Now that the dust has settled on the inter-county season for another year attention turns back to the local scene this weekend with the double header of replays in the Mayo Junior Football Championship on Saturday evening announcing the return to local action. The action will get under way at 6pm with the meeting of Ballycastle and Kilmeena, followed by the clash of Balla and Achill at 7.30pm.
In their drawn game a fortnight ago an injury time point from Darragh Keaveney pulled Kilmeena level. Ballycastle went in leading by 2-3 to 0-3 at the break with Dermot Kelly and Shane Forde finding the net in the opening half. But they were outscored by 0-9 to 0-3 in the second half with Keaveny finishing up with five points to his name including the vital late leveller.
Balla and Achill finished level at 0-13 to 1-10, with All Ireland minor and u21 winner Matthew Flanagan rescuing the draw for last year's beaten county finalists deep into injury time from a 45. Achill, who had played most of the game with 14 players after Michael Denis McNamara was shown a red with little over five minutes gone, looked to have won it when Michael Darragh Sweeney kicked a huge point late on to edge them in front by one. But Flanagan held his nerve and gave Balla a second crack at it. Both of these games will be streamed live on the new Mayo GAA TV service where you will be able to watch all the action for just €4 by logging on to www.mayogaatv.com
Moran and Clarke up for Player of the Year
Both Andy Moran and David Clarke have been nominated for this year's GAA-GPA Footballer of the Year, the Mayo duo will be going up for the coveted prize currently held by Westport's Lee Keegan against Dublin duo Stephen Cluxton and James McCarthy. In total 12 Mayo players have been nominated for All Stars, they are David Clarke, defenders Chris Barrett, Colm Boyle, Brendan Harrison, Keith Higgins and Lee Keegan. Tom Parsons was nominated in the midfield section with Jason Doherty, Kevin McLoughlin, Cillian O'Connor, Andy Moran and Aidan O'Shea nominated in the forward line.
