Search Results for 'Donal Vaughan'

Charlestown v Castlebar

The news that Ronan McGarrity had been selected to play in Sunday’s Connacht Senior Football Final (subject to passing a fitness test on Sunday morning) against Galway in Pearse Stadium was a major boost for Mayo when John O’Mahony named his side on Wednesday evening. The Ballina midfielder looked to all intents and purposes to be out of the game after he picked up a fractured cheekbone in Ballina’s Mayo senior football club championship clash with Crossmolina almost a fortnight ago.

I paid a visit to Anthony Finnerty’s hostelry in lower Salthill before the game last Sunday. There was a great buzz about the place with plenty of Mayo supporters popping in for the crack and banter before the short hop over to Pearse Stadium. One of the first people I met on arrival was PJ Kelly from Moygownagh. He is a great passionate football man and was eagerly seeking everyone’s opinion as to who they thought would win the game. “Would we win it? Are we good enough to win it”? I got the impression that PJ was happy with the answers coming from the gathering and would have left for the stadium pretty confident that Mayo would win their first provincial title since 1967 at the city venue. If I am to be perfectly honest here I have to admit that I found it very difficult to predict the outcome in advance of Sunday’s game. I know from experience that Galway v Mayo encounters take on a life of their own and the form book goes out the window when these two sides meet. Irrespective of form coming into a championship encounter, there is rarely more than a point or two separating these two great rivals. Galway looked so ordinary against Sligo a few weeks ago that punters could have been forgiven for believing that this would be a relatively ‘handy’ match for the Mayo boys. Mayo, on the other hand, looking hugely impressive when carrying out a demolition job on Roscommon in the semi-final. I suggested, prior to the game, that our poor run of results in Pearse Stadium in recent decades would be a factor. Because of that I felt we would have to be five or six points a better team than Galway to beat them in a venue where we hadn’t won a provincial championship since 1967.

Meath 2-15

The freezing conditions that have beset the country have seen the cancellation of the first round of games in the Connacht FBD League this weekend. The Connacht council announced the decision on Wednesday saying: “Due to hazardous driving conditions and having checked the weather forecast for the weekend Connacht GAA Council has postponed the start of the FBD Insurance League until Sunday January 17.” Mayo were scheduled to open their FBD League campaign with a tie in Garrymore against the students from NUIG on Sunday, but all the ties have now been put back a week due to the snow and ice. Mayo will now start their campaign on Sunday week, and follow it up with a game at home to Sligo IT on Sunday January 24 in Charlestown, and wrap up the league stages on Sunday January 31 in Ballinlough against Roscommon. The home final for the league has been pencilled in for either Saturday February 20 or Sunday February 28, and the final against New York on Sunday October 10.

There was only one real surprise when John O'Mahony announced his starting line up for this Sunday's clash with Meath in the All-Ireland quarter-final in Croke Park. Castlebar's Barry Moran, who was expected to miss the game with a broken bone in his hand, was named at full forward. Moran, who picked up the injury in training last week, was expected to be sidelined by the hand problem for a number of weeks. But in a similar turn of events to what happened when Ronan McGarrity suffered a facial injury in a club championship match in the lead up to the Connacht final, he seems to have healed quickly enough to be given the nod.

The freezing conditions that have beset the country have seen the cancellation of the first round of games in the Connacht FBD League this weekend. The Connacht council announced the decision on Wednesday saying: “Due to hazardous driving conditions and having checked the weather forecast for the weekend Connacht GAA Council has postponed the start of the FBD Insurance League until Sunday January 17.” Mayo were scheduled to open their FBD League campaign with a tie in Garrymore against the students from NUIG on Sunday, but all the ties have now been put back a week due to the snow and ice. Mayo will now start their campaign on Sunday week, and follow it up with a game at home to Sligo IT on Sunday January 24 in Charlestown, and wrap up the league stages on Sunday January 31 in Ballinlough against Roscommon. The home final for the league has been pencilled in for either Saturday February 20 or Sunday February 28, and the final against New York on Sunday October 10.