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Not long after Mayo rattled in their third goal in the first half of their All Ireland quarterfinal replay win over Roscommon, the thoughts of plenty of Mayo supporters wandered to what will we do to stop Kieran Donaghy, the man who has inflicted more pain on Mayo in recent years than probably anyone else on big days.

When 15 minutes before throw in, it was announced that Footballer of the Year - Lee Keegan wouldn’t be starting there was an air of fear amongst the Mayo supporters who made the pilgrimage back to Croke Park on Bank Holiday Monday. But once the ball was thrown in that unease was soon vanquished as Mayo went right at Roscommon and rolled them over in impressive style at the second time of asking.

Two weeks ago I was fully convinced Mayo would get the better of Cork when the game was in the melting pot. Last Sunday in Croke Park I almost had a seizure and nearly required a defibrillator as fear gripped me for the final 10 minutes against our Connacht rivals Roscommon in the All-Ireland quarter final. A statement issued by Bray Wanderers recently was described in the national media as being “bat-shit crazy”. The game between Mayo and Roscommon was worse.

They don’t make it easy on the faithful, but the Mayo congregation will head to church at least once more this summer after a dramatic draw with near neighbours Roscommon on Sunday in Croke Park. There were more than a few decades of the Rosary said by the traveling worshipers down the final few minutes of injury time as Mayo created and fluffed a few chances to win the game and the devotions were dedicated to the full time whistle blowing when Roscommon looked to steal it right at the end.

It wasn’t pretty for a long time, but when it came to the crunch Mayo dug deep and ground out the win the required against Derry in MacHale Park. The wide count almost tallied the scores for Mayo on the day, as they looked like they might kick themselves out of the championship and only for a late rally they could very well have been looking at the rest of the summer free from inter-county action.

Over the past six seasons Mayo have faced Galway five times in the Connacht championship, next Sunday's meeting in Pearse Stadium will be the sixth meeting in seven years. The most basic statistic from the previous five meetings is that Mayo have won four of those five meetings with Galway's solitary win coming in last year's meeting in Castlebar. In those five games Mayo have outscored Galway on a cumulative score of 9-69 to 4-53, unsurprisingly in those five games Cillian O'Connor has accounted for 30 of Mayo's 69 points.

Mayo got over their first hurdle of the championship season with a nine point win over Sligo in MacHale Park on Sunday afternoon, but Stephen Rochford will be looking for a big improvement from him his side come their meeting with Galway next month.

Almost anything can happen this weekend in division one of the national football league, but there is one thing that Mayo need to see happen. Take at least a point from their game against Donegal and they can be assured of top flight football, simple as that. There are lots of other permutations and combinations that can see Mayo stay up, go down, or even end up in the league final as distant a possability that is.

Mayo will be looking to get back on winning ways on Sunday when Cavan come calling to Castlebar in round five of the league. This will be first meeting of the sides in a decade in competitive action, with a John O'Mahony managed Mayo seeing off the Breffni men in a qualifier in 2007.  There are a few survivors from that win still involved with Mayo today, with David Clarke and Andy Moran very much part of the Mayo side so far this year and Alan Dillon yet to return to the fold. Dillon and Moran contributed seven of Mayo's 19 points that day, with the Ballintubber man hitting 0-5 and Moran adding 0-2. A return of 19 points on Sunday would be something that Stephen Rochford would be very pleased as his attack have not exactly been lighting things up so far this season.

Mayo picked up their first points of this years National Football League thanks to a second half fight back that saw them overturn a four point deficit at the break to run out two point winners at the end on a bitterly cold night in Tralee.