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Mountbellew-Moylough will enter next Sunday’s Galway county senior football final as rank outsiders with many pundits when they face Corofin in Tuam stadium at 4pm, with deferred showing on TG4 at 5pm.

Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor will be appear at the Salthill Hotel on Wednesday October 14 as part of an evening of exciting entertainment and darts spectacular.

If friendship was to be measured by the number of times I called to John Naughton’s house to say hello, I was not John’s friend at all, for I never called to his home, nor he to mine and this despite the fact that he only lived over the road from me here in Castlebar. But I have known John all of my adult life because he played in goal for the Crossmolina senior football team for years. Unfortunately John lost his brave battle with cancer and passed away last week. John was a very clever, gifted, man who knew things that others didn’t. He was interested in predictable things like Gaelic football, his farm and livestock, and loved his work with the HSE in Castlebar Hospital. He always struck me as being a wise man. He remained passionate about the Crossmolina football team even after he stopped playing. When I made my way on to the senior team in Crossmolina John was already the well established custodian, having played in goals for years prior to my arrival. He took his game seriously and was never shy in making a suggestion as to how the opposition would be beaten, or offering his point of view on what was going awry in a game. John had notions of grandeur for the club. He wasn’t content with the junior medal won in 1975 or the intermediate title won in 1980. He wanted the team to be the best it could be, to be up there with the top teams competing for the county senior title annually. He was one of the real leaders in the dressing room during my indoctrination. At that time I was a young naive defender on the team and John often pulled me aside before, during, and after games to offer encouragement and advice, for which I was most grateful for. What I loved about those words was the fact that they were delivered in the language of the plain man. In other words, there was no doubt in my mind about the content of the message delivered! John’s manner was genial, his humour easy, and his mind acute. He was enormously proud of the achievements of his native Crossmolina, particularly the All Ireland club victory in 2001. On big match days, whether it was Mayo or Crossmolina that was involved, John would have the field in front of the house bedecked in the Mayo and Crossmolina colours. The display of a variety of paraphernalia, bunting, and flags signalled the fact that a serious follower of the GAA lived in the house behind the field. An enormous crowd of old GAA friends and colleagues, from as far away as Co. Tyrone, turned out for his funeral last weekend to bid farewell to a good man who loved his sport. John would have been immensely proud of his son Kieran who bravely took to the field last Sunday to assist his club, Castlebar Mitchell’s, get through their quarter-final replay vs Shrule/Glencorrib successfully. It can’t have been easy.

You can’t beat experience or class. Despite the flamboyance and arrogance of youth, the old experienced warhorse who’s been there, done that, invariably realises that something clever is required if his team is going to prevail. And so it was last Sunday with Charlestown edging past Castlebar, just when some might have felt a shock was on the cards. In Crossmolina’s case in our semi-final defeat to Knockmore it looked as though we had too much experience and not enough youthful exuberance. Last Sunday Castlebar had plenty of youthful energy around the field, but when the game was there to be won, Charlestown had that little bit of guile and know-how to close out the deal. With all their experience they knew how to win this game and advance to yet another county final.

Galwegians prop Peter Bracken has accepted an offer to join Magners League side the Dragons.

Kilkenny forward, Henry Shefflin has joined county compatriot DJ Carey and scooped his ninth GAA hurling All-Star this year following the Cat’s four-in-a-row achievement.

Irish domestic rugby takes a break from league action for round two of this season’s AIB Cup.

The Vodafone football All-Stars are due to be announced tonight (Friday), live on RTÉ with the hurling All-Stars having been announced earlier on this afternoon. As is the norm, the All-Ireland final winners will get the bulk of the statuettes, with the defeated finalists also collecting a few baubles as consolation for their year.

The eighth Galway International Chess Tournament, held at the Salthill Hotel last weekend, was the most successful yet for local chess players with Galway club members winning two of the three sections and collecting nearly €1,000 in prize money.

I took in all three county finals last weekend at McHale Park. Saturday’s Intermediate final between Westport and Tourmakeady was played in atrocious conditions. What a shame that a final had to be played during an evening when sheets of rain and high winds made a lottery of the result. I thought it might have been cancelled and played on Bank Holiday Monday. Apparently, had the game ended in a draw, the replay was scheduled for Monday as the Connacht Intermediate club championship is fixed for this weekend. I am sure both teams would have been more than happy to a rescheduling with extra time being played if necessary. The pitch would also have been saved from the battering it got and would have been in better shape for our big showcase games on Sunday. Martin Connolly, the Westport manager, must have been seriously concerned last Saturday morning when he realised that the final was to be played in a storm. His Westport team are young and light and playing in such conditions against the bigger, stronger, experienced Tourmakeady lads was an advantage conceded. He shouldn’t have worried too much as his charges were that bit fitter and sharper around the field than their opponents and they appeared to get to grips with the awful conditions a little bit better. Playing against the wind in the first half they managed to score two goals which gave them the cushion of a lead at half time when they might have expected to have trailed by a few scores. ‘ Do not concede a goal in the second half’ might have been the chat in the ‘Covey’ dressing room at half time and they would be home and dry (well the first part anyway)! They did that and successfully and manfully weathered the storm as Tourmakeady threw the kitchen sink at them in the closing minutes. Ultimately their success was deserved as I felt they were the better team on the day.