The next two weekends of action for the Mayo senior footballers have a more challenging and appealing look to them than the previous two weekends fare against the students from Galway and Sligo. Games against Roscommon this Sunday, and Galway the following week, in the opening round of the national league is the early season competition for which Mayo supporters have been waiting.
While winning the FBD League is the lowest on the list in priorities for Mayo for 2010, a win over Roscommon on Sunday should see Mayo advance to the home final of the competition depending on the result from the game between IT Sligo and NUIG. The chance to test themselves against another inter-county side gearing up for action in the national league the following week is something John O’Mahony will be keen to see how his side come through. Last Sunday’s game against IT Sligo saw the Mayo manager make a number of changes from the previous week’s game against NUIG, giving Robert Hennelly a chance to impress between the sticks as he fights it out with the established pairing of David Clarke and Kenneth O’Malley for the number one jersey. Also getting his chance last weekend was Westport’s Lee Keegan at centre half back, the 20-year-old put in a good shift in his first competitive senior game for the county and will be looking to get the chance to impress again this weekend if given the nod. Barry Kelly who has been one of the club championship’s most constantly good players over the last number of years also got a chance to show his stuff and after a first half where the game mostly passed him by, he got to grips with the game in the second half and showed enough quality to warrant being given another chance this weekend. The other man to be given the nod on Sunday to start for the first time was Castlebar Mitchels’ Neil Douglas. Douglas scored two points and looked lively throughout.
Roscommon will come into the game on a high after overcoming the challenge of NUIG in Dangan last weekend. Fergal O’Donnell’s side ground out a single point win over the students and were made fight right to the end in that clash. The previous week they went down by a solitary point to IT Sligo in their opening game of year. While Roscommon will still be hurting from the hammering dished out to them by Mayo in the Connacht semi-final back in May, they will have their eyes firmly focused on their opening national league encounter with Cavan on the first weekend in February.
Senior league fixtures announced
The start of the Mayo senior leagues may be a couple of months away but the county board has released the fixture list for the season. The league is pencilled into throw in on Easter weekend (April 3-4 ) and a number of interesting fixtures have already been thrown up for the opening day. Division 1A will start off with the meetings of Ballinrobe v Ballaghaderreen, Ballina v Charlestown, Westport v Ballintubber, Moy Davitts v Crossmolina, Shrule-Glencorrib v Claremorris, with Knockmore getting a bye. In Division 1B, Kiltaine v Breaffy, Davitts v Aghamore, Belmullet v Burrishoole, Garrymore v Kiltimagh, Tourmakeady v Islandeady, with Castlebar having a bye.
