For the second week in a row the Mayo ladies senior footballers will be facing the same opposition as their male counterparts, but unlike the men last weekend the Mayo ladies left Cork with the points in the bag thanks to a seven point win over the All Ireland champions.
On Sunday afternoon they will take on Dublin in Swinford Amenity Park, looking to keep up their 100 per cent record at the start of the new league campaign. Dublin will be no pushovers though, with the visitors having a 2-14 to 1-6 win over a Kerry side that eliminated Mayo from the championship last summer in Limerick.
Mayo's star of the show last weekend was once again Cora Staunton, with the Carnacon ace bagging 1-6 of Mayo's total of 2-8 over the hour. Mayo's other points came from the boot of corner forward Sarah Rowe, with sub Rachel Kearns grabbing the other goal. Mayo led 1-5 to 0-3 at the turnaround with Staunton grabbing 1-4 of that total in the opening 30 minutes to set up Mayo's first win over Cork since a league semi-final meeting back in 2007.
Mayo manager Frank Browne will have been pleased with the showing last weekend, but he will know that it's only early season yet and the defending All Ireland champions aren't fully up to pace with their new management team only being appointed in recent weeks. This weekend Mayo's opponents will come into the game full of confidence following their big win in round one. Full forward Niamh McEvoy showed a real eye for goal in their opening game, bagging 2-0 while Sinead Aherne chipped in with four points. But the Dublin scoring threat was very much demonstrated by the fact that four other players managed to raise the flag at least twice over the hour and two others chipped in with a point. The Mayo defence will have to be on top form if they are going to hold down that kind of attacking football and Sarah Tierney, Orla Conlon, and Martha Carter in particular will have to be on top form. While Staunton can be relied upon to do the majority of the scoring, Mayo will be hoping to see more of a return from their other forwards with Rowe, Fiona McHale, and Aileen Gilroy all more than able to chip in with a few scores.
