New Mayo Ladies senior manager, Michael Moyles, will have the weekend ending Sunday, May 23, circled in his diary, after the Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA ) published their planned calendar of dates for this year's National Football League to be played.
The LGFA have split each of the four divisions into two groups of four, with three rounds of league games to be followed by a semi-final and a final, with the first round taking place on the weekend ending May 23, with round two on the weekend ending May 30 and the third and final round robin stage of the competition ending on the June Bank Holiday weekend. The semi-finals will take place on the weekend ending Sunday, June 13, with the final taking place in each division a fortnight later on June 27.
Mayo have been pitted in Division 1A alongside Galway, Donegal and Westmeath, with the exact fixture details to be announced at a later date. Mayo will have to finish in the top two of this four team group to advance to the semi-finals against one of the teams from Division 1B, which consists of All Ireland Champions Dublin, Cork, Tipperary and Waterford. The divisions were organised as closely to a regional basis as possible, to cut down on travelling time for the teams involved.
With government guidelines allowing senior inter-county sides to get back to training on April 19, it will give Moyles and his management team five weeks to put their side through their paces before their first league game gets underway.
