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The Mayo senior hurlers will be hoping to avoid moving one step closer to falling through the trapdoor into the Nicky Rackard Cup for next season when they take on Wicklow in Mullingar tomorrow. JP Coen's side lost out to Kildare in a seesaw encounter in James Stephens Park in Ballina last Saturday, and now have 70 minutes to ensure their Ring Cup status for next season and avoid the relegation/promotion final which will see the losers of this game take on the winners of the Rackard Cup on Saturday June 13 for the right to compete in the Christy Ring Cup next season.

Mayo will still go into the quarter-finals of the Christy Ring Cup in a few weeks despite their narrow defeat at the hands of Meath on Saturday afternoon in a blustery MacHale Park. A late free from Meath captain Stephen Clynch at the end of normal time was the difference between the two sides on the day. The Royals number six showed nerves of steel to stroke the ball right over the black spot under pressure to send Meath straight into the semi-finals of the competition. Mayo did have a chance right at the death, but Sean Regan was unable to direct his sideline cut from 21 meters out under the stand over the bar.

Mayo 4-16

It was a very strange league campaign for Mayo in division 2B of the national hurling league. They were unbeaten against the top two teams in the division yet only managed to finish in fourth place in the table out of six teams. The league campaign was bookended by impressive wins over bottom of the table Roscommon and eventual table toppers Kildare at the very end of the league stages. Both those wins of course did feature the talents of Keith Higgins who, as has become the norm in recent years, is balancing life as an inter-county footballer for one of the top sides in the country, and as the captain and leader of an inter-county hurling team a nice bit down the food chain when it comes to the small ball game. In between those two wins, Mayo held a fancied Meath side to a draw in Castlebar, before being beaten on the road by Armagh and overseas by London.

Murtt Connolly’s Mayo senior hurling side are looking to keep up their 100 per cent record in division 3B of the National Hurling League this Sunday. Mayo will host Donegal in McHale Park on Sunday at 2.30pm. So far this season wins over Roscommon, Fingal, and Louth have Mayo sitting pretty at the top of the table with three wins from three. Sunday’s opponents Donegal have one win from their three outings in the league, with their solitary win coming away to Monaghan in their second round game. Mayo’s last outing was a fortnight ago when they ground out a hard fought win over Louth in Dundalk. Connolly’s men will also have the services of dual player Keith Higgins back in harness for the game on Sunday after he returned from a holiday recently. In their last outing Kenny Feeney was the main man for Mayo, clipping over seven points, keeping up the good form he showed against Fingal in Mayo’s previous encounter. The goals came from Niall Murphy, Derek McDonnell, and Darren McTigue with Eoin Maddigan also prominent for Mayo. After Sunday’s game Mayo will have two games left in the league against Sligo and then away to Monaghan in a double header with the football team on the last day of action in the league stages of the competition. Mayo have their first outing in the Christy Ring Cup pencilled in for Saturday April 23 at home to Wicklow, and if they can keep up their good form of the early season through the latter stages of the league it will set them up nicely for their main competition of the year.

A weekend that promised a lot delivered very little for Mayo football followers, apart from more questions. On Saturday a very fancied u21 team went into battle against Roscommon in McHale Park in the preliminary round of the Connacht championship and were dumped out of the competition at the first hurdle. On paper Mayo had a team full of players who would have had designs on at least a Connacht title if not more. But when it came to the crunch, too many players did not show up and they were just passengers on they day when Roscommon won out by 0-11 to 0-9 in Castlebar.