Search Results for 'Keith Higgins'

There are derby days in all sports all over the globe, but there are very few that are as intimate as what has become the now annual shoot-out for the Mayo senior hurling championship between Ballyhaunis and Tooreen. On Sunday afternoon in the east Mayo village of Tooreen, that rivalry will have another showdown for local pride and county honours.

Twenty years ago he was in the Nally Stand with a bus load of team-mates from Ballyhaunis when Colm Coyle's shot hopped over the bar and Meath pulled level at the death. Last Sunday week, he was on the field watching Diarmuid Connolly's effort from a sideline sail wide and drop over his head deep in injury time giving Mayo one last chance at drawing level. And thanks to Cillian O'Connor's effort seconds later, he will be back in Croke Park tomorrow evening again with it all to gain.

There is plenty of room for improvement for Mayo ahead of Saturday week's All Ireland senior final replay, is the word from the camp this week. Speaking on Tuesday evening Mayo's Keith Higgins said: "Maybe, you'd be looking sometimes at it a bit more critical, ourselves more than anything. But I still don't think we played well on Sunday to be honest with you. We kind of played alright in some patches [but] the performance wasn't as good as we expected it to be. It hasn't hit the heights we think it can hit, and so again it's probably even the Tipp game we played well for 20 minutes. It's about improving on the areas we let ourselves down on Sunday. There are a lot of areas to improve there, so that's the big focus to step up again for the next level of performance for me."

When Mayo needed a man to show the leadership in a clutch situation, their star man came good right at the death. Cillian O’Connor showed why he was picked by Stephen Rochford as his captain, when he created the space he needed to shimmy inside and drill the ball through the drizzle over the bar and electrify the Mayo faithful in Croke Park to haul his side level at the death.

Connacht Championship quarter-final

There has been a lot of talk about the scheduling of championship matches in Mayo for this weekend. I have experienced both ends of the stick with club and county and it's not very nice for club players to be left in limbo as regards preparing for big games only for them to be called off at the 11th hour, but for me nothing should get in the way of Mayo's pursuit of the holy grail.

Mayo have been involved in enough epic semi-finals over the last two years and have come out on the wrong side of the result at the end of the day that Sunday’s performance over Tipperary won’t mind them that much at this stage, with four weeks to put things right before they face either Dublin or Kerry in the final.

At the end of the day the long and winding road has led back to the destination that most had hoped for, Mayo in the first All Ireland semifinal on Sunday August 21. Rather than coming through to this stage as provincial champions with just a quarter-final to play, Mayo have made their way through the scenic route and disposed of Leinster opposition twice and then the Ulster champions to get here. Next up for them is a challenge from a group of men from Munster, but once again it is not one of the ones we would have expected. Tipperary, a division three side that finished their league campaign just two points above relegation to division four for next year, have wandered their way through this championship summer to become the story of the summer.

At the end of the day, the result is all that matters. It wasn’t the prettiest of games in Croke Park, but it was intense, intriguing and full of industry and some moments of pure inspiration. Mayo are in the All Ireland semi-final in two weeks time and that’s exactly where they want to be. They dug in and put in the hard yards on the field in Croke Park and thanks to Lee Keegan’s point five minutes from the end, that seemed to take at least five minutes before it dropped over Niall Morgan’s bar they won the day and moved step closer to their ultimate goal.