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The Connacht senior football semi-final win over Sligo was the first step on the road to redemption for the Mayo ladies senior football team after a very poor run in the National Football which saw them go winless over the whole campaign. Jason Tanniane took over a team which had its difficulties, but with a championship win under their belt now he looks to have the team moving in the right direction. The win over Sligo was backboned by a number of old familiar names who have battled valiantly in the green and red for what seems like years now, Yvonne Byrne, Cora Staunton, Claire Egan, Fiona McHale and Martha Carter have all seen the highs with Mayo in the past and their experience will once again be invaluable on Sunday afternoon when they face the old enemy Galway in the Connacht Senior Football Championship final.

The Mayo senior footballers will welcome Kerry to McHale Park for their second game in the 2011 National Football League on Sunday. The visit of Jack O’Connor’s side will pose another difficult examination of James Horan’s early tenure in charge of the green and red. Last weekend Horan picked up his first piece of silverware in the Mayo bainisteoir’s bib when they saw off the challenge of John Maughan’s NUIG by 1-14 to 0-11. Horan would have surely preferred a sterner test from the students who failed to fire for long periods of the game as Mayo cruised to victory with ease.

The Alliance National Football League kicks off this Saturday and first out of the blocks in division one are Mayo, under new manger James Horan. They take on the defeated All-Ireland finalists Down at 7.30pm in McHale Park under lights.

My school, Carmelite College, Moate, won back to back All- Ireland Hogan Cup titles in 1980 and ’81. I was on the 1980 team. A couple of lads decided it would be a good idea (and it was) to organise a 30 year reunion last Saturday in Moate for both squads. I didn’t make it up in time for the golf or the walking tour of our old school (now closed), which started around 2 o’clock that afternoon. I arrived at the hotel at about 7.30pm and walked straight into a crowd of about 50 lads who, at that stage of the evening, were in right good form. They had the benefit of five or six hours in each other’s company and had managed, in that time, to reacquaint themselves, many not having met throughout the 30 years. It was a mortifying moment for me as I didn’t recognise half of my school mates initially. Many had, let’s just say, that wintered look about them. Two of the lads had emigrated to the US after leaving school. One of those two is now a policeman in New York, the other a successful business man in San Francisco. It was good to meet up with those lads after so many years. Val Daly was another member of the side. He arrived later than I, as he was in Tuam watching his native Mountbellew lose the county semi final to Killererin earlier that evening. The boys from the 1981 winning team had invited a couple of the lads from the beaten finalists of that year. So, in fact, the first faces I recognised when I went in the door were Sean Maher, John Finn, Seamus O’Brien and Ollie Kelly, all members of the Claremorris school team beaten by Moate. It was a wonderful night and highlighted for me the fact that friends made on the football field can last a life time.

The bookmakers have it that it will be a clash of north against south for the Moclair cup come next month, and while that may be where the money is going, it would be a foolish man who is counting out the chances of the men from the west ahead of Sunday.

Ballintubber v Ballina

The club scene in Mayo will take a backwards step this weekend with the Michael Walsh league rolling around for a round of fixtures. After a hectic few weeks of both inter county and club championship fixtures the Michael Walsh league will bring respite for a number of players and offer club managers a chance to run the rule over some of their fringe players.

Longford:1-12

The Mayo senior and intermediate football championships kicked into life this weekend, with most sides getting to grips with the white heat of championship fare for the first time this season. The big surprise of the weekend occurred on Saturday evening when Norman O'Brien's Ballinrobe destroyed Ballaghaderreen in Charlestown. The south Mayo men pulled off a 1-11 to 0-5 win over the 2008 county champions and restricted them to a solitary point in the second half, Kenneth O'Malley also saved a penalty from Andy Moran in the game.

While the post-mortem on Mayo’s inglorious exit from the Connacht championship went on over the week and will go into the future, it’s back to basics this weekend for the inter county football panel when they rejoin their club mates for the first round proper of action in the Royal Theatre senior and intermediate championships.