Search Results for 'FBD league'

I always feel a little sad taking down the tree on "Little Christmas".

I always feel a little sad taking down the tree on “Little Christmas”. Once the decorations and sparkling lights are boxed away and the tree has been dragged un-ceremoniously out the door (or window) for the nearest collection point, there can be no denying that all the razzmatazz, hullabaloo and magic of Santa is over for another 11 months. Last Tuesday evening in the Silke household was even more poignant than normal as our five year-old-daughter was let stay-up late to help packing the crib and taking down the tree. As the tree was carried out shedding needles at an enormous rate, she too shed a few tears and was very, very sad that her tree — the one she had picked on her own with the help of the nice Coillte man — was now dead.

As his side made the longer than normal trek back to the dressing room from the pitch in Dangan after subsiding to a five point defeat at the hands of NUIG, John O’Mahony faced the first of his interrogations at the hands of the hungry press core on the 50m line of the college pitch. After getting his first competitive view of his side for 2009 and how the new rules regarding yellow cards would play out, he held court over what he had just seen for the previous 60 minutes. Over the course of the game five players, two from Mayo and three from NUIG, were shown the line for picking up yellow cards, one as early as the eighth minute when Greg Begley was sent to the line for a clumsy challenge on Billy Joe Padden. “I believe the GAA are not going to change them because managers are saying they want them changed, but we have a meeting in the middle of January and I'll do my talking there. There will need to be some tweaking on them, the first lad to get sent off for NUIG my reading of it initially is it's a yellow card if you pull down a player, and will that lead to people appearing to be pulled down or fall and get a lad sent off. We'll give them a chance and see, if it adds to free flowing football then it's always a positive, but we'll have to hold our fire and see,” said O’Mahony.

There’s probably enough of talk of doom and gloom around without me adding to it here. But sure at this stage we wouldn’t know how to cope if we heard a bit of good news anyway, would we? With that in mind I thought I’d share with you something that has been troubling me over the festive period.

Isn’t it a long season for our inter-county footballers when you consider they had their first match of the year last Sunday week, and some or most of them will be involved at either club or county level for another nine or 10 months. I know that the footballers who take their preparation seriously rarely take a week off, and during those two months of so called inactivity at the end of the year will undertake a maintenance programme so as to not lose their superior levels of fitness. It is very easy to pick these guys out if you attend early season matches as they are normally the players that catch the eye. Pat Kelly, Austin O’Malley, Alan Dillon, and Peadar Gardiner are players that spring to mind immediately when I think of players that live as close to a monastic lifestyle as is possible for young men these days. That is one of the primary reasons why they are right up there when it comes to selecting man of the match performances in the FBD league and early rounds of the National Football league.

During my first year in charge of Mayo in 1995/6 it was decided that we should take that year’s national league campaign seriously. We were playing in Division 3 at the time and I can assure you we had some right battles up and down the country squeezing narrow victories over some mediocre opposition in order to secure promotion. We made the play offs and managed to take a major scalp in the quarter final with a great victory over Meath in Hyde Park, Roscommon. We went to Croke Park to play Derry in the semi-final and were comprehensively beaten by what was then an exceptionally talented Derry side. In fact we decided before we left Dublin after that defeat that we would work our socks off for a few weeks and look for another game against the same opposition in order to benchmark and progress.

On Sunday, Killala will look to book their place in the All Ireland Junior Football championship final when they take on Liverpool side John Mitchels in Carrick on Shannon. This will be the second time in two years the north Mayo men have been within touching distance of Croke Park and the All Ireland final. In 2006 they fell short against Greencastle at this stage and they will be aiming to put things to right this weekend.

This Sunday in Tuam Stadium a Roscommon team that is beginning to improve and show some signs of unity and purpose under the stewardship of their great white managerial hope Fergal O'Donnell, take on Liam Sammon's exciting cocktail of youth and experience in the FBD league final.

Mayo, as you know, start with a home game against Derry in Ballina on Sunday. While it is true that our preparations haven’t been perfect, with sloppy displays in the FBD league, preparations in the last two weeks have gone really well according to reports! Some of the ‘big guns’ were out last weekend in Kilmallock, where Cork were the opposition. Mayo scored 2-12 in that game against a full Cork outfit. The game ended in a draw and apparently it was a good workout for all concerned. Trevor Mortimer has returned to the fray after a couple of weeks sunning himself in South Africa and Ronan McGarrity was back at midfield having returned from his honeymoon. Mayo were as near full strength as possible, with only the injured Conor Mortimer not featuring as he had minor surgery on a broken nose received a week earlier. After this game and another workout on Sunday morning against a Mayo u21 selection management would more than likely have made their minds up on a starting 15 for Sunday. At the time of writing the Mayo team hasn’t yet been selected but I will be surprised if it isn’t Clarke, Vaughan, Cafferkey, Liam O’Malley, Gardiner, Cunniffe, Pat Kelly, McGarrity, Parsons, Trevor Mortimer, Dillon, Padden, Conor Mortimer, Barry Moran, and Andy Moran. If Conor Mortimer isn’t selected then I expect Mickey Sweeney might get the nod here as he scored a goal and two points from three efforts against Cork. I believe we will get our campaign off to a winning start on Sunday. Derry are missing quite a few of their stars as I believe Mark Lynch, Enda Muldoon, Niall McCusker, Kevin McCloy, Colin Devlin, and Paddy Bradley are not available on Sunday for one reason or another.

Mayo will entertain Roscommon in their final FBD League game of the season in Ballyhaunis on Sunday. Gollowing on from last weekend’s comprehensive win over a poor Sligo IT side John O’Mahony will be hoping that his side can wrap up their warm up to the league with a second win on the bounce.