Search Results for 'Noel Connelly'

An acquaintance of mine from Galway and his wife took a few nights away in lovely Westport last February to celebrate Valentine’s. 

Diarmuid O'Connor is the only potential doubt for Mayo ahead of their Connacht Senior Football Championship final against Sligo next weekend, but joint Mayo manager Noel Connelly expects the Ballintubber man to get over his fractured wrist in time for the game. Connelly said this week: "Diarmuid O'Connor has a slight hairline fracture on his wrist, he's a x-ray during the week, but all the indications are that he's fine and will be fit to play. But he hasn't been playing contact football with us since the Connacht semi-final, and he hasn't played for Ballintubber in either of the club championship games, but we're hoping to have him this weekend. If not, if the doctors say to be better not to chance him for the [training] game on Sunday we won't, but we're still hoping to have him for selection the next weekend."

Cillian O'Connor has won his race to be fit for the start of the championship and has been named at full forward for Sunday's showdown with Galway. Former team captain, Andy Moran has also returned to the starting 15 and will line out at corner forward with Jason Doherty in the opposite corner to Moran.

Ray Silke, our man from south of the border, caught up with a few former players who've been through this particular battle before, to get their thoughts on who will win on Sunday.

Colm Boyle has become one of the most vital cogs in Mayo's domination of the Connacht champoinship over the past four years, and he has an all-Ireland U21 medal in his back pocket from 2006 when the current Mayo management team of Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes guided Mayo to victory. But the quest for the big one goes on still for the man from the borderline, and his 2015 adventure gets up and running properly on Sunday when they head to Satlhill to take on Galway.

The time is nigh. Mayo will put their Connacht championship on the line when they travel to Salthill in Galway to take on the home side in the Connacht semi-final on Sunday. It has been 10 weeks since we watched the green and red in competitive action, but the time seems to have just dwindled away, such was the anticipation about what may unfold in Salthill.

When Noel Connelly used to come face to face with Kevin Walsh in the white-heat of championship action in their playing days, Tuam Stadium was the battle ground. Next Sunday they'll renew their rivalry in Salthill. But Mayo's old torture chamber of Tuam Stadium is where Connelly has his fondest memory of getting one over on Galway. "I suppose the one that's more special for me is the Tuam one in 1997, when the hoodoo was there for so many years and there was so much talk of it. Back then going to Tuam and winning it was like nearly winning the championship outright. To get that winning feeling in Tuam after all the talk and stuff, that was special," Connelly said this week, when asked about his own playing memories against the Tribesmen.

1. Almost everyone in matching kit

The Mayo club championship finally gets under way at the weekend and I have no doubt the two most nervous spectators will be Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly especially as the games are on a week later than planned as it will give their county players a week less to get over any niggles or strains picked up to be fit in time to face Galway.

And so it begins. The Football championship got underway last weekend as New York became the first team out of the Championship. I know they say as you get older time goes that little bit faster but still it’s extremely hard to get my head around that it’s over a year since Mayo played in New York. It was Galway’s turn this year and as expected they had little trouble in eliminating the emigrants from the Connacht Championship.