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Mayo's 2017 championship gets under way on Sunday in Elverys MacHale Park against rank outsiders and recent conquerors of New York, Sligo. Niall Carew's men find themselves priced at 15/2 to win the game while, Stephen Rochford's charges are an unbackable 1/14 on. If you are silly enough to bet on a draw, it's available at 18/1. The handicap betting suggests that Mayo should win the game by around nine points. Sligo do have the advantage of having a game under their belts, albeit an energy sapping trip to the Big Apple, which they ended up winning comfortably. They did stay behind in New York for a few days training and returned to Ireland the Thursday after their game in Gaelic Park. It does take a few days to get over the jet lag so it is not ideal preparation for such a big game,

Mayo will meet Sligo on Sunday week in Castlebar after the Yeats men survived their trip to the Big Apple defeating the home side by 1-21 to 1-13. For the life of me I could not get my head around all the talk that New York were going to beat Sligo and that this was their strongest ever team in the championship and an upset was on the cards. This theory was mainly based on the fact that they recruited a few big name players and also ran Roscommon to a single point last year and that Roscommon are perceived as a better team than Sligo.

This weekend sees the start of the race to claim the Moclair Cup, Castlebar Mitchels are looking to make it three championships in a row? Who of the other 15 sides can stop them; we preview the action in the first round action down for decision this weekend. 

What a difference a week makes. The Jekyll and Hyde side of Mayo football was never so evident as in their last three performances. Mayo put in a real gutsy performance against Tyrone in sun-drenched Healy Park Omagh last weekend to boost our chances of survival in the top flight. I wondered was it the same team that played Cavan the previous week. The football wasn't brilliant but this was all about the result. Mayo will probably still have to beat Donegal on Sunday to guarantee safety, as a confident Cavan will surely beat a demoralised Roscommon.

When word filtered through that Cavan had drawn with Kerry at half time in this encounter, the permutations and combinations of results that would be needed for Mayo to stay up in division one if they couldn’t come home from Omagh with win under their belts were being worked out by the supporters. But come full time in this one Mayo had put their destiny back in their own hands, thanks to Kevin McLoughlin’s brilliant winning score.

There was more than an air of hope around the county last week that Mayo could go to Croke Park and drive a knife into the heart of Dublin's 32 game unbeaten run in their own back yard. But from within minutes of the ball being thrown in, those hopes were proved to be idle pleasures of an early spring day dream.

Following their victory on the road in Tralee a fortnight ago, all eyes will be turned to MacHale Park tomorrow evening when Mayo host Roscommon in the third round of the National Football League. Whenever these sides meet, be it in pre-season competition on wet and boggy fields or in the height of summer, there is never an inch given by either side and tomorrow night's encounter is expected to be a similar encounter.

Westport are the All-Ireland intermediate football champions after a pulsating win over St Colmcille's of Meath. It was hearts in mouths stuff at the bitter end as a Colmcille's player lofted a ball towards the Westport goal mouth only for stand in keeper Aaron Dunne to calmly clear his lines. The final whistle was blown immediately afterwards.

What a difference a week makes. I wondered if the Kerry jersey would bring out a performance? That opinion was more in hope than expectation, because Mayo seemed so off the pace against Monaghan, that I felt they surely couldn't turn it around in a week especially against a Kerry team that hit the ground running the previous week in Donegal.

Mayo picked up their first points of this years National Football League thanks to a second half fight back that saw them overturn a four point deficit at the break to run out two point winners at the end on a bitterly cold night in Tralee.