Search Results for 'Connacht Junior Football Championship'

It was only a matter of weeks ago that the curtain came down on the club scene in Mayo for 2012 and now on the second Sunday in January, the curtain is coming back up on the inter-county season for 2013. While the members of last year’s senior squad enjoyed their well deserved team holiday in Miami last week and the early part of this week, this Sunday in Ballinamore is going to be a very different experience from the sun and sand of South Beach.

The Connacht Council has handed the down a €10,000 fine to Mayo GAA for their failure to take part in the away final of Connacht FBD League. The final was due to take place on Sunday October 7 against New York in the US city, two weeks after Mayo had played in the All Ireland final against Donegal in Croke Park.

Ulster Bank GAA Force has returned this year, an initiative which supports local GAA clubs across the country by offering them the chance to win support packages to refurbish and upgrade their facilities.

Success has its costs and for the Mayo County Board, success in the Connacht Junior Football Championship came with the cost of having to send a Mayo team across the Irish sea for the third time this year. The Mayo hurlers had two adventures in London in the league and the Christy Ring Cup, and this weekend it is the turn of the junior footballers who are heading to Manchester to take on Lancashire in the All Ireland semi-final tomorrow at 2.30pm in Old Bedians, Manchester.

Walking into McHale Park last Sunday I met friend and former Leitrim footballer Vinny Wrynne. We chatted briefly about Leitrim’s chances. He suggested that Leitrim had travelled more in hope than any form of confidence. As it transpired Vinny more than likely realised that Leitrim hadn’t a pup’s chance of beating Mayo last Sunday. In fact the scoreline tells the story. There was a period in the second half, such was Mayo’s dominance, when it was hard to believe that this was a Connacht football championship match. The 22 points between the teams at the end of the game only served to underline what was an embarrassing situation for Leitrim in particular and one that clearly does nothing to advance the game in either county. Let me say straight away that no blame should be levelled at the feet of this young Leitrim football team or indeed at their management as they prepared their team to be the best they possibly could be against a Mayo team that is simply at a different level. And, in fairness, Mayo should not be censured for subjecting their opposition to such a humbling annihilation either. Sentimentality rarely comes into play on days like last Sunday even though I was hoping that Kevin McLoughlin would tap the ball over the bar, instead of scoring Mayo’s fourth goal, when put through on the Leitrim goal in the final few minutes. At that stage I was genuinely feeling sorry for the Leitrim players and management, not to mention the loyal Leitrim supporters around me, who persevered right to the very end.

The Galway minor footballers face Roscommon in the Connacht championship semi-final this Saturday (5.30pm) in Tuam Stadium.

The Galway senior footballers and their management team will travel to face Roscommon on Sunday (4pm) knowing they have a tough task on their hands.

“It's do or die or whatever other way you want to put,” is how Mayo League manager Michael Hutton described Sunday's Oscar Trainer trophy clash between his Mayo League side and the Sligo/Leitrim League on Sunday in Milebush Park at 2pm. The competition, which kicked off a number of months ago, has only reached its second and final group game stage this weekend, and it is all to do for the Mayo League on Sunday.

At the tail end of last September, James Horan took on the challenge of rebuilding and renewing the Mayo team. In the first flush of his tenure, only a couple of minutes after being approved by the county board delegates in fact, he faced the press and gave a very simple promise that his side kept up last Sunday to the very end. “I know a lot of Mayo supporters are down in the dumps with how things finished last year, but what we will insist on is that any time a Mayo player goes out he will give it absolutely everything he has.”

With a sell out crowd of 30,000 expected to head to Hyde Park on Sunday, there will be nowhere to hide for Mayo as they aim to dethrone Fergal O’Donnell’s defending Connacht champions on their home patch. Ten years ago O’Donnell was the man who lifted the Nestor Cup in the same venue on a sweltering Sunday evening when a late, late Gerry Lohan goal had primrose and blue ribbons hanging from the old trophy for the year at the end of one of the games of the ages.