Date with Dubs next up for Moyles' Mayo

Ladies Football: National League Semi-Final

The Mayo Ladies' senior footballers will face off against All Ireland champions Dublin tomorrow evening in the LIT Gaelic Grounds in Limerick at 5.15pm for a place in the LGFA National Football League Division One final.

Mayo booked their place in the last four of the competition last weekend, seeing off Westmeath at their ease on a scoreline of 4-18 to 0-6.

That win combined with Donegal's win over Galway, saw Mayo make it out of the group stages of the competition in second place in the table alongside the Ulster outfit.

Their reward for that win, is an early season test against the best in the country - the reigning four in a row senior championship winners.

Dublin booked their place in the last four of the league, winning three from three in their round robin group with wins over Waterford, Cork and Tipperary.

They saw off both Waterford in round one and Tipperary in round three relatively untroubled - hitting 6-15 on day one against Waterford and 2-17 against Tipperary. In their round two game they were pushed all the way by Cork in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, edging out their hosts 3-15 to 4-11 at the final whistle.

Mayo for their part, came back from trailing with not long to go against Galway in round one, to grab a victory, before being edged out narrowly by Donegal on the road in round two - but they picked up the pace and hammered Westmeath in round three.

Getting game time into players

Over the course of their three outings, Mayo have shared out the scoring duties with 15 different players managing to get on the scoreboard in those games. Shauna Howley and Rachel Kearns are joint top of the Mayo scoreboard, with Howley hitting 0-15 and Kearns 2-9 to date. Behind them in the charts are Grace Kelly with 0-6 and Tamara O'Connor with 0-4 for their efforts, while Tara and Ciara Needham have both grabbed a goal as has Amy Dowling.

Mayo have racked up 6-44 (62 points ) on the scoreboard so far, an average of just under 21 points a match - while at the back they have conceded 3-31 (40 points ), an average of just over 13 points. But they have yet to face the type of challenge they will run into on Saturday when they take on Dublin.

New Mayo manager Michael Moyles is still finding his feet in the role and he has spread his net far and wide when it comes to giving game time to players so far, with 24 different players all getting starts over the three games - and many more coming off the bench to get some action into their legs.

Of the 24 players who have started so far in the league, just seven - Kathryn Sullivan, Tamara O'Connor, Eilis Ronyane, Clodagh McNamanon, Niamh Kelly, Shauna Howley and Rachel Kearns - have started all three games; with seven more starting two games - Orla Conlon, Ella Brennan, Fiona McHale, Sinead Cafferkey, Maria Reilly, Lisa Cafferkey and Aishling Tarpey.

Championship dates revealed

The fixture list for this year's LGFA All Ireland Senior Football Championship was revealed late last week. Mayo will be in group one of the competition - the only four-team group of the championship. They will be alongside Cavan, Monaghan and Armagh - the Orchard county knocked Mayo out of the championship last year.

Mayo will open up their championship campaign against Cavan on July 10, before facing Monaghan the following week and then rounding it off against Armagh on July 24 - with the top two teams in the group making it to the quarter-finals of the competition.

Saturday's game against Dublin will be streamed live on the Sport TG4 YouTube page.

 

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