Search Results for 'Brian Lavelle'

There is no room for sentimentality when it comes to winning finals. Cill Chomáin headed into last Sunday's final as warm favourites, they had lost narrowly last year and looked to be set up to get redemption this time around.

The Sligo Stages Rally took place recently and similar to the Mayo Stages Rally, this event was part of the Sligo Pallets Border Championship and also a round of the Triton Showers National Rally Championship.

Conditions were perfect for the return of the Mayo Stages Rally to Achill Island. After the success of last year’s event, clerk of the course Trevor O’Connell and his team rose to the occasion to make an every bigger and more spectacular event.

Sport and tourism integrate this weekend as a new season of the Triton Showers National Rally Championship gets under way on Sunday next with the Óstán Oileán Acla/Connacht Print and Signs Mayo Rally.

Conditions were terrible and some of the football left a lot to be desired, but that won’t matter to Balla who are into the semi-finals of the Mayo Junior championship after a four point win over Achill on MacHale Park on Saturday night. Achill only managed to score once from play in the entire game and Balla were only able to add on one more point to the ten they hit in the second half.  Come the semi-final Pat Fallon’s men know they will have to up their game if they are to make it into their second successive junior final.

As the day dawned and the mist lifted over the Achill hills the first round of the Sligo Pallets Border Championship kicked off in style last Sunday. The early stages were challenging due to overnight rain but once the sun came out and the stages dried up the drivers got into their own rhythm and their confidence increased as the day went on.

Nothing could separate these sides the first time out and the narrowest of margins was all that was between them at the end of a pulsating encounter on Sunday afternoon in MacHale Park. After missing two frees at the death to win the game the first time around, Achill had a chance to level this game up in injury time, but Pee Sweeney’s effort from tight out on the MacHale Road side of the ground missed on the near side and Killala held on for a memorable victory.

For a game that looked to be going only one way eight minutes in when Achill lead Killala by four points to no score and they looked like they could do what they wanted in possession of the ball, this junior championship semi-final sure had a dramatic ending.

Last year Achill came within touching distance of bringing the Pete McDonnell Cup back home from the mainland, when Castlebar Mitchels B pipped them at the post in the junior final. Despite that disappointment the island men shook off that heartbreak a few weeks later and went out and represented Mayo in the Connacht championship and went all the way to the Connacht final, where once again they fell just short when the Aran Islands beat them in a game that was dubbed the All Island final. But the men from the island have dusted themselves down and are back again for another shot at claiming the Mayo junior title.