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A two goal first half salvo from Aidan O’Shea inspired Breaffy to their first win in the Mayo GAA Senior Football League this season as they saw off local rivals Castlebar Mitchels in Munnelly Park in Castlebar on Sunday. Both sides lined out with out key players for this contest with Seamus O’Shea serving a one match suspension for Breaffy after being dismissed early in their loss to Ballintubber a fortnight ago, while for Castlebar Mitchels neither Tom Cunniffe or Patrick Durcan were available for selection.

Goals win games and there was no recovering from the two goals they shipped inside the opening ten minutes for Castlebar Mitchels on Sunday in MacHale Park.

It's not to often that you see a team come out for the second half of a game in different coloured jerseys from the ones the started the contest in, but that's what happened in MacHale Park on Sunday afternoon. Both Castlebar Mitchels and Garrymore were allowed to start the county semi-final in their home red jerseys, despite the only defining difference between the strips, being the yellow piping on the county towns shirts.

Elvery’s MacHale Park is the place to be this weekend, when the best eight senior club teams in the county do battle for a place in the semi-finals of this year’s club championship.

In a repeat of last years county final Breaffy and Castlebar met in round two of the Mayo GAA SFL league in Breaffy on Saturday night and it was the hosts who came out on top with a 2-13 to 0-7 win over their neighbors. The visitors lined up without Richie Feeney and Barry Moran at their services, while Breaffy weren't able to call on Seamus O'Shea who picked up a knock in their defeat against Ballintubber the previous week.

Castlebar Mitchels 3-13

Finally getting over the 20-year-old itch and winning the Moclair Cup looks to have freed this Castlebar Mitchels team from the nagging doubts that many had about their ability to press on and mark themselves out as one of the truly great Mayo club sides. They have another opportunity to kick-on again this Sunday, when they go toe-to-toe with the current AIB All Ireland club champions, St Brigid's in Hyde Park. While bookmakers may have the Roscommon men as 4/7 favourites and Castlebar as 15/8 outsiders, those numbers will been have paid little heed around Páirc Josie Munnelly, as Pat Holmes along with his management team of Alan Nolan and Shane Conway put their players through their paces in preparation for Mitchels first provincial final since 1993. Last Sunday, the Mitchels wrapped up the Mayo double with a comprehensive 2-15 to 1-2 league win over the previous holders of the Moclair Cup, Ballaghaderreen. In 10 league and seven championship games they have gone into battle in this year, Mitchels have only been overturned once, on the opening day in the league, when the side they saw off in the county final (Breaffy) edged past them on a boggy and misty spring day.

Castlebar 2-8

Castlebar Mitchels have been going the extra mile this year in their quest to win their first county championship in 20 years, according to Richie Feeney. The team that have lost two of the last three county finals have been working hard to find those extra couple of inches to get themselves over the gain line and back to the promised land, he says. “I think the effort the lads have put in this year, is more effort that they’ve put in, in the last three or four years from what I’ve seen anyway.” Getting players to commit to stay around during the summer when the championship can enter a hiatus and not lot of football is played is another thing that has been a great boost to the cause this year he says. “I suppose the boys decided to stay around, there were a number of lads who went off travelling the last few years and things like that. Two of the boys went, but they came straight back into it and only missed one game and everyone decided to put the shoulder to the wheel and give it a good rattle.”

The dividing lines are fluid when it comes to the boundary, fluid enough to see two brothers togging out for opposing teams on Sunday, but one thing that is not fluid is the desire of both Castlebar Mitchels and Breaffy to take home the Paddy Moclair Cup with them on Sunday evening. Both of this year’s finalists have got there on merit, one was expected to be still standing here, while the others dusted themselves off after heavy defeat to the other in the group stages and have battled back to show their true worth.