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Mayo are on the look out for a new senior football manager after the inevitable resigning of joint managers Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly last Friday night. It was a somewhat embarrassing saga in the Mayo GAA family that such an event occurred. By the time Noel and Pat resigned I had simply had enough. I was so drained from talking about it and anxiously waiting for any developments that I was relieved there was closure.

So this is it. Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone. Stop the dog from barking, with a juicy bone.  Cancel all those pesky appointments, for the election is in sight. Silence the pianos, and with a muffled drum, let us move forward with the end of November in sight. This is the Most Important Election since…. the last Most Important Election four years ago.

Just three years on from claiming their first ever adult county title in their then 110 year history when they won a dramatic junior final, after extra time and in a replay. The Neale who have a pyramid on their club crest, took another step on the Mayo GAA pyramid when they booked their place in this years intermediate championship final.

Goals win games the saying goes and the Galway minors proved that on Sunday in Croke park when they raised the green flag four times over the hour. Jeffrey Lynskey’s charges gave the Galway faithful the perfect start to the day with a performance of power and poise. Full forward Evan Niland finished the day with nine points to his name, while goalkeeper Darragh Gilligan put in a top class performance keeping out Tipperary on a number of occasions when the game was still in the melting pot.

When word filtered through, shortly before throw in ahead of Mayo's All Ireland quarter-final win over Donegal, that Barry Moran was starting instead of Andy Moran, it caught almost everyone off guard. Where would the big Castlebar man play? In a twin towers approach with Aidan O'Shea on the edge of the square? In the middle of the field with either Tom Parsons or Seamus O'Shea pushing forward? They were two of the most likely options, but as a defensive sweeper, nobody saw that one coming.

"What we do need to concentrate on is being at our very best in June, July, August, and September, and whatever we have to do to be in the best shape we can be, that's what we have to concentrate on," said Noel Connelly on a wet and cold evening last November when he and Pat Holmes sat down to meet the local press for the first time after their appointment as the new Mayo senior management ticket. This coming Sunday is last Sunday in August, and things have gone exactly to that plan so far. If they are to keep going until September then the next step is to get over Dublin on Sunday.