In Tuam Stadium on Saturday evening there is an attractive double header with Tuam Stars and Mountbellew/Moylough (5.45pm ), followed by St James taking on Caltra at 7.30pm.
The first game is one of the ties of the round and, following the high quality action they served up last year in the quarter-final, there should be a good crowd in attendance.
Tuam had a facile win last weekend over Killanin (6-11 to 0-6 ), and they will look to build on that momentum against Val Daly’s side. Mountbellew looked impressive in their first round victory over Cortoon Shamrocks and they will be difficult to beat.
They advanced to the county final in 2009, and several of those players are still around and are keen to try to get another crack at winning a county title. They will look to Joss Moore, Joe Bergin, Cathal Kenny, Joe Meehan and Gary Sweeney to see off Jimmy O’Dea and Kevin Reidy’s outfit.
However if Tuam’s Jamie Murphy, David Connern, Declan Byrne, Paul Doherty, Gary O’Donnell, Shane Curtin, Shane Gaffney and Tony Costello play to their full potential, they will be tough to stop.
The second game sees a young and sprightly St James do battle with a Caltra team that is managed by Barry Downey this season.
They saw off Claregalway in the first round, but it will be interesting to see if St James have the defenders to nullify the likes of Michael Meehan and Shane Hogan. If they stop those two, they can advance to a quarter-final.
