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The Mayo players were enjoying the fruits of their labours judging by the noise emanating from their dressing room deep in the bowels of Croke Park last Sunday evening after their four point win over Galway, as their victorious manager Kevin McStay was giving his thoughts on what had happened that afternoon to the press pack.

Mayo will make the long trek to MacCumhaill Park in Ballybofey for the latest leg in their 2023 adventure on Sunday afternoon.

It's Christmas week for football fans this weekend with the start of the Mayo GAA Senior Football Championship.

The Mayo tent was rolled up for another year, and another long winter of wondering and waiting will lie in store as a 71-years ticks into 72.

The real stuff starts now. Losing to Galway wasn't ideal - but it has taken Mayo as many games through the back door to get to the same stage as the newly minted Connacht champions.

It was never going to be perfect, because it never is - and after six weeks without a competitive game it was going to be a matter of getting the job done and blowing out the engine ahead of bigger challenges.

It’s never ordinary with Mayo. They won and are in the second round of the qualifiers, but it could very easily have been different if referee Barry Cassidy had decided to give Monaghan a penalty in injury time when Conor Lenonard looked to have been fouled after he intercepted a poor ball back to Lee Keegan, by Aidan O’Shea.

On paper and in the hours before the build-up, this game seemed to have it all. Two sides with a storied rivalry going back before the foundation of the state; both with much to prove after their last outings up in the big city, now meeting on a sun-splashed day that looked like July even if it still had the nip of Spring in the air when a cloud circled overhead and 25,000 partisan fanatics packed in to watch battle on the freshly laid turf in the old colosseum on MacHale Road.

Padraic Joyce managed Galway to a championship victory over Mayo for the first time on Sunday with a superb 1-14 to 0-16 victory in over their arch rivals in Castlebar.

The real stuff starts now. The league is a thing of the past, put away neatly in a box until early next year. it's championship time and while the Easter Eggs may still be lingering around the house ready to be finished off, Sunday is the start of a new main course and there are few tastier ones than Mayo and Galway in the championship.