It's Ulster opposition once again for the Mayo ladies senior football side as they aim to make it back into the All Ireland semi-final tomorrow. The ladies this time will meet old rivals Monaghan for a place in the last four of the competition. Mayo picked up the pieces from a shattering defeat to Galway in the Connacht final late on to see off the challenge of Tyrone in the last round of qualifiers with a 3-12 to 1-4 win over the O'Neill county girls, thanks in no small part to the talents of Cora Staunton, which continue to be one of the major driving forces in this side. The Carnacon sharp shooter scored 3-11 of Mayo's total that day as part of an amazing performance.
Tomorrow's encounter with the the ladies from the home of Patrick Kavanagh, promises to be a very different encounter. Monaghan picked up their third successive Ulster championship at the end of July, while that in itself is significant, the way they went about doing it is something that will have had Mayo working extremely hard in the build up to Sunday's game. Monaghan dispatched Donegal in the final scoring 5-25 in the process over the 60 minutes, irrespective of the quality of the opposition, running up a score of 5-25 takes some doing at any level. Monaghan also picked up the National League Division One title back in the spring beating Cork in the final in Parnell Park on the same day that Mayo beat Galway in the Division Two decider and are last year’s beaten All Ireland finalists.
Not that this will faze many of the Mayo line up who themselves still have plenty of experience of success down through the years at both inter-county and club level. Along side the phenomenon that is Cora Staunton, players like Claire Egan, Martha Carter, Fiona McHale, Yvonne Byrne have all been there and done it before and will be ready to got into battle tomorrow against Monaghan.
Mayo have been solidly building back this year and capturing the division two league title and bouncing straight back to division one this year was a very positive first step, they were also able to shake off the defeat to Galway in the Connacht final to make it into the last eight and with nothing to fear, they will push Monaghan all the way tomorrow afternoon.
Ladies All Ireland SFC QF
Mayo v Monaghan
Saturday, August 25
In Hyde Park, Roscommon
Throw-in at 2.30pm.
