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Mayo went looking to create their own Fairytale of Croke Park the week before Christmas, but unlike those children’s fables there was no happy ending.

As  this weekend's All Ireland final and the busy Christmas period takes place, a worrying upward trend in new Covid-19 cases in the county has been flagged with 22 new cases confirmed in Mayo on Wednesday evening by the Department of Health.

In a year like no other, tomorrow's All Ireland Football Final will be a showpiece like one we've never seen or felt before.

There's not much left to win in the inter-county game for Stephen Coen - well, just one thing really.

Mayo have had some rotten luck in All Ireland finals in recent years. They’ve pushed Dublin to the pin of their collar on numerous occasions and seen things just tilt against them.

James Horan has guided Mayo to a third All Ireland final as manager, he's played in two (three if you count the replay in 1996) himself and he's looking forward to trying to get Mayo over a line they've fallen short of eight times since they got back to the final for the since last winning it in 1951.

The number on the back of a shirt means relatively little these days in the game, with match-ups between different individuals taking players all over the park.

Only three times has Sam Maguire been hoisted in the air by a Mayo captain - Aidan O'Shea is the latest in a long line of those looking to follow in the footsteps of Sean Flanagan in 1950 and 1951 and Seamus O'Malley who was the first Mayo man to do it in 1936.

It's Christmas week. In normal circumstances we would be thinking about Santa Claus and Christmas parties. But these are not normal circumstances and we have the not so small matter of an All-Ireland senior football final to occupy ourselves. We will think about Christmas from around 7pm on Saturday evening.

It might not have been the 6-12 he joked last week about that he scored against Davitts in an underage club game back in the day, but the 4-9 that Cillian O'Connor netted in the All Ireland semi-final win over Tipperary was another record in the ledger for Cillian O'Connor - but there is one piece still missing that Ballintubber man craves from his roll of honour.