Search Results for 'Sam Maguire'

It was back to the harsh reality for Mayo players last weekend as they played in the final group games of the championship for their clubs. It is not the easiest thing to motivate yourself for — a club game after what they have been through, as most if not all of them will take a long time to get over the heartbreak of the All-Ireland final. It is a weird scenario. People from opposing clubs who were screaming from the rafters for you two weeks previous now see you as the panto villain, while club players playing against you would like nothing more than to have a cut at you, to take you down a peg or two, knowing you will be in a relatively fragile state of mind. For some the club is a great distraction especially if their club has a chance of winning silverware or making it through to the next round. For others it is a burden having to play when you know your team is going nowhere.

Come 5pm on Sunday evening, Mayo's 10 game odyssey through the All Ireland championship will have come to an end (but don't discount a replay - the way this year has gone). Hopefully green and red ribbons will be hanging off the handles of Sam Maguire, and Cillian O'Connor getting ready to lift the old trophy high in the air in the hands of a Mayo man for the first time in 66 years.

The Mayo senior football teams of 1950 and 1951 have gone down in both history and folklore among GAA folk the length and breadth of both the county and the country.

Dear me, not again. The winners of this year’s Sam Maguire will have their name etched on the famous trophy but there is absolutely no doubt Mayo’s 2017 championship campaign will command the most paragraphs in the championship 2017 yearbook. Bizarre does not even go close to explaining it. Mayo supporters again travelled in their tens of thousands clogging the N5 and N4 all the way to the capital from early morning. It is very obvious that football is more important than Christmas for the supporters of the green and red who now have to contend with a ninth championship game in 2017 after another heart stopping semifinal clash with Kerry in Croke Park. They will not have a cent left for the festive period.

There has been a seismic shift in football power in Connacht in the last four years. After Mayo's 17 point drubbing of Galway in Salthill in 2013 it looked like it would take the Tribesmen light years to make up the ground. After slowly narrowing the gap in 2014 (seven point Mayo victory) and 2015 (four point Mayo victory) they have now caught and surpassed us, beating us twice on the spin in crucial Connacht championship semi-finals.

There were no surprises across the GAA world as all the expected teams made it through to the next round of their provincial championships in both hurling and football. There was almost a shock of epic proportions in Fraher Field in Waterford as the home side were on the brink of an historic win against Cork in the Munster football championship only for two late points to see the Leesiders through by the slimmest of margins.

It was Hemingway who said that retirement is the ugliest word in the English language.

And so it begins. With the greatest respect to the FBD league, Mayo's season kicks off in earnest with a home tie against Monaghan in MacHale Park tomorrow evening. I will let someone else tell Andy Moran about the insignificance of the FBD league. Mayo's evergreen full forward was full of passion for the trip to Kiltoom to face Roscommon in the final FBD group game, scoring two late goals to ultimately decide the contest and rub salt to the wounds of the Rossies' who had given him plenty of stick while he was on the sideline.

The age-old debate of club versus county seems to raise its ugly head year after year. For a county like ours with such a prominent senior football team that has been in so many All Ireland finals of late it seems we still cannot get the balance right between club and county. The same problem occurred again this year with a fixture pile up as our county champions and genuine All Ireland contenders Castlebar Mitchels had to play six games, six weeks in a row, eventually losing to now Connacht champions Corofin in extra time having run out of gas during that period of extra time. Some may be wondering what about Westport? They had the same conundrum. They even had to replay a county semifinal against Shrule/Glencorrib mid-week such was the backlog of games. However, Westport were not on the go for a continuous 18 months as the Mitchels were, and Westport had plenty in the tank at the final whistle of all their games.

This one is hard to comprehend,very hard. Some are harder to take than others. This defeat is pretty difficult to take. Our 1996 loss to Meath is forever etched in my memory for all the wrong reasons, it's very similar to last Sunday.