Search Results for 'Michael Murphy'

In this week’s column I expected to be wallowing about the glorious weather and plethora of club games in Mayo last weekend, that is as much of a mention it will get unfortunately. Just when we thought the dust had settled on our 2015 Championship we were greeted with the earth shattering news on Tuesday morning that there were major problems in the Mayo GAA family. The first murmur I heard was when the principal of St Attracta’s NS in Charlestown (Brian McDermott, an avid Mayo supporter) mentioned it to me in the school assembly yard at 9am. I walked back to work receiving texts saying “turn on the radio”. One message from England said “what the hell has happened”, I had no idea what was going on. For the rest of Tuesday my phone hopped as I spoke to countless journalists, radio stations, and even did a piece with Marty Morrissey for the Six One News. The media world was gone crazy looking for the story. The Mayo players had issued a vote of “no confidence” in the management.

Monivea v Westport

What a mouth watering clash we have in prospect for Sunday. Some of the biggest names in planet GAA competing against each other. We can now definitely say the three best teams in the country are left in the race for Sam Maguire, no one can argue against that. Kerry did all they had to do to get by Tyrone and reach another final but Sunday’s clash between Mayo and Dublin is the one we have been waiting for. The games against Dublin are incomparable especially at championship level. People all around lose the run of themselves. Croke Park is a cauldron of unimaginable noise, even deafening while wearing a headset and on radio duty. The league game in McHale Park this year between the two sides almost attracted a crowd of 16, 000, the likes of which I have never seen before for such an early season clash, which is where I am going to start. Dublin came into that game on a serious losing streak and in relegation trouble, Mayo were on the crest of a wave. All Dublin folk will tell you that game was the turning point in their season; they gave Mayo a right trimming winning by 2-18 to 0-10 that evening and went on to comfortably win the league thereafter. They have since won nine games on the spin.

Mayo defender Kevin Keane will now be eligible to play for Mayo in next weekend's All Ireland semifinal clash with Dublin after winning an appeal against his sending off in the dying stages of Mayo's victory over Donegal in the All Ireland quarter final.

Mayo qualified for a mouth-watering All-Ireland semi final with Dublin after an emphatic and clinical display against Donegal in the quarter final. I’m not going to lie, I was worried about this one, and I wasn’t sure how Mayo would cope against a team with 14 or 15 players constantly behind the ball. It’s very easy to get the life sucked out you playing against such tactics; in this regard Mayo were superb.