Search Results for 'Noel Connelly'

Despite being named in the program to start the game at midfield Ballina native Gavin Duffy was a late withdrawal from the starting line up before throw-in on Sunday in the second round of the FBD League against IT Sligo in Ballina.

New Mayo captain Keith Higgins and Aidan O'Shea may not be back in action for Mayo until at earliest their league opener against Kerry in three weeks time. Speaking after Mayo's win over IT Sligo in James Stephens Park, Ballina on Sunday joint Mayo manager Noel Connelly when asked about some of the more experienced players yet to return to action for Mayo this year and were there any injury concerns over them said:“A few niggly ones, Keith Higgins is coming back from a hamstring injury, Michael Conroy picked up a strain on the hamstring last Sunday. A few of the others, (like) Aidan O'Shea is just getting back in training, so maybe one or two of those guys would be only there or there abouts for Kerry, but certainly would be ready for the home game against Tyrone you'd be hoping to pull from all of those seasoned players.”

So far so good for the new Mayo senior management team of Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes as their side picked up their second win of the year with a comprehensive nine point win over the visitors IT Sligo in James Stephens Park, Ballina on Sunday.

Mayo u21 manager Niall Heffernan got his sophomore year in charge of the inter-county team at this grade of football off to a winning start last Saturday. Mayo opened up their Hastings Cup campaign with a 3-7 to 0-5 win over the Lake County men in Tubberclair. Heffernan and his backroom team will be looking this year to reverse what has been a poor half-a-decade for Mayo at this level, not since the last of a four-in-a-row of Connacht titles put together by the current senior management team of Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes in 2009 have Mayo managed to win or even compete in a Connacht final.

“Work hard, that was it, simple as that. We wanted fellas to work hard.” That was the mantra to his players before the game from Mayo joint manager Pat Holmes last Sunday after his and Noel Connelly’s side had seen off the efforts of NUIG in the opening round of the FBD League.

Not long after they had overseen a win in their debut contest as the joint managers of the Mayo senior football team, Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes came out of the dressing room to speak to the local press corp in the concrete tunnel under the bowls of the stand in Elverys MacHale Park.

Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly got their senior management tenure off to a winning start in Elverys MacHale Park on Sunday. The fare on show wasn't anything that will be remembered for long, but it got a few miles in the legs of a a couple of new and some returning faces in green and red.

The last of the big titles to be given out in Mayo football will be handed out on Sunday week, all going well, with the final of the MD Roofing Services Mayo u21 football championship pencilled in for that date. Before then tomorrow night, Saturday, November 29 there is the small matter of the two semi-finals in the competition down for decision in Elverys MacHale Park.

New Mayo management duo, Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly, will put their first Mayo senior football team out into competitive action in seven weeks time on Sunday January 4 when they take on NUIG in a Galway venue at 2pm. They will follow that up the following week with another test against a third level side when they head to Yeats County to take on IT Sligo. They will wrap up the group stages of the competition with a game against Roscommon at home on Sunday January 18. We sat down with the new management duo last weekend as they looked forward to the new year, you can read it at http://www.advertiser.ie/mayo/article/73605/meet-the-new-bosses-holmes-and-connelly-are-ready-to-go.

You don't often hear an inter-county manager saying it was the wrong decision taking on the job, or it was wrong that they were offered the job in the first place. But Pat Holmes did admit last Saturday night that when he was appointed Mayo manager for the first time in 1999 it probably wasn't the right choice by him to take it on or for the county board to offer it to him.