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Most of us travelled to Páirc Mhic hÉil in Castlebar on Sunday morning more in hope than expectation, and in many ways the game turned out pretty much as expected, with a relatively easy win for the home side.

Galway came to town and they huffed and and puffed but in the end they were no match for a Mayo team that went about dismantling their southern neighbors with relative ease in the end with man of the match Cillian O'Connor kicking eight points and having his hand in two of Mayo's goals that booked their passage to the All Ireland quarter-final on the August Bank Holiday weekend. Mayo were smarter in almost every area of the field and ran out deserving seven point winners with Aidan O'Shea dominating the game from his centre half forward berth for long periods of the contest. Even when Galway looked like they could get themselves back into the contest the rub of the green wasn't with them as Shane Walsh who kicked seven points for the Tribesmen saw his effort for a goal come crashing back off the bar just after the restart.

A number of teams will be looking to have booked their spot in the last eight of the Mayo senior football championship this weekend when the curtain comes down on round two.

Rarely does anything come easy to Mayo in Hyde Park and on Sunday they were peering over the ledge and an exit from the Connacht championship at the hands of Roscommon, but they were able to go to the well once more when it was needed to eek out the win that puts them into the Connacht final.

James Horan sprang a surprise with the team he announced for Sunday’s Connacht semi-final against Roscommon this week when he opted to hand Conor O’Shea his first championship start at centre-half-forward alongside teenager Diarmuid O’Connor who will be making his second championship start after making his debut against New York at the start of last month.

James Horan threw a curve ball with his team selection for Sunday's Connacht semi-final against Roscommon, by omitting his captain Andy Moran from the starting line up. The Ballaghaderren man's omissions from the starting 15 will be the big talking point ahead of the throw in, with Breaffy's Conor O'Shea coming into the starting line-up for his first championship start in a new look Mayo team that will see O'Shea line up alongside his two older brothers Aidan and Seamus. Conor will line out at centre half forward with Burrishoole's Jason Doherty on one side of him and Ballintubber's Diarmuid O'Connor on the other flank. The full forward line will see Alan Freeman return to the focal point of the attack with Kevin McLoughlin and Cillian O'Connor either side of him.

This time last year Mayo trounced Roscommon by 0-21 to 0-9 in McHale Park in the provincial semi-final.

With all the furore, excitement, and stories from my recent visit to New York for the start of the Connacht championship I did not leave many column inches for the most important part, the match. It was amazing the amount of Mayo supporters who expressed concern to me before the team departed from Dublin for the Big Apple. I was regularly asked if they would win in New York, and the number of times I heard “they’ll hardly mess up, will they?” made me snigger to myself. Supporters were concerned after the performance against Derry in the League semi-final, but you were dealing with three in a row Connacht champions and double All-Ireland finalists here against a bit part team made up of a sprinkling of average county players and mostly of average club players. The result was never in question, but it took until the last kick of the game when Enda Varley goaled to seal my prediction of Mayo winning by at least 20 points. New York’s so called bigger players, Brendan Quigley and Ross Wherity, completely faded into obscurity as they were overwhelmed by Seamus O’Shea, Jason Gibbons, and Donal Vaughan. It was a difficult game to watch and even more difficult to talk about as New York had 13 men in their own half for long periods to basically try to keep the score down.

Mayo did the heavy lifting in first half in their 2014 championship opener, when they ground down the New York challenge with the minimal of difficulty. James Horan will have learned nothing new about his side, but will have been pleased to have been able to give some game time to likes of Alan Dillon who returned to Mayo colours for the first time since the All Ireland final as a second half sub, while debutant Diarmuid O'Connor marked his first senior bow with a well taken goal right at the start of the second half. The game also saw a little bit of history with the three O'Shea brothers on the field at the same time, for the first time when Conor O'Shea made his championship debut as a second half sub.

Mayo’s championship season will get underway on Sunday, thousands of miles away from home when they take on New York in the preliminary round of Connacht Senior Football Championship in Gaelic Park at 7.30pm Irish time.