Fresh from their historic 6-3 win over Instonians in the quarter-final of the All Ireland Junior Cup last weekend, Ballina will go looking to make it five wins from five on the domestic front when they return to action in the Connacht Junior 1A League. So far this season the north Mayo men have been in flying form running up big scores, seeing off Westport 27-7, Galwegians 56-5, and Buccaneers 69-22, the closest that any side has got to them in the league this season is third place Sligo, but Ballina still saw them off 27-19 a month ago. On Sunday they will expect to make it win number five when they take on seventh placed Monivea who have only registered one win so far this season from their four outings.
Westport currently lie in fifth place in the table with two wins and three losses from their five games played, last time out they went down 10-5 on the road to second placed Connemara, in their two previous games the Bulls had picked up two wins seeing off the two sides at the bottom of the table, Monivea and Ballinasloe after losing their opening two games to Ballina and Sligo. On Sunday they will be hopeful of picking up the points when they travel to Athlone to take on a Buccaneers side who sit one point and one place in front of them in the table.
Castlebar look to keep up chase of leading pack
Castlebar kept pace with the two top in the junior 1B table last weekend with a 36 -13 win over Dunmore thanks to tries from Nigel Byrne, Jack Rowland, Luke Staunton, Simon Staunton, and Conor Tuohy. That 23 point win was the county town based outfit's fourth from seven games and came on the back of a disappointing 9-8 loss on the road to a bottom of the table Corrib side in the previous round. Tomorrow night Castlebar will be expecting to pick up their fifth win when they host a second bottom placed Dunmore at 7.30pm.
Ballinrobe went down to their fourth loss of the season last weekend when the students from NUIG saw them off 32-12 in Galway, the south Mayo outfit had come into that game in good form on the back of two wins on the bounce when they saw off second placed Corinthians 23-7 and bottom of the table Corrib 28-18. On Sunday, they will be looking for quick revenge against the students from NUIG who will be coming to Ballinrobe for the return fixture - kicking off at 2.30pm.
