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"Deep down every team in the PRO 12 wants to win it, and every one starts with zero points this weekend." Pat Lam.

New season, same goals, but one big difference. For the first time in the history of the Pro 12 competition Connacht Rugby start as reigning Pro 12 champions.

And then there were four, the Mayo junior championship is rattling its way to a conclusion, with last weekend's replayed quarter-final between Ballycastle and Crossmolina sorting out the last spot in the final four. Tomorrow evening a double header of games will take place in MacHale Park to decide the final two in the competition and two thrilling encounters should be in store.

The Mayo senior footballers are ready to go for their All Ireland final meeting with Dublin in a fortnight's time. At the county's press briefing ahead of the final on Wednesday night, manager Stephen Rochford fielded questions on the situation in the camp with Diarmuid O'Connor's fitness being the first question up, and the Crossmolina man replied saying: "Diarmuid is alive and well. We’ve trained three times since the Tipperary game and he’s been in all those sessions as has everyone else. We have 33 fit guys at this moment in time thank God."

An SSE Airtricity League premier division campaign that promised so much early on in the season is edging towards a worrying conclusion for Galway United, who make the long trek to the Brandywell on Friday for a clash against Derry City (7.45pm).

A new-look Buccaneers side made a winning start to the rugby season when recording a very comfortable 36-3 Connacht Senior League victory against Galway Corinthians at Dubarry Park, Athlone, on Saturday.

Mayo have been involved in enough epic semi-finals over the last two years and have come out on the wrong side of the result at the end of the day that Sunday’s performance over Tipperary won’t mind them that much at this stage, with four weeks to put things right before they face either Dublin or Kerry in the final.

They made it hard for themselves by hitting wide after wide in the second half despite playing with a strong breeze behind their backs, but Mayo booked their place in the All Ireland u21 B Hurling Championship Final on September 10 on Saturday afternoon in Castlebar.

This Mayo team have never shirked away from a challenge, they have shown over the past six years they will give it their all. After having to swallow the bitter taste of defeat for the first time in the Connacht championship in more than half a decade against Galway they faced some hard truths. Cillian O'Connor recounted some of those sessions in the lead up to Sunday's All Ireland semifinal against Tipperary last week. "It wasn't enjoyable, it's not easy to go through things when they have gone wrong but you have to just face up to them, you can't hide away and hope they fix themselves so we just got back training," the Ballintubber ace recalled.

After Mayo's superb victory over Tyrone I have to pinch myself to comprehend that Mayo are playing Tipperary in an All-Ireland semifinal on Sunday. It sounds bizarre. If we go back to June 18 and after watching Mayo's poor performance against Galway, we firstly did not see Mayo getting to a semifinal and if they did we certainly did not expect the opposition to be from the premier county. Clare and Tipperary have both been very successful examples of the qualifiers in 2016 but Tipp's trouncing of Connacht champions Galway by nine points has certainly made them the number one success story.