The Mayo Ladies will welcome Westmeath on Sunday in round five of the National Football League.
Peter Leahy's side have won two from their opening four games, their most recent game coming in a rearranged clash against Cork in Mallow last Sunday, where they were beaten 1-12 to 1-4. The rescheduling of the game forced Leahy to put out a much changed side from what he would have liked to with a number of players unavailable for that clash. Speaking afterwards, Leahy said: "We knew this was going to be a tough game and we were missing a few players with the game having been put back a week. Some of the girls had arranged to go away on holidays so we didn't try to stop them. But it gave us the chance to look at a few more players and credit to them, I thought they did well. We will re-group ahead of our game next weekend.”
Leahy has given plenty of game time to his squad over the four games to date, with 33 players seeing some kind of game time - just two players have started all four games to date against Donegal, Dublin, Waterford and Cork - those being Sinead and Lisa Cafferkey, while 11 have started three games - Ciara McManamon, Danielle Caldwell, Kathryn Sullivan, Clodagh McMananon, Ciara Whyte, Allangh Duffy, Maria Reilly, Fiona Doherty, Rachel Kearns, Natasha Gaughan and Nicola O'Malley.
Mayo currently find themselves in third place in the table behind Cork who have won four from four and Galway who have three wins from their four outings, Mayo currently find themselves one point in front of Tipperary, with All Ireland champions Dublin and Waterford a further two points back. Their opponents on Sunday currently sit in second last spot in the table on three points - the same as Donegal - but are ahead of them after beating the Ulster side in their meeting in round four two weeks ago, where they ran out 1-11 to 1-7 winners.
While Mayo are in third place in the table they do have a minus scoring difference of -5 and they have not been able to to hit big scores since their opening game. In round one, they put 4-7 on Donegal, but since then they have registered 0-7 against Dublin, 0-6 against Waterford and 1-4 last weekend away to Cork. This Sunday's game will be Mayo's last home game in the league - they will bring their league season to an end with away trips to Tipperary on Sunday, March 22 and then away to Galway in round seven on Sunday, March 29.
