship will throw-in, in three weeks time when Galway cross the Atlantic to take on New York, but Mayo are now in a holding pattern for the next nine weekends, until they in all probability take on Galway in Pearse Stadium in the Connacht semi-final. By that stage the Tribesmen should have two wins under their belts as they are down to face Leitrim a fortnight after their Big Apple adventure.

I am sure many of you felt as deflated as I did last Sunday. After leaving Elverys MacHale Park deflated I went home to watch the game again on TG4, and just in case I missed anything on second viewing I had to watch Sunday Sport later on that evening to see what the pundits said about the game. The reality is Mayo should be playing in Croke Park this Sunday against Cork in the semifinal of the National League. They threw away the game against Donegal or should I say kicked away. Some wayward shooting late on cost us a place in the semifinal.

Stephen Griffen’s injury time point stole a draw for his side and sent them into the semi-finals next weekend, while Mayo have nine weeks to get things right before they start the championship in summer time.

It was a game that had it all and then some more, bar the desired result for Mayo as a late, late Brian Hurley goal saw Cork steal the two points from this national football league encounter in Pairc Ui Rinn. Mayo looked to be heading back up the road with a valuable win under their belts as the game ticked towards injury time. But the hosts had other ideas, Conor Dorman ghosted in behind the Mayo rear guard and flicked the ball across the face of the goal, where the Castlehaven man was arriving just at the right time to flick the ball to the back of the net and condemn Mayo to their third defeat of this years league.

If you dropped the needle on a seven inch copy of “Teenage Kicks” by some of Derry’s most famous sons The Undertones in Celtic Park on Sunday, when Barry Moran picked out Mikie Sweeney inside the Derry defence, by the time the track had had belted it’s way through it’s 2.28 running time you would have seen Mayo comfortably win and almost lose the game in a hectic epilogue at the end of normal time.

Live coverage from Celtic Park where Mayo take on Derry in the National Football League

I thought it was going to be close.

A thick blanket of fog covered Castlebar right until half-an-hour or so before throw-in on Sunday, but not long after that natural blanket had cleared Elverys MacHale Park, a man made blanket dressed from head-to-toe in white descended on the playing field.