Search Results for 'Lee Keegan'

The long road home from Cork gave Stephen Rochford plenty time to think over what had just happened in his first game on the road in charge of Mayo after he watched his side get beaten out the gate by nine points in their league opener.

There’s nothing won on the last day of January of note, but Mayo will hope that this will be the worst day they have this year as Cork ran riot on Leeside. Every game is different and Mayo came into it shorn of a number of key men that will surely be big players later on this year, but it still must be taken on its merits as a contest over 70 minutes and in this contest Mayo were so far second best that they game was never a contest from as early as the 20th minute when Cork put themselves three points clear.

Aidan O’Shea will play his first football in Mayo colours since last years All Ireland semi-final replay defeat to Dublin when Mayo take on Cork in Páirc Ui Rinn on Sunday. The Breaffy man has been picked at centre-half-forward in Rochford’s first National Football League team.

With the greatest respect to the pre-season provincial leagues, they are really what they are, challenge matches with large attendances. They are a means to an end, to prepare you for the competitions that matter, the National league and the championship. They are to build up fitness, improve your football skills, and try to unearth a player or two that might make a difference in bigger more important games. Unlike some folk out there, Mayo’s defeat by Roscommon in the final group game in the FBD league does not bother me in the slightest. After all Mayo, like most, were experimenting and playing with a very under strength team. There are two matters that do concern me however; firstly the delay in appointing Stephen Rochford means Mayo are a full month behind the other counties in terms of work done, and secondly the number of players Mayo have out injured for the start of the league.

On Sunday afternoon the FBD really gets serious when Mayo face their first inter-county opponents of the new season when they take on Roscommon in Hyde Park. The action on the sideline will be of as much interest for some observers as what's taking place on the field, with Kevin McStay, the man who wanted the Mayo job in late 2014 and didn't get it, and Stephen Rochford, the man who replaced the duo who got the post over McStay, going face to face. It will also be the meeting of two managers who in the last three years have both guided clubs from Connacht to glory in the All Ireland Senior Club Championship.

Bank of Ireland hosted an exciting programme of activity in Belmullet at the end of last month in the town. The Enterprise Town initiative was organised by the bank in partnership with the local community and aimed to promote and drive business momentum for SMEs and the wider sports and social community in the locality. The schedule over the weekend included a business, sports, and community expo which took place in Our Lady’s Secondary School. Guest speaker at the event was Norah Casey, broadcaster and entrepreneur from Dragon’s Den.

I went to Elverys McHale Park last weekend expecting to see a whitewash, a landslide victory for Mayo champions Hollymount Carramore against Leitrim champions Melvin Gaels in the Connaught Intermediate final. It surely couldn’t have been anything else, I thought. The South Mayo amalgamation were priced at an unbackable 1/8 to win the game, Melvin Gales were 9/2 and the draw was 14/1. What ensued was far from a landslide.

Ex-Armagh and Crossmaglen GAA legend Oisin Mc Conville, All Ireland club winning coach Stephen Rochford, and current Mayo and Westport GAA stars Kevin Keane and  Lee Keegan will lead out a strong team of GAA personnel at a special seminar to explore what it takes to “mind yourself” under the pressures of modern day involvement in GAA and sport in general.

Westport v Belmullet