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It wasn’t convincing and James Horan wasn’t pleased after it but Mayo picked up their second win in a row last weekend in Mullingar to get a bit of momentum build behind the team. This Sunday in Elvery’s MacHale Park a far sterner test will be given to Mayo when an unbeaten Cork team arrive in Castlebar under new manager Brian Cuthbert. The Rebels boss whose side have so far beaten Dublin, Kildare, Derry and Westmeath in the league has made eight changes to the team that beat the Oak Leaf county last Sunday, with Eoghan Cadogan, Aidan Walsh, Donncha O’Connor and Colm O’Neill just some of the star names that Cuthbert has drafted in for the game.

GAA

Castlebar Mitchels 3-13

Castlebar Mitchels 3-13

Finally getting over the 20-year-old itch and winning the Moclair Cup looks to have freed this Castlebar Mitchels team from the nagging doubts that many had about their ability to press on and mark themselves out as one of the truly great Mayo club sides. They have another opportunity to kick-on again this Sunday, when they go toe-to-toe with the current AIB All Ireland club champions, St Brigid's in Hyde Park. While bookmakers may have the Roscommon men as 4/7 favourites and Castlebar as 15/8 outsiders, those numbers will been have paid little heed around Páirc Josie Munnelly, as Pat Holmes along with his management team of Alan Nolan and Shane Conway put their players through their paces in preparation for Mitchels first provincial final since 1993. Last Sunday, the Mitchels wrapped up the Mayo double with a comprehensive 2-15 to 1-2 league win over the previous holders of the Moclair Cup, Ballaghaderreen. In 10 league and seven championship games they have gone into battle in this year, Mitchels have only been overturned once, on the opening day in the league, when the side they saw off in the county final (Breaffy) edged past them on a boggy and misty spring day.

Kiltane are the 2013 Connacht Intermediate football champions after a very professional performance against Boyle of Roscommon last Sunday in Elvery's McHale Park. They were never really in danger in this game, albeit for a sloppy patch midway through the first half in which they conceded a goal and a point on the spin but that was as good as it got for Boyle. Kiltane are keeping the tradition going by being the third Mayo team in a row to win the Gene Byrne Cup. Little did they know the favours Davitt's and Charlestown did for them the two years previous by playing almost all of their games away from home resulting in the Mayo champs having three home games in this years provincial series. You cannot beat home advantage when you are entering the unknown. It is hard to believe this team could have been out of the championship if Drumcliff/ Rosses Point substitute Colin Ginty kept his head instead of fluffing his lines in the dying moments of the semi final when it looked easier to score. Upon such outcomes All-Irelands are won, most All-Ireland champions have a little bit of luck along the way and that most certainly was Kiltane’s. Their ambition now certainly has to be to claim more silverware in early 2014, a feat which Davitt’s and Charlestown failed to achieve.

Castlebar Mitchels’ main goal at the start of this year was to claim the Moclair Cup for the first time in two decades, a goal they successfully achieved a fortnight ago with a win over Breaffy. But while that success was the one they craved the most, this coming Sunday they have a chance to push their championship ambitions a step further when they take on Corofin in the semi-final of the AIB Connacht Senior Club Championship in Tuam at 2pm.

Castlebar Mitchels’ manager Pat Holmes is facing into his second county final in three years on Sunday which will also be the club’s third crack at the title in four. The All Ireland u21 winning manager from 2006 was also part of the last team from the county town to taste success in this competition 20 years ago, alongside a number of players with long roots to Sunday’s final, including his opposite number Declan O’Reilly who was a member of the panel and Tom O’Reilly whose two sons will line up in opposite camps come Sunday.

Castlebar Mitchels have been going the extra mile this year in their quest to win their first county championship in 20 years, according to Richie Feeney. The team that have lost two of the last three county finals have been working hard to find those extra couple of inches to get themselves over the gain line and back to the promised land, he says. “I think the effort the lads have put in this year, is more effort that they’ve put in, in the last three or four years from what I’ve seen anyway.” Getting players to commit to stay around during the summer when the championship can enter a hiatus and not lot of football is played is another thing that has been a great boost to the cause this year he says. “I suppose the boys decided to stay around, there were a number of lads who went off travelling the last few years and things like that. Two of the boys went, but they came straight back into it and only missed one game and everyone decided to put the shoulder to the wheel and give it a good rattle.”

The dividing lines are fluid when it comes to the boundary, fluid enough to see two brothers togging out for opposing teams on Sunday, but one thing that is not fluid is the desire of both Castlebar Mitchels and Breaffy to take home the Paddy Moclair Cup with them on Sunday evening. Both of this year’s finalists have got there on merit, one was expected to be still standing here, while the others dusted themselves off after heavy defeat to the other in the group stages and have battled back to show their true worth.