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Three weeks on from the being beaten by Sligo in the preliminary round of the Connacht Championship, Mayo will roll up to the midlands for the first round of the All Ireland qualifiers. The first round of the backdoor competition, while not quite uncharted territory, is one that is still not too familiar to Mayo players and supporters. In fact Mayo have only entered the qualifier system at this stage once before, also under the tutelage of O’Mahony in 2007. That year a comfortable win over Cavan in McHale Park was followed up with a humbling inside the city walls of Derry by the Oak Leaf county in the second round.

Mayo will start their All Ireland qualifiers adventure in Pearse Park, Longford, next Saturday evening when they take on Glenn Ryan’s midlands men in the first round of the backdoor system. While the trip to Longford will be far from easy it could have been a lot worse with the likes of Armagh, Donegal, and Derry all in the pot with Mayo. Longford will be no easy pushovers for Mayo all the same, last season they ran the current All Ireland champions Kerry to four points in the same venue, keeping Kerry scoreless for the majority of the second half that day. Mayo will make the trip to Longford even though they were drawn out of the hat first last Sunday evening. GAA Central Council made a ruling that teams who played away in the first round of the qualifiers would play at home in the first round this year, even if they were the second team out of the hat. The Mayo County Board is sure to be disappointed with the fact that the newly renovated McHale Park has so far failed to host a championship match in 2010.

Badly in need of points if they are to have any hope of maintaining their division one status, Westmeath can expect nothing easy when they head west this Sunday to take on Mayo in round three of the Allianz National Football League.