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Three candidates have been selected by Fianna Fáil to contest the Local Elections this June in the Swinford electoral area in Mayo.

I have fond memories of the summer of 1985. The Mayo football team was managed that year by Liam O’Neill. He was an excellent manager and coach, a driven man who really wanted nothing more than a Mayo team to express themselves in a meaningful way on the national stage. The former Galway player left no stone unturned in generating a self belief in the players in order to shake off a perceived mental weakness of the Mayo team back then. He was working with the nucleus of an All- Ireland winning under-21 team that had claimed the title in 1983. We were blessed at the time with a number of great footballers, players like Willie Joe Padden, TJ Kilgallon, Martin Carney, Eugene Lavin, Frank Noone, Jimmy Burke, and Jimmy Browne to name just a few, all talented footballers that in hindsight should probably have won lots more. We lost the Connacht final in the old Pearse Stadium in 1984. I remember big Tom Byrne scoring what appeared to be a perfectly legitimate goal in the dying minutes of that game that would surely have won us the final, but for some reason the goal was disallowed by the referee Mickey Kearins, he of Sligo fame.

The talk of the weekend was undoubtedly the replayed Cork v Kerry Munster championship match on Saturday evening. I thoroughly enjoyed the match as it had some brilliant passages of play. There was outstanding fielding, score taking, and some of the tackling from players on both sides was technically superb. Cork were fantastic. They are a fit, strong, and powerful side, with quality players in practically every position. They must be the number one choice of many to win this year’s All Ireland such was the quality of their performance. It had been suggested that the momentum may have swung in favour of Kerry after their strong finish the previous weekend, but Cork proved yet again that they could soak up anything Kerry threw at them. They seem really focused and ready this year. The key difference from my observation was their freshness and greater hunger. It is not often we hear that the general mood in the Kingdom is rather sombre as early as mid-June, but there is a feeling out there that there is a somewhat laboured look and feel about Kerry this year. And you can understand why. They have visited the well so many times in recent years, having played in every final since 2004 and let’s be honest, they have taken a fair old battering along the way, particularly from some of the strong northern teams.

Westmeath county footballer Kieran Gavin was one of two recipients of a Cadbury Football Scholarship in Dublin College University last week. 

Both Westmeath and Roscommon Gaelic footballers return to action this weekend in the All-Ireland qualifiers eager to forget their last 70 minutes of championship action. Roscommon and Westmeath are in very similar situations with both teams suffering heavy defeats in their respective provincial semi-finals and having just two weeks to regroup and try to focus on the qualifiers. On Saturday afternoon Roscommon head for the sunny south east to take on Wexford after their 20 point defeat to Mayo, while later that evening Westmeath entertain old rivals Meath in Cusack Park in a bid to get back on the road again after their 27 point defeat to Dublin. Westmeath started out their campaign this year against Meath in early January in the O’Byrne cup. The question is come Saturday evening will Meath be Westmeath’s first and last game of 2009? Both Westmeath players and management have taken some criticism over the last few weeks. There have been many excuses given for the poor performance against Dublin - poor league campaign, constant injury crisis, and the lack of match fitness and sharpness by a number of the 15 that took the field against Dublin.

Castlebar Ladies

MENTION SMOKIE and ‘Living Next Door To Alice’ immediately springs to mind. Co-written by English/Australian songwriting duo Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, it tells of a young man’s crush on the girl next door and how he is heartbroken when she leaves without explanation.

St Patrick’s Athletic 0

People with peanut allergies are being urged to be extra vigilant when eating out following two recent deaths from food allergy in the UK. One involved a 21-year-old footballer who died after suffering a severe allergic reaction to a curry containing peanuts.

Garda Robert McCallion, a 29-year-old native of Swinford who lost his battle for life at Beaumont Hospital Dublin on Tuesday, has been described as a “hero”.