Iorras Aontaithe made the long trip home from the Old Head of Kinsale last Sunday evening in buoyant mood after seeing off the challenge of Kinsale in the seventh round of the FAI Junior Cup and booking their place in the last eight.
The men from the Barony put in a heroic performance with substitute Michael Togher and Stephen Carolan the goal scoring heroes on a day when everyone involved put in heroic performances. But that’s over now as far as Iorras player/manager Eric Reilly is concerned. “Once all the excitement calmed down, we spoke about how this game is over and if we don’t win the next one all it will be was another game that we played. We went down there and showed that we can mix it with anybody on their own patch, and yet I think we still played well within ourselves in that game.” Speaking to the Mayo Advertiser a few days after the win, Reilly has had time to sit back and thing about how the game panned out and the performance of everybody who was called on over the 90 minutes. “We went down there with a squad of 22 and as I said last week, everyone of them is more than capable of coming in and doing the job asked of them. We lost David Reilly before the game and then I went off injured but both Niall Geraghty and Micky Togher, who came in and put in great performances. We couldn’t have asked any more of Mickey, he ran them ragged all day long and scored the first vital goal which set us to go on and secure the win.”
With the quarter-final spot now booked Iorras await the draw on Sunday morning to see who they’ll face next, Reilly isn’t worried who it is as he knows his side have more in them to give. “No matter who we get we’re going to be the underdogs, so we don’t really mind. A home draw would be nice for us, there are a lot of very tangible things right there now for us to achieve. Win the next round and we’re going to be in the FAI Senior Cup next season, win that and then we’re going to be in the final. We’re ready for whoever it is and as I said earlier, I believe we played well within ourselves last weekend.”
Good weekend in Connacht Cup
While Iorras were flying the flag for Mayo on the national stage, it was a good weekend for Mayo sides on the provincial level with Castlebar Celtic, Manulla and Westport United all winning through in rounds five and four of the competition. Westport hit visitors Oranmore for six in the Sportspark with Dessie O’Malley hitting a hat-trick, and with Martin Geraghty, Dave Cameron, and Dave Hoban all also getting on the scoreboard.
Castlebar Celtic joined Westport United in round six with a resounding 3-1 win over Ballinasloe Town in Celtic Park, thanks to a Ronan O’Boyle hat-trick, while Manulla set up an all Mayo round five clash thanks to a 3-2 win over Athenry in Carramore. Roger Clarke opened the scoring for the home side before the break, but they were hauled back with 15 minutes to go to send the game into extra time. But goals from Dessie Campbell and Micheál Jennings in over time sent them through to a fifth round tie with Snugboro this Sunday at 2pm in Conway Park.
