Search Results for 'Ger McManus'

The home dressing room in Adrian Freeman Park in Tooreen, where we sat down with Mayo manager Derek Walsh last Sunday, is somewhere he might not have been that welcome during his playing days, when he was going toe-to-toe with the Blue Devils for Ballyhaunis in the many classics they battled out in the club championship in Mayo.

Shane Boland played the captains role in leading Mayo to the Christy Ring Cup final after a hard fought 2-23 to 2-18 win over Derry in Hastings Insurance MacHale Park on Saturday.

The Mayo senior hurlers head east on Sunday looking to pick up a win that will get their National Hurling League campaign back on track following their opening round loss to Derry in MacHale Park last Sunday afternoon. JP Coen's men were felled by the Oak Leaf county by the smallest of margins with the visitors running out winners on a scoreline of 1-14 to 1-13.

Seven days on from claiming the Nicky Rackard Cup in Croke Park, the Mayo senior hurlers completed the job by booking their place in the Christy Ring Cup next season with a 1-21 to 1-14 over Derry in Ballinamore.

"Once the dust settled on last year, we felt we let the county down and we said we had to dig in and see where we can bring this" Mayo hurling manager JP Coen told the Mayo Advertiser when we sat down to speak ahead of Saturday's Nicky Rackard Cup final. The dust he was speaking about was Mayo's relegation from the Christy Ring Cup last year.

Getting relegated out of the second tier of the senior inter-county hurling championship would never have been part of the plan for Mayo, but that was what happened last year when a disappointing season ended with them dropping down into the third tier competition for the first time since the new championship gradings were introduced back in 2005. Up until this demotion Mayo had operated in the Christy Ring Cup and held their own for the most part with the sides in that competition.

The Mayo senior hurlers got their National League season off to a winning start last Sunday, when they saw off Donegal in MacHale Park in round one of the league. This year sees Mayo drop down to the Nicky Rackard Cup for their championship campaign in the summer time and we caught up with Mayo senior hurling manager JP Coen during the week to look ahead to the season and what he expects from his charges.