Search Results for 'James Gillespie'

With the Mayo club championships now put to bed following Ballintubber’s victory over Castlebar Mitchels last weekend, all eyes will now be drawn to the Connacht club championship. The action gets underway on Sunday for the winners of both the Mayo Junior and Intermediate championships, when both Tourmakeady and Parke face Galway opposition. The men from the Gaeltacht will have Mayo advantage when they host St James from Galway city on Sunday, in McHale Park. The Galway champions overcame An Spidéal in the Galway final by a single point a fortnight ago, winning out on a score of 0-9 to 0-8. Midfielder Paul Conroy was the top scorer for the St James men in the final kicking four points of their nine point total.

Anybody who has heard of last year’s quarter final clash between Parke and Islandeady or was unlucky enough to have been at it, may well think of staying clear of this Sunday’s county junior final between the same sides. That clash in Breaffy was as far from a classic as you could find, in fact the game looked to be heading towards a very unusual stalemate at half time with neither side looking like it was going to score until Peter Collins managed to put the ball over the bar two minutes into injury time to give Islandeady a 0-1 to 0-0 lead at the break. The second half of that clash was a little bit better, but once again one side failed to score in 30 minutes of football, this time it was Islandeady who could not hit the target, and Parke ran out 1-5 to 0-1 winners in the end. But that game, while an interesting footnote ahead of Sunday’s clash, should be put well to the back of the mind, as the game coming up between both sides has the potential to be a real top drawer clash. When the junior championship draw was made at the start of the year both clubs were identified as potential title and winners, and while they have been made work to get this far they are thoroughly deserving of their status as finalists.

The intermediate football championship has been a graveyard for many a man who tried to predict the eventual winners of the competition for many a year. This grade is often so evenly matched that the vast majority of the 16 sides which start off at the beginning of the year could end up with the Sweeney Cup. The final four this year all can lay legitimate claims to being in with a very good shot of claiming the title, and by Saturday at 7pm we should know the final pairing. Things get under way at the county grounds when Burrishoole and Kiltimagh go head to head at 4pm, with Tourmakeady and Belmullet rounding off proceedings at 5.30pm.