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With Mayo’s involvement in the National League over I had a brief look back at their games to do somewhat of a summary of their performances throughout the competition. There is no question it was a roller coaster campaign with lots of highs and lows involved.

I am sure many of you felt as deflated as I did last Sunday. After leaving Elverys MacHale Park deflated I went home to watch the game again on TG4, and just in case I missed anything on second viewing I had to watch Sunday Sport later on that evening to see what the pundits said about the game. The reality is Mayo should be playing in Croke Park this Sunday against Cork in the semifinal of the National League. They threw away the game against Donegal or should I say kicked away. Some wayward shooting late on cost us a place in the semifinal.

After seeing his side fail to hold on for a win in the dieing stages of a game for a second week in a row, joint Mayo manager Pat Holmes expressed his disappointment after the game, but still was happy with what his side have gotten out of the league. “You’d always like to be in a league semi-final. Today we came to put in a performance, the same as every game we’ve played. In fairness to the lads they worked very hard today. We just didn’t get over the line.

Stephen Griffen’s injury time point stole a draw for his side and sent them into the semi-finals next weekend, while Mayo have nine weeks to get things right before they start the championship in summer time.

When they took over the job of joint Mayo managers, Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly’s first competitive priority would have been to ensure that Mayo maintained their top flight status. With one game to go it looks like the duo will achieve that target, at least unless we ship a serious loss to Donegal and Tyrone overcome Kerry by a handful of points. So a win for Mayo on Sunday will send them into the semi-finals on either Saturday or Sunday week.

If you dropped the needle on a seven inch copy of “Teenage Kicks” by some of Derry’s most famous sons The Undertones in Celtic Park on Sunday, when Barry Moran picked out Mikie Sweeney inside the Derry defence, by the time the track had had belted it’s way through it’s 2.28 running time you would have seen Mayo comfortably win and almost lose the game in a hectic epilogue at the end of normal time.

Live coverage from Celtic Park where Mayo take on Derry in the National Football League

It wasn’t as if we weren’t warned. We expected a Tyrone backlash, we didn’t think it would be so convincing. The scrutiny and criticism directed at Mickey Harte’s Tyrone after their capitulation against Monaghan in the first round more than galvanised the red hand for their trip to Castlebar. Sports writers, commentators, analysts, and even Mickey Harte’s most loyal supporters questioned his credentials and his team; they’re as good as dead it was declared.

So far so good for the new Mayo senior management team of Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes as their side picked up their second win of the year with a comprehensive nine point win over the visitors IT Sligo in James Stephens Park, Ballina on Sunday.

Congratulations to Ballintubber who clinched their third Moclair Cup in five years against last year’s county and Connacht champions, and their fiercest rivals Castlebar Mitchels. It is a marvellous achievement for a team that was playing intermediate football in 2007.