Search Results for 'club Charlestown Sarsfields'

It was back to the harsh reality for Mayo players last weekend as they played in the final group games of the championship for their clubs. It is not the easiest thing to motivate yourself for — a club game after what they have been through, as most if not all of them will take a long time to get over the heartbreak of the All-Ireland final. It is a weird scenario. People from opposing clubs who were screaming from the rafters for you two weeks previous now see you as the panto villain, while club players playing against you would like nothing more than to have a cut at you, to take you down a peg or two, knowing you will be in a relatively fragile state of mind. For some the club is a great distraction especially if their club has a chance of winning silverware or making it through to the next round. For others it is a burden having to play when you know your team is going nowhere.

The age-old debate of club versus county seems to raise its ugly head year after year. For a county like ours with such a prominent senior football team that has been in so many All Ireland finals of late it seems we still cannot get the balance right between club and county. The same problem occurred again this year with a fixture pile up as our county champions and genuine All Ireland contenders Castlebar Mitchels had to play six games, six weeks in a row, eventually losing to now Connacht champions Corofin in extra time having run out of gas during that period of extra time. Some may be wondering what about Westport? They had the same conundrum. They even had to replay a county semifinal against Shrule/Glencorrib mid-week such was the backlog of games. However, Westport were not on the go for a continuous 18 months as the Mitchels were, and Westport had plenty in the tank at the final whistle of all their games.

I went to Elverys McHale Park last weekend expecting to see a whitewash, a landslide victory for Mayo champions Hollymount Carramore against Leitrim champions Melvin Gaels in the Connaught Intermediate final. It surely couldn’t have been anything else, I thought. The South Mayo amalgamation were priced at an unbackable 1/8 to win the game, Melvin Gales were 9/2 and the draw was 14/1. What ensued was far from a landslide.