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Strength in depth

Mayo picked up their first win of the season with a six point win over IT Sligo in Ballina on Sunday, but they will have to serious up their performance if they are to pick up a second win next weekend when they face Roscommon in their final group game of the FBD League and improve even more two weeks later when they host Monaghan in the opening round of the National Football League. That was the message from Mayo manager Stephen Rochford post their win on Sunday.

Marking Time

The last time that the Mayo senior footballers were in action was the heartbreaking All Ireland senior final replay defeat to Dublin and since then they have been the talk of the country following an interview by their former managers. Almost all of that squad are currently on a team holiday in South Africa so for this Sunday's FBD League opener, it is going to be a very different looking Mayo side for supporters to get their voices behind for the first time this year, and concentrate on things on the field rather than off the field.

Mayo is in with a chance of hosting international rugby if Ireland’s bid for the 2023 Rugby World Cup is successful.

They ‘will rank in history amongst the greatest teams that have contested the Championship’, so read the report of a contemporary journalist after witnessing Mayo rout Laois in the 1936 All-Ireland Football Final and claim the county’s first senior football championship. Mayo senior football was peaking that year. The planets had begun their alignment four years earlier when Mayo contested only their third All-Ireland final. A narrow loss to Kerry in 1932 was crushing but oil had been struck and it did not just flow, it gushed throughout the 1930s and Mayo fans bathed in it. The 1932 final was the incendiary event that sparked an era of magnificence in Mayo football. The green and red would eventually see out the decade with a record six consecutive National Football League titles won between 1934 and 1939. With three of the six NFL crowns secured by the first game of Mayo’s championship campaign in May 1936, the aligning planets must have appeared as leather footballs to the success-spoiled county.

It should have been a week of celebration and reflection for GAA supporters in Mayo, but it turned out to be something much different from Monday morning on. Mayo's progress to the All Ireland final through the qualifier system has thrown a spanner in the works of the club player and once again they are the ones left kicking their heels as the summer winds down, having played just two rounds of championship games so far.

The senior footballers of Galway and Roscommon will head to McHale Park in Castlebar next Sunday to battle it out for the Nestor Cup (3.30pm) after drawing last weekend’s Connacht final on a score-line of 0-13 to 1-10 in Pearse Stadium. Both teams will go in knowing that they have the criticism of many GAA pundits and fans - some of it unjustified - rebounding from social media, print outlets, and the national wireless and TV.

The senior footballers of Galway and Roscommon will head to McHale Park in Castlebar next Sunday to battle it out for the Nestor Cup (3.30pm) after drawing last weekend’s Connacht final on a score-line of 0-13 to 1-10 in Pearse Stadium. Both teams will go in knowing that they have the criticism of many GAA pundits and fans - some of it unjustified - rebounding from social media, print outlets, and the national wireless and TV.

Galway achieved an encouraging seven-point win over Dublin in Parnell Park, but it was not enough to book a place in this season's division one semi-finals of the National Football League.