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The Charlestown Sarsfield cavalcade will be making its way to Pearse Park, Longford, this Sunday where they will be dreaming of a place in this year’s All Ireland Intermediate Championship Club final. Standing in the Mayo and Connacht champions ways is Fr Rock’s, Cookstown from Tyrone. The Ulster men will be bringing with them on Sunday one of the most recognisable figures in recent GAA history, Eoin Mulligan. The bleach blonde full forward brings with him all the experience that being part of a three time All Ireland winning team comes with and will be the man, all of Charlestown will be looking to shut down. And the rest of his team-mates will also bring the experience of actually winning this competition in 2010, but were relegated to intermediate in Tyrone and have found themselves back in the intermediate grade. Charlestown are more used to senior competition having claimed the intermediate title at their first time of asking following their shock relegation in 2011. Sunday offers Charlestown a chance to make it into an All Ireland final for the first time, having come close in 2002 when they lost out in the senior last four to Nemo Rangers, while Fr Rock’s will be looking to make it back to the middle grades showpiece for the second time in three years.

This weekend will be a big weekend of action for both Charlestown and Ballaghaderreen. The near neighbours have been focusing their attention on provincial honours since winning the Mayo intermediate and senior championships respectively.

Charlestown 1-7

When Colm McManamon took over Burrishoole three years ago, it looked to be a forgone conclusion that he would be able to guide a talented, hard working, side back into the senior ranks in the near future. But it has not worked out that way for the men from McGovern Park in Newport. For the third time in as many years, he has guided his side to the final of the intermediate championship, and left them only 60 minutes from achieving their goal. But on Sunday they could not have asked for a harder side to get through at this grade than those who they will be facing in the green corner.

Crossmolina played Westport in a relegation play-off match last Sunday at McHale Park. It was a glorious day for football and we arrived at the venue in a fairly confident mood. This match was a relegation play-off to ultimately decide who would join Burrishoole in the drop to division 1B of the senior league. A defeat, however, wasn’t the end of the road as the losers (Crossmolina) had a second opportunity of survival with a match against Ballinrobe this Sunday (or so we thought). Both teams were aware that a county Board meeting was scheduled for last Monday night that would ratify a proposal to relegate just one team to Division 1B, thus ensuring all three teams would remain in the upper division next year. However, we came to McHale Park to win the match and we failed miserably, producing, arguably, one of the worst performances I have witnessed from Crossmolina in years.

Five players were let go from the Mayo senior football panel this week, but Mayo manager James Horan was keen to stress that the door is still open for all who were let go. “We let some of the lads go this week, five in total,” he said. “They were Tom Parsons, Aidan Kilcoyne, Mark Ronaldson, Barry Moran, and Brian Benson. We’re aiming to have a solid 30-man panel but it is by no means closed off. There are six rounds of club games before we play London and we’ll be at all those games and we’ll be watching all the guys and they can come back into consideration.” Horan also confirmed that both Donal Vaughan and Trevor Howley, neither of whom has featured yet this year as they work their way back from injury, will continue to be involved with the panel.

Both the Mayo senior football team and hurlers will finish up their league campaign’s with trips to Monaghan on Sunday afternoon. Last Sunday’s win by the footballers over Cork ensured their division one status for next year, while on Saturday the hurlers saw off the challenge of Sligo to keep their 100 per cent record intact. However anyone who hoped to travel to the Farney county and catch a double header of football and hurling action between the two counties will unable to do so, with the hurling team who have already booked their place in the division 3B final playing in Clones at 2.30pm and the footballers playing in Inniskeen, 40 miles away at the same time. All games in both the national hurling and football leagues will be throwing in at the same time on Sunday across all the divisions, the reason being that no team in any division will have an advantage knowing results that may affect them beforehand.

Just under a year ago Mayo travelled to Pairc Ui Chaoimh to take on Cork in the final group game in division one of the National Football League and came away with a 0-16 to 0-11 win and a place in the final of the competition. Only a few weeks later both sides squared up again in Croke Park and from the minute the ball was thrown in that day both teams’ seasons veered off in very different directions, Mayo’s ending on a Saturday evening in Longford eight weeks after that league final defeat and Cork’s on the final day with the ultimate prize.

Dublin 4-15

There is one thing that is sure to get everyone talking ahead of Sunday's meeting with Armagh in McHale Park. That is the return of Billy Joe Padden to the home of Mayo GAA in the bright orange of the Ulster men for the first time since his move north of the border. But despite this sub plot there is only one item of business that Mayo manager James Horan will be looking to be taken care of, and that is getting two more points on the board. Sunday will see Mayo play their fourth game in this year’s Allianz Football League and move past the half way stage of the competition. If they manage to see off the challenge of the Armagh men it will move them up to five points in the table and be a major step in ensuring that come the early spring next year, Mayo will be dining at the top table of league football in 2012.