Search Results for 'Ciaran McDonald'

While they are far better known for their small ball game, the black and amber Cats from Kilkenny are standing in Mayo's way of reaching the All Ireland Junior Football Championship final tomorrow afternoon in Tullamore. Kilkenny who only field a football team at junior level have progressed to this stage of the competition after winning the British junior crown, travelling over and back to Great Britain for all their games this summer so far. In the final of that championship they saw off the challenge of Scotland to book their final four spot.

Colm Boyle has become one of the most vital cogs in Mayo's domination of the Connacht champoinship over the past four years, and he has an all-Ireland U21 medal in his back pocket from 2006 when the current Mayo management team of Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes guided Mayo to victory. But the quest for the big one goes on still for the man from the borderline, and his 2015 adventure gets up and running properly on Sunday when they head to Satlhill to take on Galway.

I’d always be open to progression and forward thinking in the GAA but I can’t get my head around Galway competing in the Leinster Hurling Championship. It doesn’t sound right. Galway; Leinster hurling champions. It did, of course, happen a number of years ago when the Galway hurlers defeated Kilkenny in the Leinster hurling final. That victory, in my opinion, cost Galway an All-Ireland title as Kilkenny went on to beat Galway in a replay in the All-Ireland final later on that year.

Ballintubber opened up their account in the Breaffy House Senior Football League with a nine point win over Breaffy in a West Mayo derby on Saturday evening. The senior county champions were short a number of their key men going into the game with Cillian O’Connor, Alan Dillon and Jason Gibbons all ruled out of the match due to injury. The hosts had a strong side out for this league opener but with 12 minutes gone on the clock, Breaffy had been reduced to 13 player after both Seamus and Aidan O’Shea were both shown straight red cards by referee Kevin Connelly who was left no choice in the matter by either player.

One of Mayo’s greatest footballers of all time, Ciarán McDonald, has spoken about his heartbreak over never winning an All Ireland intercounty medal in a rare media interview.

Galway and Connacht champions Corofin will take the M6 motorway on Saturday morning to Tullamore to take on the Leinster and All-Ireland champions St Vincent’s in the eagerly anticipated All-Ireland football semi-final in O’Connor Park (2pm).

The second round of games in the Treanlaur Catering Mayo Senior Football Championship saw plenty of action and excitement over the last two days. The defending champions, Castlebar Mitchels laid down another marker of their intentions to retain their title with a top drawer display against the former star attractions of the competition Crossmolina Deel Rovers in MacHale Park on Sunday afternoon in group one. The county town men rand out 2-22 to 1-5 winners showing little hospitality for their guests on the field. Mitchels hit an impressive 1-11 in each half of the game and went in leading 1-11 to 0-1 at the break as their powered through the Crossmolina defence at will. The Mitchels were superior in every area of the field with their inter-changeable attack and midfield players running riot against a weakened Deel Rovers side.

A number of teams will be looking to have booked their spot in the last eight of the Mayo senior football championship this weekend when the curtain comes down on round two.

World Cup fever is well and truly upon us with games coming thick and fast and most of us struggling to keep the lids open for the late starts every night. Mayo football and the World Cup is something I relate to from my memories as a Mayo footballer. I made my championship debut for Mayo all the way back in 1994, the World Cup was on in the USA the same year. It is hard to believe 20 years could go by so fast. Mayo football was taking a bit of a bashing then on the back of Mayo’s humiliating defeat to Cork in the All-Ireland semi final by all of 20 points in 1993. As a new kid on the block I did not care about the World Cup, and I was oblivious to the thrashing I am sure Mayo football was taking from the entire country, because I had achieved a goal I set myself as a 16-year-old who failed to make a Mayo u16 team for the Ted Webb Cup. When I arrived home from Mayo u16 training in 1990 to tell my parents I had been dropped from the panel because I simply was not good enough I swore to them that day I would play for the Mayo senior team before I was 20.

With just two league games under their belts for the 16 senior clubs in the county, the race for the Moclair Cup gets under way this weekend with eight games across the four groups in the Treanlaur Catering Mayo GAA senior football championship getting going to the whistle over Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.