The Mayo minors got their championship campaign up and running last Friday night with a comprehensive victory over Leitrim in James Stephens Park in Ballina, seeing off the Ridge County youngsters by 16 points after a 2-16 to 0-6 win. This evening they will make the trip to Hyde Park to take on Roscommon in the second round of the round robin stages of the competition.
The Rossies were beaten by Galway in their opening round game in Tuam Stadium last weekend, with the Tribes County winning well on a score of 3-19 to 1-12 - leaving a 13 point gap between the sides at the end of the contest.
But Mayo will know that heading up to Roscommon this evening their hosts will leave everything on the field in a quest to take down Mayo and after Roscommon knocking Mayo out of the championship last term, Mayo will be looking for some form of revenge at this game.
Sean Deane and his side will be happy to have got off to winning ways last weekend, but also will be aware that they hit 2-3 without reply down the home stretch when Leitrim were down to 14 men, so there is still plenty of improvement to make over the next few weeks.
Full forward Ronan Clark was in impressive form for Mayo the last day, hitting 1-8, but he could have had a few more scores to his tally if he had taken some more of the chances presented to him. But he was far from the only one to look good, with the likes of Rio Mortimer, Cathal Keavny, Niall Hurley, Jack Keane, John McMonagle, Paul Gilmore, Lorcan Silke and Diarmuid Duffy also putting in good shifts for Mayo.
This year's minor championship is being run off on a round robin basis, so it should give Sean Deane and the rest of his management set-up ample opportunity to run their eye over their squad over the next few weeks.
