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On Sunday, Killala will look to book their place in the All Ireland Junior Football championship final when they take on Liverpool side John Mitchels in Carrick on Shannon. This will be the second time in two years the north Mayo men have been within touching distance of Croke Park and the All Ireland final. In 2006 they fell short against Greencastle at this stage and they will be aiming to put things to right this weekend.

It will take exactly three hours to cover the 122 miles it is between Castlebar and Letterkenny according to the AA on its website. So to make the 2.30pm throw in in comfortable time Mayo supporters will be leaving home from the county town not long after 10.30am on a Saturday. While Saturday evening games have become the norm for the National League, this weekend Mayo have the unusual fixture of a Saturday afternoon game against Donegal. The change in the fixture is something that the Mayo manager, while not overly happy with, will have to deal with. “It’s a strange one all right, when we heard that the game was not going to be played under lights we assumed it would be switched to a Sunday. But as far as I know it’s to do with TV rights that the game has to be on Saturday. It’s far from an ideal time for supporters to make a trip to Donegal and we need all the supporters we can at the games, and the people of Mayo want to come out and support us. We also believed that the game would then be played in Ballyshannon, but it was moved further away to Letterkenny, and this was all only decided last week, which was very late.”

Mayo 1-13

Kerry 0-13

Mayo 0-9

Mayo 1-11

For what it’s worth, and irrespective of what you might have heard on the streets since, I didn’t meet a single person who believed that Mayo would beat Galway before last Sunday’s game in Tuam. That is why that one point victory had people giddy with excitement after the match. It was an incredible result. Let’s be honest here for a minute. The form shown in Ballina exactly one week earlier against a mediocre Dublin outfit was to say the least very ordinary. Yet here, a week later, 14 of that very same starting 15 are brimming with confidence after taking the scalp of the form team of 2009. It’s not too difficult to analyse the reasons for the victory. Put the maroon and white of Galway in front of a green and red jersey and you have a different attitude and approach to the whole occasion. Clearly it’s a mindset. There is no doubt that there would have been lots of smiles, not to mention a bounce in the step of all who participated in the morale boosting victory last weekend. Because the win is worth an awful lot more than the two points on offer that more or less saw Mayo scramble away from the relegation zone and into mid- table that will surely guarantee Mayo division one football next year. This victory reminded everyone that the age-old rivalry that exists between these two teams is very much alive and well. Long may it continue! Both sides just love having a go at one another, out on the pitch and extending into the terraces too.

Spoils shared on the final day

John O'Mahony reveled his starting 15 for Mayo's crunch tie with Tyrone in McHale Park on Sunday. For the second game in a row Shrule-Glencorrib sharpshooter Conor Mortimer has been left out of the side, following on from his omission from side who started against Galway in the last round of the competition. Aidan O'Shea will continue in his role at full forward, the Breaffy teenager and Knockmore's Kevin McLoughlin are the only u21 players in the starting 15. The starting 15 also see's Billy Joe Padden come into the side at top of the left in the place of Mikey Sweeney, while McLoughlin will replace Kieran Conroy at left corner back.

After the pre-season warm up session on the far side of the Atlantic it’s back to more traditional fare, albeit on a Saturday evening for Mayo. And with McHale Park getting the go ahead, it’s all systems go for the welcoming of Roscommon to Castlebar for the first time in five years, and four years after the sides last met in the Connacht Championship.