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The Galway footballers head to Pearse Park in Longford this Sunday (2pm) for a critical game against the home side who are under the management of former Kildare star Glen Ryan. It is his fifth year in charge of Longford.

The GAA Museum at Croke Park unveiled a new temporary exhibition during the week at GAA headquarters. Simply entitled, My GAA Hero, this unique GAA exhibition has been designed by kids for kids, and possibly adults too!

Roscommon footballers will enjoy the benefit of home advantage when they take on neighbours Leitrim this Sunday in the Connacht semi-final. The prize on offer is a date with either Sligo or Galway in the Connacht final. That semi-final will take place in Pearse Stadium on Sunday week, the same day as Westmeath are in action against Louth.

I always find it exciting when waiting to see what teams are paired against each other from the qualifier draw. I watched it live last weekend and once it was decided it would be Longford a good lively discussion took place about Mayo’s chances of progress. Most felt Mayo would be capable of beating Longford, a team that had a very mediocre season to date. When it was clarified later that evening that Longford had been awarded the home advantage for the match on Saturday June 26 (information that was not to hand when the discussion took place earlier), the task looked that little bit more difficult. I suggested in this column last week that it might be better for all if Mayo were drawn against a top tier side. Armagh, Derry, Kildare, or Donegal immediately spring to mind. Had we been drawn against any one of these teams and managed a victory, I feel the team could redeem itself and could certainly give us some hope for a reasonably good run through the qualifiers. However a match against Longford in Pearse Park just doesn’t set the pulse racing for me and I hope this particular clash gets the team a little more excited than I feel about it right now. I watched Longford play Louth in the Leinster Championship two weeks ago. It was a game they could so easily have won and they played without their star man, Brian Kavanagh. Their other star forward, Paul Barden, did play that evening, but was not 100 per cent fit. Both apparently are back training and will start against Mayo. Also in recent years I have attended the compact Longford venue and witnessed the home side frighten the lives out of very formidable opposition. I recall in 2006 a Dublin team looking mightily relieved to leave the midlands after scraping a two point victory over the home side. Longford sent Derry packing the year before in a qualifier game. Most of you will recall Kerry really struggling to beat them last year. So when their manager Glen Ryan suggested last week that he didn’t care who his side were drawn against as long as they had a home draw, you can fully understand where he was coming from.

I only got to see one game last weekend and that was the much anticipated replay between Ballaghadereen and Ballintubber on Sunday. The previous encounter was a right rip-roaring clash with Ballintubber denied a famous victory when Andy Moran scored a goal for Ballaghadereen almost at the death, to put his team in front with time almost up. Ballintubber did manage an equaliser deep into injury time and set up the opportunity to witness these two do battle again. The weather was perfect for football and I was really looking forward to a good game. I parked myself with a few of the Crossmolina boys, who were there keeping an eye on proceedings, as they play the winners this Sunday. No note taking required by these boys as Liam Moffett, the Crossmolina manager, was videoing the game from behind us, obviously for closer scrutiny later in the week in his effort to try and orchestrate another county title for the Deel Rovers. Sadly the game never really caught fire and once Ballaghadereen started getting ball into their forwards there was never going to be anything other than a decisive victory for the boys from the east. Andy Moran, who was having a really quiet championship campaign up until last weekend, played like an inter-county footballer and proved to be a right handful for the three defenders who tried to curtail his scoring threat. Andy has perfected the knack of shoving off his marker with his hand and demonstrated this tactic several times throughout Sunday’s encounter.

“London calling to the faraway towns,

Most inter-county football managers have been appointed and are bedding in with their respective counties at this stage. For those stepping into management for the first time it is an exciting time. There will be lots of enthusiasm to get the show on the road. Because of the lengthened closed season this year, however, they are forced to wait a little while longer before they get the opportunity to see the talent or, in some cases, lack of talent at their disposal. For the likes of Kevin Walsh, Luke Dempsey, Mickey Moran, John Morrison and Glen Ryan, to name but a few, there will be all sorts of advice flowing from various quarters regarding players who maybe didn’t play the previous year. Most of these players didn’t feature under the previous management for a combination of reasons no doubt, but there are many who will argue that some of these lads never got a fair chance under the previous regime. Others may have missed out because they were studying abroad and just couldn’t give the required commitment. Some may have been injured and did not make it back onto the championship panel.

 “London calling to the faraway towns,

Galway’s Padraic Joyce, former All-Star Michael Donnellan, and a host of national football greats such as Kerry’s Seamus Moynihan, Armagh’s All-Ireland winning captain and current Kildare manager Kieran McGeeney, Kildare’s Glen Ryan, Anthony Rainbow, John Divilly David Heaney, Derek Savage, Conor Mortimer, Paul Clancy, Richie Fahey, and Maurice Sheridan will all be in action this Saturday at Tuam Stadium at 3pm when they take on the current Galway football panel in a charity game.