Search Results for 'James Horan'

James Horan threw a curve ball with his team selection for Sunday's Connacht semi-final against Roscommon, by omitting his captain Andy Moran from the starting line up. The Ballaghaderren man's omissions from the starting 15 will be the big talking point ahead of the throw in, with Breaffy's Conor O'Shea coming into the starting line-up for his first championship start in a new look Mayo team that will see O'Shea line up alongside his two older brothers Aidan and Seamus. Conor will line out at centre half forward with Burrishoole's Jason Doherty on one side of him and Ballintubber's Diarmuid O'Connor on the other flank. The full forward line will see Alan Freeman return to the focal point of the attack with Kevin McLoughlin and Cillian O'Connor either side of him.

This time last year Mayo trounced Roscommon by 0-21 to 0-9 in McHale Park in the provincial semi-final.

In preparation for Mayo’s meeting with Roscommon next weekend in the semi-final of the Connacht Senior Football championship in Hyde Park, James Horan sat down with the media this week. On the injury front, things haven’t really changed he explained saying “Jason Gibbons isn’t healing as quickly as we’d like, Barry Moran is healing well, Michael Conroy got a knock at the weekend, Enda Varley’s groin is a little sore. But we’re not to bad outside that we’re not to bad, any of the injuries there are recovering.” As for Moran or Gibbons making it back in time for the Roscommon game he said that, “it’d be very tight (for them) to be competitive options for June 8, it’d be very doubtful.”

The inclusion of Gavin Duffy in the Mayo senior squad certainly got tongues wagging in the county and several people asked about my opinion on the matter. Gavin Duffy played midfield for the Mayo minors in an All-Ireland final in 1999, which is 15 long years ago. My senior inter county career finished the same year, I wonder would James Horan be interested in a fifth choice goalkeeper; you have my number, James. There is certainly no guarantee a good minor will become an integral part of a senior set up and I have watched many brilliant minors fall by the way side and some weren’t even playing club football by the time they were 22, but in Duffy’s case I’m sure he would have made the grade. The fact that he went on to have a very successful professional rugby career with Connacht and Harlequins reassures me that whatever he put his hand to he would have been a success. There are loads of positives to take from his inclusion in the panel. He has been a professional sportsman for the guts of 15 years so the physique, stamina and temperament are already in place. He is a leader and captained Connacht for many years and his inclusion will lift the tempo at Mayo training and push the existing players that bit further.

Mayo manager James Horan has thrown a wildcard into the mix this week, with the news that former Ireland and Connacht rugby player Gavin Duffy has joined up with the Mayo senior football squad. Duffy who was a Mayo minor star on the team that lost the 1999 All Ireland minor final was recently released by Connacht after his second stint with the province where he played 173 games scoring 83 points. His period at Connacht was interrupted by a spell in England with Harlequins from 2003 to 2006 where he played 110 times and won the Challenger Cup in 2004 scoring a try in their final win over AS Montferrand. Duffy played ten times for Ireland over his rugby career scoring 18 points, getting his first try in his second cap against Scotland in the 2005 six nations. He was also part of Eddie O’Sullivan’s squad for the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

Mayo did the heavy lifting in first half in their 2014 championship opener, when they ground down the New York challenge with the minimal of difficulty. James Horan will have learned nothing new about his side, but will have been pleased to have been able to give some game time to likes of Alan Dillon who returned to Mayo colours for the first time since the All Ireland final as a second half sub, while debutant Diarmuid O'Connor marked his first senior bow with a well taken goal right at the start of the second half. The game also saw a little bit of history with the three O'Shea brothers on the field at the same time, for the first time when Conor O'Shea made his championship debut as a second half sub.

Mayo’s championship season will get underway on Sunday, thousands of miles away from home when they take on New York in the preliminary round of Connacht Senior Football Championship in Gaelic Park at 7.30pm Irish time.

We will start this week back at last weeks column. I cannot believe a story written in my column last week got so much national attention. It was liked by almost one thousand people on hoganstand.com, it has been discussed on Newstalk I am told, and has been retweeted by several players including Colm Parkinson, the former Laois star. Lots of footballers were tagged to the article on Facebook as it reminded so many of players who would not take no for an answer when told they were not part of a panel. I did not see that coming.

It’s hard to believe that this time next week we will be in New York for the start of the championship. I’m finding it hard to believe because Mayo are only finished up in the league and very well could have been playing in a league decider on Sunday. In my time I don’t remember such a quick turnaround, we obviously didn’t make the league playoffs very often but that didn’t bother us as long as we avoided relegation as it was all about the championship.

Having the championship throw-in against New York in just over a fortnight will have been a welcome relief to James Horan and his squad this week as they picked over the bones of last Sunday’s national league semi-final defeat at the hands of Derry in Croke Park.