Search Results for 'Colm McFadden'

The first Mayo man I met early on Monday morning in the staff room just nodded at me. Smiled a sheepish, bashful smile, shrugged his shoulders, looked a tad embarrassed and said nothing. And he was right. Because, unfortunately, there was nothing to say.

The first Mayo man I met early on Monday morning in the staff room just nodded at me. Smiled a sheepish, bashful smile, shrugged his shoulders, looked a tad embarrassed, and said nothing. And he was right. Because, unfortunately, there was nothing to say.

Although he was powerless to do anything to help his team-mates, from his place; injured and on the bench in the Hogan Stand as Mayo took on more water early on than they could bail out over the seventy minutes of last years All Ireland final, Andy Moran still has taken plenty from that most recent sunken Mayo adventure into late September football. Shipping two goals inside the opening ten minutes was never going to be an easy task to navigate, but the final hour of that game and one moment in particular has steered Mayo's ship this year, back to within one game again to the having a crack at the final leg of an epic journey according to the Mayo captain. “I think, you can't underestimated it (Mayo's performance in the final hour). The guts and the courage the lads showed right from where I'd pick out a pivotal moment was,when David Clarke saved from Colm McFadden for what would have been their third goal, I think he nearly broke his own leg and Colm's leg, he was going to save that ball and it drove us on to be honest with you. To me that is the major point of that game and yes we lost the All Ireland, it was another one we lost, but we lost it fighting and that was a key thing.”

Mayo 4-17

Once Monaghan had ended Donegal’s three-in-a-row Ulster championship dreams in St Tiernach’s Park in Clones, a couple of hours after Mayo had wrapped up their own hat-trick of provincial titles, this Sunday’s quarter-final pairing was the one that the neutral and plenty of non-neutrals wanted to see come out of the hat. And so it came to pass, not long after 8.30pm last Saturday, the gods conspired to set up a rematch of last year’s All Ireland final, with Cavan man Joe McQuillan the man brokering the peace in the middle of the two packs.

Mayo 1-10

Now that the dust has finally settled, I spent some time discussing the quality of the senior football championship this year with a few GAA heads. Overall it was generally felt that it was a reasonably good championship as there were several good games that were of high quality. Obviously Mayo’s victory over Dublin is a stand out match for me, and I’m sure several of you too. But you would also have to admit that Donegal’s victories over both Kerry and Cork, when they produced their two best performances, were really eye-catching. Donegal were the best team in the country all year and deserved their All-Ireland success.

It was not to be once again for Mayo.

Following NUIG’s narrow win over Galway last weekend in the FBD, the university has attracted some interest in the betting markets for the Sigerson Cup which will be held in Galway this year.

I was hugely disappointed this week after our Crossmolina boys lost to Castlebar Mitchels in the quarter finals last Sunday. We had prepared exceptionally well, particularly over the last three weeks since the conclusion of the group stages with two good challenge matches and quality training in between. The feeling was that if we could beat Castlebar, we had a right chance of winning the county title. The mood was good coming into the game despite injury to five of our first team squad. There was a quiet air of confidence that we would beat the more fancied Mitchels. There was a big doubt about our county player Peadar Gardiner’s participation right up to the last few minutes, but he had pushed himself right to the limit to be fit to play.