Search Results for 'John Reilly'

Truagh Gaels 2-21

If all 2,500 of Mayo’s season ticket holders make the trip to St Conleth’s Park in Newbridge, they will take over almost half the capacity of the Lillywhites home ground on Sunday. While it is not expected Mayo supporters in that number will make the trek east on Sunday a very healthy number of supporters will be on hand to see the latest update of James Horan’s Mayo make their proper competitive debut of the year, after the shadow boxing of the FBD League. Horan has given two players their Allainz Football League debuts with Aghamore’s Brendan Harrison getting the nod to start in the half-back line alongside Shane McHale and Lee Keegan. While Mayo Gaels’ Adam Gallagher will come into the team in the number 12 shirt in a half-forward line anchored by Keith Higgins and with Cathal Carolan on the other wing,

Kiltane 2-9

If there is a man, woman, or child to be found the villages and towns that send their sons out to do battle in the blue and yellow of Kiltane on Sunday, it would be a safe assumption that they are tourists, trying to figure out why exactly there is no-one to be found in this secnic part of the country. They take a lot of things seriously in that enclave of the county, but not many things more seriously than the game of Gaelic football and on Sunday afternoon with a chance of an appearance in an All Ireland final in Croke Park, it’s the only thing that matters to the men who have been training all guns blazing since the end of 2012 to get to where they are on Sunday.

The whirlwind nature of Mayo’s start to the GAA season continues on Sunday when Mayo take on Roscommon in Ballinlough at 2pm in their third game in ten days in the competition. A win for Mayo would send them into the competitions final which has been slated for Sunday week January 22 against the winners of the other group currently being led by Leitrim with two wins from two games and a draw against Sligo on Sunday would be enough to send last years FBD winners back into the final.

The only thing that will be remembered for a long time after Friday nights game in MacHale Park, will be a trivia question for years to come. Who was the first Mayo player to get a black card? That unfortunate footnote in history has gone to Moy Davitts' Sean Kelly whose Mayo debut came to a premature end ten minutes after it started, when he was shown to the line as the game crept over into injury time.

Kiltane are the 2013 Connacht Intermediate football champions after a very professional performance against Boyle of Roscommon last Sunday in Elvery's McHale Park. They were never really in danger in this game, albeit for a sloppy patch midway through the first half in which they conceded a goal and a point on the spin but that was as good as it got for Boyle. Kiltane are keeping the tradition going by being the third Mayo team in a row to win the Gene Byrne Cup. Little did they know the favours Davitt's and Charlestown did for them the two years previous by playing almost all of their games away from home resulting in the Mayo champs having three home games in this years provincial series. You cannot beat home advantage when you are entering the unknown. It is hard to believe this team could have been out of the championship if Drumcliff/ Rosses Point substitute Colin Ginty kept his head instead of fluffing his lines in the dying moments of the semi final when it looked easier to score. Upon such outcomes All-Irelands are won, most All-Ireland champions have a little bit of luck along the way and that most certainly was Kiltane’s. Their ambition now certainly has to be to claim more silverware in early 2014, a feat which Davitt’s and Charlestown failed to achieve.

A couple of minutes into the second half of their Connacht semi-final against Rosses Point/Drumcliffee it looked as if Kiltane had their place in this year’s provincial final wrapped up and tucked in the luggage compartment of the team bus and on the road home to Erris. But Martin Barrett’s men were made to sweat right until the final whistle in MacHale Park a few weeks ago, as a combination of taking their eye off the game and the Sligo champions refusing to go away saw Kiltane just hang on by the skin of their teeth to set up this Sunday’s meeting with the Roscommon champions Boyle in the county grounds in Castlebar.

Kiltane 2-12