Search Results for 'Aidan Kilcoyne'

With the front door closed by Galway after the Connacht final, Mayo go in search of squeezing themselves through the back door starting with Tyrone tomorrow afternoon. The two-time All Ireland champions, who were kicked to touch at the quarter-final stage of the Ulster championship by Down and have come through the first two rounds of the qualifiers, seeing off Louth and a 13-man Westmeath side last weekend, to arrive in Croke Park with a bit of steam built up.

Mayo will entertain Roscommon in their final FBD League game of the season in Ballyhaunis on Sunday. Gollowing on from last weekend’s comprehensive win over a poor Sligo IT side John O’Mahony will be hoping that his side can wrap up their warm up to the league with a second win on the bounce.

Garrymore v Charlestown

Time has ticked by very quickly since Mayo took their final bow in the championship for 2008 on a warm August Saturday in Croke Park, slipping out of the championship at the hands of the eventual winners, Tyrone, by a solitary point. And with Cormac Reilly’s final whistle that day attention turned to 2009 and the talk of the pubs and sidelines as to what went wrong over the past two years. Well one thing is for sure, John O’Mahony is still in the hot seat and will remain there for the next couple of years after being given a new deal in the autumn. Who will make up his side this Sunday and for the rest of the year will be talking points for the next few weeks as a side begins to take shape as the opening rounds of the National League slip by.

Mayo 1-13

Kerry 0-13

Mayo 0-9

The senior club championship kicks off this weekend and to be honest I am getting excited and a little nervous because of it. All the dreaming, planning, and orchestrating for a crack at winning the title will be put to its first big test on Sunday. The weather forecast is good and the fact that it is a long weekend should guarantee a bumper crowd at the games, which will surely bring a smile to the face of what is normally a very serious looking county treasurer! The real secret of the GAA's success is that it is so fervently supported at community level, and this weekend will see thousands turning out to support their respective clubs all over the county. You don't have to be interested in football — everyone goes to support their parish or their club. Gaelic is easy to watch. It is free flowing and robust with a lot of scores, and that's attractive for punters who are used to watching soccer where there is maybe one goal in the space of 90 minutes (Wednesday’s European cup final being an exception, when we could sit back and marvel at the flamboyant skills of Barcelona). There are very few things in life that create the excitement of a good club championship match and I personally love the build up to championship Sundays.

After the pre-season warm up session on the far side of the Atlantic it’s back to more traditional fare, albeit on a Saturday evening for Mayo. And with McHale Park getting the go ahead, it’s all systems go for the welcoming of Roscommon to Castlebar for the first time in five years, and four years after the sides last met in the Connacht Championship.

I am confused as to the real potential of this Mayo team. I can’t honestly say how good this team is, as I doubt they have ever played an easier inter-county match in their lives, nor will they play an easier one ever again. I suggested here in this paper last week that I fully expected Roscommon to put it up to Mayo for 40 minutes or so but that ultimately Mayo’s greater fitness, ability, and general know how, would surface and they would pull away from Roscommon in the last 30 minutes possibly winning by 5/6 points. As you now know we won by 20! I had alluded to Roscommon’s morale-boosting victory over Leitrim a few weeks earlier that would have seen them arrive in Castlebar full of hope and brimming with confidence. I met a few of their supporters before the match in the Sportlann who had the audacity to suggest that they were in fact well capable of beating this particular Mayo team, and for me not to be one bit surprised if they pulled off a famous victory. Oh how wrong they were. This was arguably the worst performance from a senior Roscommon team in a championship encounter that I or many others have ever witnessed. Fergal O’Donnell, the messiah who had guided the county to their historic minor All Ireland victory in 2006, was in charge and their supporters were giddy with excitement and expectancy. Eleven of that minor squad were involved in one way or another last Saturday and they appeared to be relaxed and in confident mood as I watched them go through their paces in the warm up on the back pitch a half hour before the game.