GAA: All Ireland SFC Qualifier

Fri, Jul 15, 2016

Last Saturday saw Mayo move their historical record in the All Ireland Senior Football Championship qualifers into the black with their two point win over Fermanagh. This coming Saturday, they will be looking to move that win/loss record a little bit further into the black when they welcome Kildare to MacHale Park.

Minors fall short in the rain

Sun, Jul 10, 2016

The Mayo minors attempts to claim a 40th Connacht title for the county came up short on Sunday in a rain sodden Pearse Stadium in Galway. Enda Gilvarry’s side can have very little complaints about the outcome of this game as the hosts were deserved victors in a patchy affair, where both sides struggled with the conditions.

McGrath fumes over O’Shea penalty

Sat, Jul 09, 2016

There wasn’t much left in Stephen Rochford’s voice after full time on Saturday afternoon, when he spoke following Mayo’s win over Fermanagh in MacHale Park on the back of a controversial penalty. Asked whether he thought it might come back to cost Mayo later on down the track if they don’t get a big decision, Rochford said he felt it was along time coming that Aidan O’Shea got some luck to go his way when it came to the action on the field. “I would have hoped that after seeing the attention he got in the league, he got a break, he got a black card in Monaghan for a tackle that was just an arm out in the first three minutes, he got fellas you know jumping on his back here against Dublin, if he got a break it’s not before time.”

Second half fight back sees Mayo through

Sat, Jul 09, 2016

Was it a penalty? Probably not looking at the replays, but Aidan O’Shea has been fouled and dragged down enough times in his inter-county career and not gotten a free he deserved, some day a break was going to have to go his way.

Getting back on the horse

Fri, Jul 08, 2016

It's time for the talking to be done on the pitch. Leaving MacHale Park after Mayo's lethargic performance against Galway, disillusioned and bewildered, I now find myself with a nervous excitement as Mayo have to navigate their way to Croke Park via the qualifier route. Who knows where it will take us. It's a new experience for some of the team and an experience some of the others have only been through once (the nightmare loss to Longford in 2010), which brings its own pressure, lose and you're out. Defeat will mean it will be the first time in six years Mayo won't be making the trip east to play in Croke Park. To coin a phrase from Sir Alex Ferguson “it's squeaky bum time”.

League Cup semi-finals take centre stage

Fri, Jul 08, 2016

With the league action in the top division off this weekend, for the most part, bar the refixed clash between Westport United and Ballina Town in Belleek on Saturday night, despite the attempts of Westport to seek a postponement which was refused by the league, the main focus of action moves to the Westaro Cup semifinals where two tasty clashes are coming up.

Victory for Kathy Gleeson in Irishtown 8k

Fri, Jul 08, 2016

Kathy Gleeson (Claremorris) was the winner of the fourth annual Padraig Cullina Memorial Irishtown 8k. The race was also a Mayo AC 2016 Vodafone C&C Cellular Club League race and the first of five upcoming Club League 8ks/5mile target races or bonus events, with points to be won by competing Mayo AC club members. The course is one lap starting and finishing near the community centre and has some tough stretches, particularly over the final two kilometres.

24th Balla 10k run and walk coming up

Fri, Jul 08, 2016

“How time flies” was the comment of Brendan Conwell as he took a break from organising the 24th edition of the famous Balla 10K which is fixed for Saturday evening July 23 at 7pm. The man behind the event since its inception in the early 90s looks back fondly on the many enjoyable but sometimes stressful moments associated with organising a highly successful annual fixture like this.

No second chances any more

Fri, Jul 08, 2016

There's no more room for error for the Mayo seniors of 2016, after five successive Connacht titles, rather than looking forward to a Sunday afternoon showdown for the Nestor Cup, they are back on the chicken and chips circuit of the qualifiers for the first time in six years looking to rebuild their fortunes on the backstreets of the championship. The first step in moving from those backstreets to the main streets is tomorrow afternoon when they host a dangerous visitor from Ulster at 3.30pm

Minors face stiff test against fancied Tribesmen

Fri, Jul 08, 2016

Enda Gilvarry's Mayo minors face their own "high noon" on Sunday when they take on Galway in the Connacht Minor Football Championship final in Pearse Stadium in Salthill. Mayo booked their place in the showdown with an impressive win over Leitrim nine days ago, but this challenge will be an all together tougher one for this years crop of minors.

Ernesiders a tricky test for Mayo

Fri, Jul 08, 2016

They may be one of only two counties to have never claimed a provincial title alongside Wicklow in the football championship, and their pedigree may not be as strong as other counties, but as they showed on their route to the All Ireland quarterfinal stages last year, this Fermanagh side are only worried about writing their own history. The man on the sideline guiding them, Pete McGrath, has been there and done it all before, guiding his native Down to two senior and one minor All Ireland titles in the past. In his last meeting with a Mayo side he was in charge of a Down u21 team that saw off Mayo in an All Ireland semifinal in 2009 in Longford, there are plenty familiar Mayo faces from that team no part of this year's set up and they do not want to see McGrath smiling at full time again at the end of a championship encounter.

Not so familiar foes

Fri, Jul 08, 2016

Meetings between Mayo and Fermanagh have not been the most regular of clashes down through the years, you have to go back nine years for the last time the sides met in serious competition, and four years further for their last meeting in the qualifiers. The last time that Mayo tussled with Fermanagh in competitive action was way back in March 2007, when they squared off in the league in March of that year in Clones. Mayo ran out 0-12 to 0-7 winners that day, of the team that started for Mayo nine years ago, only three of them survive in the panel now, with Keith Higgins the only one who started in Clones on the starting 15 for Mayo's last game against Galway. Higgins lined out at corner back in that game, while both Alan Dillon and Andy Moran were in the full-foward line for a John O'Mahony managed team that was guided home to victory due in no small part to a six point return from Conor Mortimer over the hour.

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