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Ten years ago Mayo met Cork in the All Ireland u21 final in Ennis, and tomorrow afternoon both sides will meet once more in the same venue for the Clarke Cup at stake yet again. Mayo come into the final on the back of their first provincial title since 2009 and a heroic come from behind win late on against Dublin in the semi-final in Tullamore a fortnight ago.

For those of you who have ever been to Old Trafford to watch Man Utd I am sure you are familiar with the song about “never dying” in honour of the club’s resurrection after the tragic Munich Air disaster. I know there has not been such a tragedy in Mayo football terms but such a song would be very appropriate about Michael Solan’s Mayo u21 team. They never give up. They never die.

There was no need for the Mayo faithful who made the 300km round trip to Tullamore to switch on their radios on the way home if there was more than one happy soul making the trip back west on Saturday evening. For they had plenty food for thought and conversation after seeing Mayo produce one of the gutsiest comebacks in memory to edge into the All Ireland u21 final on Saturday, April 30 against Cork.

Goalkeepers are a different breed from the normal, the ones whose mistakes are remembered far more than saves they made, so they have to have a special bit of confidence in themselves, and Mayo's U21 goalkeeper Matthew Flanagan is no different. The Balla man has the strange history of playing for the county's u21 side in championship action before he did the same for the minor side back in 2014 and his have it a go attitude shines through when talking about that occurance. "It was strange, it just happened quickly, I was training with the minors and I got a call two weeks before the championship, they had a few injuries and asked would I come into the group and I said 'sure look, why not' and we hadn't the best day, but it was great to come in and get the game, sure I was only 17 at the time I think."

On a weekend that saw Mayo hang on for dear life to their division one status, you would imagine that would be this week's main topic of conversation, however the Mayo u21's rise from the dead in Markievicz Park against Roscommon in the Connacht final shades the limelight from their senior counterparts in what was a very satisfactory weekend all round for Mayo GAA. We all remember the 2013 minor final between Mayo and Roscommon for Liam Irwin’s stunning goal and Mayo hanging on for dear life at the end, the u21 final was a repeat, only three years later of course, with a lot more recognisable and familiar players on show.

Michael Plunkett wasn’t the man that you would have expected to pop up and score the winner in this epic encounter in Sligo, but the Ballintubber man showed nerves of steal to edge Mayo ahead in injury time of a dramatic encounter.

The weekend after the nation celebrated the 1916 Rising, Mayo are looking to stage their own rising in the U21 ranks and will head to the ground named after Countess Markievicz in Sligo tomorrow evening to do so. It has been seven years since Mayo last claimed the JJ Fahy Cup, in the same venue, beating Sligo 3-14 to 1-8 in the provincial decider.

It will be seven years this year since Mayo last claimed the Connacht u21 title. Since then Galway have gone on to claim two All Ireland titles at the grade and Roscommon have appeared in two All Ireland finals, while both of the Connacht minnows, Leitrim and Sligo, have appeared in provincial finals. In the last six u21 campaigns Mayo have managed just three wins out of nine games, all at the preliminary round stage, beating Leitrim in 2010 and 2015 and Galway in 2012 before they exited the competition at the next stage.

Mayo had to come back from two points down at the start of the second half of extra time in the Sligo GAA Centre of Excellence on a wet and miserable hour of football on Saturday to earn a draw in the first ever North West Cup final.

Michael Solan's Mayo u21s will face Donegal for the second week in a row, when they take on the Ulster men in the final of the North West Cup tomorrow in the Sligo GAA Centre of Excellence in Scardan. Both sides met last weekend in the third round of the competition in Letterkenny with the hosts scraping home by a single point on a scoreline of 1-9 to 1-8 in O'Donnell Park.