Search Results for 'Michael Conroy'

The thousand or so souls who turned out in Flanagan Park in Ballinrobe on Wednesday evening will have left the south Mayo venue none the wiser as to what 2013 will hold in store for the Mayo senior footballers.

Leitrim 0-9

Donegal 2-11

He was one of the last to make his way from the dressing room and throw his bag under the bus, and only a couple of years ago he might have been one of the last people that you would have expected to have been part of a Mayo side booking their place in an All Ireland final. But in the last two years Michael Conroy has worked himself not only back into the minds of the Mayo football public but back into their hearts too. He's veteran of the 2004 (where he scored 1-1 from the bench) and 2006 All Ireland finals and an All Ireland u21 winner six years ago also, yet until this year he was off the Mayo radar for a couple of years. His form and drive in captaining Davitts to last years intermediate championship in Mayo, then Connacht and then on to the the All Ireland final itself gave the Ballindine man a way back into the Mayo set up and he hasn't really looked back since.

Mayo 0-19

It has taken a little over 210 minutes of championship football to get here. Leitrim, Sligo and Down all stood in the way, but were not up to the challenge. On Sunday things get very real, but this is what Mayo have been preparing for ever since the final whistle blew in the same venue in last year’s All Ireland semi-final against Kerry. They are back to where they want to be, their fourth championship game in a five game series they hope will end in victory and a place in the All Ireland final for the first time in six years and another crack at bringing Sam Maguire back to Mayo. But that is another battle to be fought at a later date, and all that will be on Mayo minds on Sunday is the game ahead of them.

I sent a text to a Dublin friend of mine at half time during Mayo’s match against Down last Saturday telling him that, for the first time ever while following Mayo teams in Croke Park, I was going to sit back, relax, and enjoy the second half safe in the knowledge that we had almost definitely secured our place in the last four.

Mayo 3-18

The group stages of the Mayo senior and intermediate championships came to an end on Sunday evening with some drama in group two and Ballinrobe will feel the hardest done by in the senior grade. Norman O'Brien's charges hit the ground running on the last weekend in May in round one, by going to Crossmolina and beating the Deel Rovers by 2-13 to 0-11. That result seemed to mark a transition with Ballinrobe on an upward curve and Crossmolina on the way down. But roll on to the second last weekend in July and it's the men from Crossmolina who are in the last eight, while Ballinrobe will have to go away and lick their wounds for another year.

The distraction of Wednesday’s news that Conor Mortimer has decided to leave the Mayo senior panel is the last thing that Mayo manager James Horan will have wanted ahead of Sunday’s Connacht final showdown with Sligo in Hyde Park. Horan’s side had only just been announced by the county board online and through traditional methods a matter of hours when news broke of Mortimer’s decision to leave the panel, bringing the eye of the national and local media on Mayo ahead of Sunday for reasons other than what happens on the field. Mortimer being the second member of the panel to make themselves unavailable for Mayo in a matter of weeks, following Robert Hennelly’s decision leave the panel due to work commitments a few weeks ago.