Search Results for 'Ger Cafferkey'

After blitzing their way through Connacht without much fuss the first test of Mayo's credentials from a side outside Connacht will come tomorrow when they square up against Donegal in Croke Park. Mayo joint managers, Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes, announced their starting 15 for the showdown on Tuesday this week, much earlier than they have done for their two other championship games, and the starting line-up showed no changes from the one that started against Sligo in the provincial decider.

I’m not sure if it’s the wisest thing I have ever done but I joined up with the 'Charlestown party bus' after Mayo’s drive for five became a reality last Sunday in Hyde Park. I felt it was important to celebrate such a milestone and such an emphatic victory in the Connacht final. I did suffer for it on Monday.

Mayo have made two changes for Sunday's Connacht final clash with Sligo from the team that lined out against Galway in Pearse Stadium in their semi-final win in Salthill five weeks ago. Back into the starting line up comes Ger Cafferkey and Donal Vaughan, with the Ballinrobe man wearing the number three shirt and Cafferkey the number two jersey. Whether both men actually play in those positions on Sunday remains yet to be seen, with Cafferkey normally occupying the full back position. Out of the side have gone Belmullet's Chris Barrett and Westport's Kevin Keane, Keane missing out after he picked up an injury in last Sunday's A v B game in Elverys MacHale Park.

Cillian O'Connor has won his race to be fit for the start of the championship and has been named at full forward for Sunday's showdown with Galway. Former team captain, Andy Moran has also returned to the starting 15 and will line out at corner forward with Jason Doherty in the opposite corner to Moran.

The time is nigh. Mayo will put their Connacht championship on the line when they travel to Salthill in Galway to take on the home side in the Connacht semi-final on Sunday. It has been 10 weeks since we watched the green and red in competitive action, but the time seems to have just dwindled away, such was the anticipation about what may unfold in Salthill.

It’s been a long wait and it's nearly over. Since Mayo last tasted competitive action almost every other county has been involved in championship action, with Sligo the only side to have not got their summer underway by the time Mayo throw in against Galway on Sunday. This will be the first proper test of the Holmes and Connelly management ticket in the white heat of championship action and they couldn’t have asked for a more traditional joust than a meeting with Galway in their own back yard.

Heartbreaking is all that can be said to describe Mayo’s defeat in Park Ui Rinn last Sunday. After going 1-02 to no score down after 10 minutes it looked like the writing was on the wall for another hiding at the hands of League leaders and division one top scorers Cork.

Now it starts to get real. While the championship is the ultimate barometer of success in Gaelic games, a successful league campaign is the foundation stone of what happens in the white heat of summer fare.

It's been some week for Noel Connelly, the former Mayo captain was appointed as the new joint manager of the Mayo senior football team alongside his old running mate Pat Holmes. While the whole appointment process and the wrongs and rights of it were played out in the public spotlight, Connelly also had to be preparing his Hollymount-Carramore team for Saturday afternoon's Egan Jewelers Intermediate Championship semi-final replay against Belmullet. Last weekends meeting between the sides wasn't anything to write home about as Belmullet played to their strengths and packed their defence and hit Hollymount-Carramore on the break and used the sharp-shooting of Jonathon Donoghue to keep themselves in the game.

I am not sure what the odds were back in 1951 or if odds on football matches even existed back then but I would be pretty sure when Mayo faced Kerry in '81, '96’, '97, '04, '06, and 2011, Kerry would have been the overwhelming favourites.